Leadership Transition and the “Top-Level Design” of Economic Reform
on April 30, 2012
As China’s 18th Party Congress looms, it is clear that we are now in the thick of transition. The impending transition creates uncertainty about China’s future, but it also opens up new possibilities. Already, the discussion of economic policies in China reflects the greater range of options made possible by the impending leadership change. For several years, economic reforms in China have essentially been dead in the water. Recently, the need for a more forceful push on economic reform has been acknowledged publicly in ways that would scarcely have been possible a few years earlier. This piece traces some of the key personalities and events involved in this opening policy space. It examines some of the signals that Xi Jinping, the presumptive next top leader, has sent in the policy realm. This piece examines a few of the interactions already beginning to take shape between new policy agendas, on the one hand, and the coming widespread turnover of policymakers and technocrats, on the other.
