UpdateXi Jinping’s stance on China’s economy laid bare as he distances hallmark policy from Western-style supply-side economics
President sets out in 20,000-character transcript his most comprehensive thoughts on the future of the Chinese economy, with special emphasis on structural reform
An explanation of President Xi Jinping’s hallmark economic policy, in his own words, was published in People’s Daily yesterday – just one day after it printed an interview with an unidentified “authoritative” source repudiating China’s debt-fuelled growth policies.
Xi’s explanation – a 20,000-character transcript of a speech that occupied two pages in the newspaper – was the most comprehensive elaboration of the president’s thinking on the Chinese economy’s past, present and future and its role in the global economy since he became the country’s leader more than three years ago.
Xi made the speech in January to principal ministerial and provincial officials.
“I need to be clear, the supply-side structural reform we are talking about is not the same as the supply-side economics school in the West,” Xi said.
“[We] must prevent some people from using their interpretations [of supply-side reform] to promote ‘neo-liberalism’,” he continued, drawing a line between his policy and those of Ronald Reagan of the United States or Margaret Thatcher of Britain in the 1980s.