NEW YORK TIMES: … “The key point for me is that the market has a clearly defined role — resource allocation — where it is to be promoted, but the role of the party and government in managing everything else in society is primary,” said Arthur Kroeber, the managing director at GaveKal Dragonomics, an economic research firm. Those resources could include land, minerals and fossil fuels. “It represents a pretty ambitious agenda, although of course the details won’t come for a while.”…
[President Xi Jinping ] has accompanied his vows of economic rejuvenation with a drive to stifle political opposition to one-party rule at home and a tougher position on foreign policy issues, particularly in maritime territorial disputes with Japan, Vietnam and the Philippines. In what appeared to be an effort to impose greater control over those areas, the conference approved establishing the new security committee…
Mr. Xi and [Prime Minister Li Keqiang ] have said they want to encourage more confident consumer spending, and break down barriers excluding millions of rural migrants from access to schools, welfare and housing in urban society. Many experts have said that those changes will not be feasible unless the Chinese government gives farmers a firmer and more lucrative stake in their land, so they can sublease the land more easily, use it to raise loans and perhaps sell their leasehold rights if they decide to move permanently to towns and cities… (more)
