bodyType

customContents

entityId

entityUuid

articlePageQuery

filter

article

articleBaseAdvertisingInfoArticle

articleListArticle

articleSeoArticle

hooksArticleAcknowledgementGateOverlayArticle

hooksTrackPageViewArticle

hooksContentInterestArticle

articleLinkingDataContent

hooksAmpRedirectArticle

articleSchemaContent

liveArticle

advertZone

sentiment

contentLock

topics

types

sections

paywallTypes

createdDate

publishedDate

sponsorType

urlAlias

moreOnThisArticles

commentCount

authorLocations

authors

corrections

displaySlideShow

multimediaEmbed

printHeadline

seriesContainer

articleSpeeches

socialHeadline

headline

images

flag

firstTopic

glossary

flattenTypeIds

image

relatedLinks

relatedNewsletters

__typename

sponsor

pdfFiles

seriesReverseOrder

series

disableOffPlatformContent

published

updatedDate

summary

subHeadline

body

keywords

readingTime

customTimezone

liveContents

Cary Huang

President Xi Jinping has paid a highly symbolic visit to an eastern Anhui village considered the birthplace of China’s reform policy, promising the policy will continue for 100 years.
Xi was welcomed by farmers and villagers in Xiaogang village, Fengyang county, on Monday, state-run news agency Xinhua said in a report on Tuesday that carried photos of him greeting people in the fields and streets.
Xi Jinping’s focus on shoring up power comes at the cost of reforms China urgently needs
Xi assured farmers he would continue the country’s reform and opening up policy that began in the tiny village. The policy started by late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping is one of the most important political legacies of “China’s architect of reform”.
“I come here today to review the reform. That is to unswervingly adhere to the party’s basic line for 100 years, to continue the reform and opening up, and to write a new chapter,” Xi said.

On November 24, 1978, 18 farmers in Xiaogang village agreed a contract dividing community-owned farmland into plots for individual households.
The move, which went against the socialist commune system, triggered a wave of revolutionary changes across rural regions.
Party historians say the agreement was the beginning of China’s historic process of reform and opening up.
In the village on Monday, Xi praised the 18 farmers who marked the contract with their fingerprints 38 years ago, saying they had risked their lives to make their marks on history.
He also visited the families of two of the 18 farmers.
‘Father of rural reform’, mentor to many of China’s top politicians including Wang Qishan, dies at age 102
The president’s visit comes amid growing controversy over policies implemented by his ­administration.
Some fear China’s economic reforms may stall and regress, pointing to the central government’s recent tightening of ideological and social controls.
“The visit symbolises Xi’s support of reform,” said professor Xigen Li, at City University of Hong Kong’s department of media and communications.
“It’s standard for leaders to revisit the symbolic centres of communist history, and to try to forge a link with the achievements of the past,” said Chinese studies professor Kerry Brown, director of the Lau China Institute at King’s College, London.

Chinese politics professor Steve Tsang, of the University of Nottingham in England, said that rather than merely waxing nostalgic over how heroic the start of reform was in the early days of Deng, the political message of Xi’s high-profile visit was that “China today, under the firm leadership of the Communist Party and Xi himself must be even more ambitious and do better, persist in reform and make an even greater impact than what the Xiaogang experience symbolised”.
But Brown said it was ironic that the Xiaogang villagers had implemented their marketisation reforms against the political instructions at the time, which still embraced the command economy.
Xi Jinping will need courage of his convictions to stay on reform path
Present-day mainland officials were reluctant to engage in similar risk-taking behaviour for fear of being hauled up by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection or other party watchdogs, he said.
“So while Xi’s visit shows he is trying to promote the idea of the party as one that is forever reforming and embracing new ideas, in practice, it is only in the past,” Brown said.
Li said many aspects of today’s Chinese society was in dire need of reform, without which economic development and societal stability were at risk.
Under Xi, which direction China’s reforms would go remained to be seen, he said.







Xi Jinping hails China’s reform and opening up policy in symbolic visit to its village ‘birthplace’

China’s President Xi Jinping greets people in the streets of Xiaogang village in Fengyang county, Anhui province on Monday. Photo: Xinhua

Xi Jinping visits Xiaogang village, Fengyang county, Anhui province.

News

China

Politics

President’s trip to Anhui’s Xiaogang village shows his support for reform, sending political message that he aims for even more ambitious overhauls, say experts


Xi Jinping hails China’s reform and opening up policy in symbolic visit to its village ‘birthplace’

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}President’s trip to Anhui’s Xiaogang village shows his support for reform, sending political message that he aims for even more ambitious overhauls, say experts

President’s trip to Anhui’s Xiaogang village shows his support for reform, sending political message that he aims for even more ambitious overhauls, say experts