China Research

Now we also have the answers to the three – maybe four – most important questions we had ahead of the National Congress: Who will be the new members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party? Will China’s Core Leader Xi Jinping introduce a possible successor? Will the number of the members of the Standing Committee be enlarged? How may future economic policy look like?

Some answered  questions
First – as expected – the number of members of the Standing Committee stayed at seven which easily can be explained by Xi’s strengthened position and therefore in his eyes no real need to enlarge the number of the highest decision-makers.

Second, Xi Jinping found obviously no reason to introduce his probable successor. This fact strengthens the assumption that he may run for a third term as China’s core leader after 2022. This actually would be a new phenomenon in modern China politics. It may be the case that Xi thinks that he may need at least one more term for guiding China on the necessary track to a real superpower status.

Third, the five new members of the Standing Committees are, of course, well received in China but also visibly in (parts of) the Western hemisphere. This may be also due to the re-appointment of Prime Minister Li Keqiang who has a relatively good reputation outside China as a reform-minded executive of economic policy reforms.

One important question, however, remains unanswered. What do the new core leadership of Xi and the obviously somewhat weakened position of Li mean to the future course and determination of economic policy reforms? Economic history gives us lots of examples that demonstrate that very strong individual leaders at some point run difficulties compared to a democratic or stricter collective political leadership. It may – psychologically – become more difficult for a strong leader to reverse bad or wrong policy decisions. And opposite or questioning positions may be expressed much more carefully vis-à-vis the strong leader.

So far, the Standing Committee itself was a kind of high-level decision forum also for different views (which I many times in China got explained as the Chinese version of democracy). The new model with Xi Jinping’s core leadership – which now also is anchored in the constitution – makes it even more urgent to regularly follow developments in China  for foreign (Swedish) corporations, also as regards economic policy. Future Chinese economic policy may become more uncertain – but not necessarily.

That is exactly why regular China analysis will be needed – and not only in times when corporations outside China are about to prepare a new budget for activities in China for the coming year.

 

Hubert Fromlet
Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University
Editorial board

 

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Certain Western analysts have judged the opening speech of Xi Jinping, Chairman of the Communist Party and President of China, at the National Congress as too general and leadership-oriented.

According to the point of being too general, I do not really agree. One can find a lot of strategic ideas and more concrete details in Xi’s recent speech (and much more than we are used to get from political leaders directly after elections in our part of the world). But not very much of what Xi said on October 18 is really new. However – at this stage of creating the modern China – it also feels good to get certain objectives and commenced reforms repeated.

As regards the second observation, I only can add the following question: Had anyone expected something different after Xi’s strong own political positioning – and also from the CP itself?

Xi Jinping reconfirms strongly the need of building “a great modern socialist country” and of “ensuring the Party”s leadership over all work”. In the short run, Xi wants to see China as a “moderately prosperous country” by 2020. Then he wants China to go for  modernized socialism in two steps: the first step during 2020 to 2035 in basic terms and the second one from 2035 to around 2050 by changing China into a “prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced, harmonious, and beautiful country”. The meaning of “democratic” is not further explained.

In other words: there is no intention to abolish socialism and Marxism – and the goal to find a modern Chinese stance of the socialist ideology remains in place (which Xi, by the way, recommends to other developing countries, too). Xi also refers to apply the rule of law and more openness in the society (economy) which both hopefully will be given more concrete emphasis in the future. The continuous fight against corruption also receives priority by Xi, the elimination of poverty in the forthcoming years likewise.

Further marketization of the economy
And what did Xi say about the Chinese economy? Quite a lot actually – and somewhat more than I expected myself. Let me briefly sum up most of the important points of the future being mentioned by China”s political “core leader” Xi Jinping for the National Congress:

– globalization (“stick together through thick and thin”),

– better economic policy co-ordination,

– further supply-side reforms (better access to goods/services and downsizing of SoEs),

– deepening institutional reforms (“zero corruption tolerance”),

– the major infrastructure project “Belt and Road “,

– significant easening of market access for FDI in China,

– international promotion and co-operation on production capacity,

– supporting the growth of private business,

– making SoEs “stronger, better and bigger”,

– breaking administrative monopolies and favoring market prices,

– improvements of manufacturing quality and technological development,

– improvements of the state-owned sector,

– boosting the role of private consumption in GDP growth,

– making China’s interest and exchange rates more market-based,

– improvements of the financial regulatory finance system,

– reforms of financial systems, etc.

The two key issues remain open. How much of these – mostly – reasonable objectives will be implemented in reality? And how much has been achieved so far?

Unclear areas
Thus, quite a number of reform areas has to be defined and developed further (despite the satisfactory approach on paper). This shortcoming could have been expected.

Of course, it is still hard to see what the concentration of political power to Xi Jinping and the composition of the new Standing Committee of the Politburo will mean to future reforms.

Contradictory is currently how the more lately somewhat increasing public influence on parts of Corporate China is in line with the clearly outspoken marketization  plans. The marketization of financial markets is still insufficiently transparent.

Within the domestic banking system, there seems to be more competition because of the shrinking margins. Capital markets on the other hand remain underdeveloped – despite some progress in recent years. This is true of both the stock market and the bond market – with both markets suffering from insufficient liquiduty and turnover. Linked to this issue is also the challenging public and private debt situation. The National Congress has not decreased my worries in this specific respect.

Altogether: More continuous analysis of China’s politics and economic developments will be inevitable if one tries to understand China and the world economy.

