Re: China’s new leaders: Good for biz, bad for reform
Over the past few weeks, the most talked topic within China revolves around the leadership change in the 18th Congress. Xi Jinping was named the Head of China’s Communist Party and chairman of the country’s Central Military Commission. Right now, he is the most powerful man in China. From the title of this blog, the change appears to be good for the business side, but bad for political reform. How?
Compared to his predecessor Hu Jintao, Xi Jiping as China’s new leader will be quite different. In Kevin Voigt’s blog, he states that Xi Jiping is more of a conservative, meaning that there will be no “substantial or meaningful movement toward political reform”, but instead, China will focus on “maintaining political stability and defusing challenges to the party’s authority.” Also, Kevin Voigt explains that there will be economic reform. In other words, China will be more willing to open its market and allow more “foreign companies into the financial sectors.” Previously under Hu Jitao, there were heavy regulations for foreign companies and multinational companies were kept distances away. To worsen the situation, Chinese officials always have a widespread distrust of the motives of foreign companies. The change in leadership will definitely shred some light for foreign companies on their road into the vast Chinese market.