Leadership transition in China

Dr Maqsudul Hasan Nuri, Business Recorder ope-ed writer, in his recent two-part series titled “Leadership transition” in China has thrown ample light on the present day China. He has passionately touched almost all aspects of the former Middle Kingdom, providing his readers with deep insights into China’s position in today’s world. He seems to be a strong admirer of President Xi. He has argued, among other things, that “After assuming power in 2012, Xi has drawn important lessons from the Soviet Union’s disintegration. An important factor was the weakening of the Communist Party. Hence Xi’s move to strengthen the CCP and put it in control makes sense with how he views both Mikhail Gorbachev’s and his immediate predecessor Hu Jintao’s governance failures. Basically they allowed the state to strengthen at the expense of the party, straining the linkage between the two and allowing the existence of a state without a party”.

The writer seems to have shown his strong bias against Xi’s predecessor Hu Jintao. He must not ignore the fact that Hu Jintao was responsible for creating order in Tibet much before he became the President of China. More importantly, China successfully overcame the challenges the outbreak of the Great Recession in the West had created for the entire world in order to insulate itself against the global financial contagion. Insofar as the governance failures of Mikhail Gorbachev are concerned, the writer’s argument makes little or no sense. Despite being the Communist giants, both China under Deng Xiaoping and the then Soviet Union under Gorbachev were vastly different from each other in terms of their approach to global politics and economy.

Karachi Shahid Sheikh