 

Hubert Fromlet
Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University
Editorial board

 

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Presentation by Hubert Fromlet at the annual conference “Baltic Sea Region and China Day”, arranged by  Linnaeus University (Linnéuniversitetet) in Kalmar on October 11, 2017

One week from now, China’s important National Congress will be opened – taking place every fifth year. This is a very important event since new members of the “Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party” will be introduced to the general public. As I have written in previous blogs, the Standing Committee is the by far most powerful political decision-making group/institution in China. Now – most probably – five new members will join the Standing Committee. Only the Chairman of the Communist Party (CP) and President of the People’s Republic of China, Xi Jinping, and the current Prime Minister, Li Keqiang, will keep their (strong) positions in the Standing Committee.

Currently, they are ranked as number one and two in the Standing Committee. China experts feel sure that they will remain in these very influential positions also after the 19^th National Congress. Thus, the main question is how close the five new members will be to Chairman Xi Jinping – probably very close (but this is not quite sure yet). The answer to this question will also be crucial as regards the course of future economic policy reforms. Furthermore, the composition of the Standing Committee should also give hints on other future policy directions.

What will be said at the National Congress?      

Official GDP statistics – which may be (somewhat) misleading, some provinces were recently even accused or suspected of statistical fraud – show that Chinese economic growth so far this year has been somewhat above expectations. In the beginning of 2017, China’s political leadership predicted a GDP-growth rate for 2017 of “6.5 percent or somewhat more” (result Q1 and Q2 in 2017: 6.9 percent). So far, GDP-growth in 2017 turned out to be somewhat more than forecasts indicated some months ago – exactly as one could expect when China’s leaders are about to face the National Congress. Of course, the economy has to look like being on a promising track.

It also seems probable that Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang will point at different economic and social challenges that will have to be tackled in the forthcoming years. In this specific respect, openness has improved clearly in the past ten years or so. However, the different options to the solutions of these structural challenges remain many times quite opaque.

Altogether, China’s main political leaders will give quite an optimistic picture of the economic future of the country without forgetting to mention that the way to get there could be quite bumpy. They will most certainly stress the very desirable development toward a considerably stronger role of the service sector – both because of still insufficient supply of services and environmental harm coming from old-fashioned industries. Such a development could dampen GDP growth somewhat further. But it would be beneficial for the Chinese people in the longer run and put China on a healthier growth track. Emphasis will be put on the fact that the environment is a key issue. Furthermore, it would be striking if China’s political leaders forgot to mention the burdening national debt problem (currently around 260 percent of GDP compared to 150 percent ten years ago).

What else should be said? 

Economic conditions in China have become more transparent in recent years but the current situation is still far from being satisfactory in this specific respect. It will be interesting to see to what extent Chinese political leaders will give (good) answers to the following 15 important questions during the National Congress:

– In general terms: How much have reforms proceeded since they were introduced by the so-called Third Plenum in 2013 – and where are the reforms now in relation to the evaluation year of 2020?

– ln more specific terms: What about the efforts on more detailed levels as announced at the Third Plenum in 2013 in 16 reform areas and 60 subchapters?

– What about the political plans to erode extreme poverty by 2020?

– What about the tackling of the future demographic challenges and the officially stressed “juvenalization” of the country?

– What about more concrete details about the enormous infrastructure project “Belt and Road Initiative” from China to Europe?

– How does urbanization proceed and how much progress can be reported – and what can be added more precisely about future steps to support a better environment, particularly since the Chinese so many times declared their willingness to stick to the global Paris Climate Agreement – unlike the American President.

– Is everything possible done or initiated to avoid major macroeconomic imbalances in the foreseeable future?

– But: What about (current) high credit growth in this stability context – and how can economic growth be made less dependent on credit expansion?

– What about the reforms/modernization of the domestic banking system?

– What about the necessary (institutional) improvements of the capital market, both concerning bond and stock markets?

– What about the planned transition to more consumption-led growth (at the expense of the still very high investment ratio, in percent of GDP)?

– What about social reforms – their realization, speed and volume (important to the willingness of people to increase their consumption demand further)?

– Added to the question right above – what is the trend of the private households’ high savings ratio (another factor with direct impact on private consumption)?

– What about the more recently officially announced government priority for entrepreneurship, innovation and start-ups; are there concrete strategies or only words?

– What about lower corporate taxes (which indeed still are high)?

– And finally – despite all statistical shortcomings – what are the official objectives/forecasts for GDP growth in the longer run?

What can the new Standing Committee achieve?

As indicated before in this blog, the new Standing Committee will be responsible for all major policy decisions in China – economic policy included. Probability is high that Xi’s and Li’s economic reforms will continue – but without ruling out (temporary) distortions in the economy because of remaining disequilibria. More should be reformed and improved for a long time since China’s GDP per capita still is only USD 9000 which is about one fourth of the OECD average.

Thus, many more efforts have to be made – a strong need which, however, also could develop as a major incentive for continuous reasonable economic reforms and pretty good GDP growth, even during quite a long time in the future. Hopefully, China can and will avoid acting for artificial short-term growth like during the global financial and economic crisis some years ago.

Still, a lot of changes and surprises will happen in the economic powerhouse of China. Again, I recommend politicians, professional analysts, students and corporate decision-makers in our part of the world to follow developments in China on a regular basis.

China is and will remain a difficult country to understand. Much more complicated than most people assume!

 

Hubert Fromlet
Affiliate Professor at the School of Business and Economics, Linnaeus University
Editorial board

 

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