Beijing (AP) — The avalanche of change initiated by China’s ruling Communist Party has surprised everyone from technology millionaires to school kids. That some of the behind, revived the revolutionary ideal, to strengthen the control of political parties to society and entrepreneurs, is Xi Jinping president’s vision of creating a more powerful and prosperous country.
Since taking power in 2012, Xi has returned to the party’s “original mission” as China’s economic, social and cultural leader. Rejuvenation of a great Chinese nation.. “
The party has spent a decade since then to silence dissent and strengthen political control. Now, after 40 years of growth, which turned China into a factory in the world, but left a gap between the wealthy elite and the poor majority, the party promised to spread prosperity more evenly and society to private companies. Become a global technology competitor pressing to pay for welfare and Beijing’s ambitions.
To support the plan, the government of Xi has announced that the children Access to online games When Prohibition of “weakling” People with insufficient masculineness from TV.
In an email, Columbia University’s Chinese political expert Andrew Nathan said Chinese leaders “directed the constructive energy of all people in one direction focused on the laser of choice by the party. I want to. “
Beijing launches antitrust and data security crackdowns to tighten control over potentially oversized and independent Internet giants such as e-commerce platform Alibaba Group and game and social media operator Tencent Holdings Ltd. Did.
In response, their billionaire founders promise to share their wealth under Xi’s vaguely defined “common prosperity” initiative to narrow income inequality in countries with more billionaires than the United States. Scrambled to show loyalty by.
Xi hasn’t given details yet, but in a society where all political terms are being scrutinized for importance, the name revives the 1950s propaganda slogan under Mao Zedong, the founder of the Communist Party government.
Willy Lam of the Chinese University of Hong Kong said Xi is reviving the “utopian ideals” of early Communist Party leaders. “But of course, this hurt the most creative and lucrative part of the economy, so a huge question mark arose.”
Alibaba, Tencent and others have promised tens of billions of dollars in job creation and social welfare initiatives. They say they will invest in the development of processor chips and other technologies that Beijing has listed as a priority.
The party’s antitrust enforcement and crackdown on how businesses handle information about their customers is similar to Western regulation. However, the sudden and tedious changes in methods have warned that Beijing is threatening already declining innovation and economic growth. Awkward foreign investors have knocked out more than $ 300 billion from Tencent’s stock market value and billions more from other companies.
Michael Pettis, a finance professor at Peking University’s Guanghua School of Management, said in a report, “We expect a very volatile relationship between the political and business elites in the next year or two. There are. “
Chinese officials say civilians, consumers and entrepreneurs will benefit from higher incomes and more regulatory oversight for corporate giants. Parents welcome the curb, announced last month, that limits children to online games 18 to 3 hours a week only on weekends and Friday nights.
“I think this is a good rule,” said Li Zhanguo, the father of an eight-year-old boy and a four-year-old girl living in the central city of Zhengzhou. “The game still has some addictive mechanics. Children can’t expect self-control.”
The crackdown adds to the party’s efforts to control a rapidly evolving society of 1.4 billion people.
Approximately one million members of a predominantly Islamic ethnic group have been detained in camps in the northwest. Authorities have denied allegations of abuse, including forced abortion, stating that the camp is for vocational training and the fight against extremism.
A surveillance initiative called Social Credit aims to track all individuals and businesses in China and punish violations ranging from dealings with business partners that violate environmental rules to littering.
“Our responsibility is to unite and guide the people of the entire party and all ethnic groups, take the baton of history, and work hard to achieve the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation,” Xi said with him. The party standing committee, mentioned by the other six members, was first published in November 2012.
The party’s central committee shifted its economic focus “fairly from efficiency” in late 2020, Beijing think-tank researchers wrote in August in China’s most prominent business magazine, Caixin Media.
Lo Chi Hang Doctors of the Yuekai Securities Research Institute said the party has shifted from “early prosperity of some people to” common prosperity “” and “from capital to labor.” He said leaders emphasize science, technology and manufacturing over finance and real estate.
Prominent economists sought to reassure entrepreneurs.
Zhang Army, dean of the Faculty of Economics at Fudan University in Shanghai, told the news agency The Paper on August 4 that it is impossible to achieve common prosperity by “taking away the rich and helping the poor.” “.
The launch of market-style economic reforms under then-leader Deng Xiaoping in 1979 prompted overseas predictions that China would evolve into a more open and perhaps democratic society. I did.
The Communist Party allows more freedom and encourages the use of the Internet for business and education. However, leaders have refused to change from the Soviet Union to a one-party dictatorship that copied its political structure and are closely watching entrepreneurs. Beijing controls all media and seeks to limit what the Chinese people see online.
As the economic boom of the last decade has diminished, “I think Xi is the only person who can recreate the momentum,” said June Teiffel Drayer, a Chinese political expert at the University of Miami.
Edward Friedman, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin, said party members concerned that reforms could weaken political control decided that the rise of China was permanent and liberalization was no longer needed. Said that.
That means “the anti-totalitarian elements of the reform agenda can be rolled back,” Friedman said in an email. “That’s what Xi is doing, as manifested in his assault on gay and girly culture as a possible threat to so-called energetic militarism.”
The August 29 commentary by the ambiguous writer Li Guangman described “common prosperity” as a “profound revolution.” Li wrote about WeChat message services, but said financial markets “will no longer be a paradise for capitalists to get rich overnight,” and the party’s next goal could include high housing and medical costs. Said there is.
The commentary has been reposted on prominent state media websites, including the ruling People’s Daily. It prompted questions about whether Beijing might head for an ideological campaign in the wake of the violent 1966-76 Cultural Revolution, which killed about 5 million people.
Hu Xijin, the editor of the Global Times newspaper, known for its nationalist tone published by the People’s Daily, criticized Lee’s commentary. Hu warned in a blog post about his return to radicalism.
“The Cultural Revolution was a chaotic period, and Mao Zedong felt comfortable in the chaos and was deliberately unleashed,” Nathan said.
“This is almost the exact opposite,” he said. “This is an effort to create a tightly structured order.”
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Chen Si, an AP researcher in Shanghai, contributed to this report.