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Xi warns no one can 'dictate' China's path, 40 years on from reforms
By Elizabeth LAW, Laurent THOMET
Beijing (AFP) Dec 18, 2018

Alibaba's Ma, NBA star Yao among 110 honoured by Communist Party
Beijing (AFP) Dec 18, 2018 - China's richest man Jack Ma, NBA star Yao Ming and foreign guests were among 110 people recognised by the Communist Party on Tuesday for their "outstanding contributions" to the country's 40-year economic rise.

The dignitaries received medals from President Xi Jinping and other party leaders in a ceremony at Beijing's imposing Great Hall of the People to mark the anniversary of the launch of "reform and opening up".

The group was put on the same pedestal as China's first female Nobel laureate, an astronaut, military officers, and deceased role models of the party.

State media revealed last month that Ma -- the founder of e-commerce giant Alibaba and China's most famous capitalist -- was a Communist Party member.

He was joined onstage on Tuesday by fellow billionaires Pony Ma, who founded internet behemoth Tencent, and the chief executive of search engine Baidu, Robin Li, though neither have been identified as card-carrying party members.

Yao, the seven-foot-six (2.29-metre) retired center who played for the Houston Rockets, is now an entrepreneur and member of China's top political advisory group, the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC).

Ten foreign guests received "reform friendship" medals, including German economist Klaus Schwab, founder of the Geneva-based World Economic Forum, the annual gathering of global government and business leaders where Xi delivered a defence of globalisation last year.

China posthumously awarded medals to former International Olympic Committee president Juan Antonio Samaranch, who helped Beijing organise the 2008 Summer Olympics, and former Japanese prime minister Masayoshi Ohira, who was behind the normalisation of relations between Japan and China in the 1970s.

The ceremony commemorated the December 18, 1978, Communist Party conclave that endorsed late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's reform drive, which transformed the once poor country into the world's second biggest economy.

The 100 Chinese honourees included scientists, inventors and academics.

Among those awarded are Nobel laureate Tu Youyou, who helped develop an anti-malaria medicine, and Yuan Longping, China's "father of hybrid rice.

The event also put the spotlight on low-ranking party cadres who had spent decades working in either the countryside or state-owned industries. Some of them had helped spur growth in rural China by reforming land rights or establishing village committees.

It also included those who dared to push the envelope in the early days of reform.

For instance, a representative of a group of farmers from Xiaogang village in Anhui province, who banded together to subvert the Maoist-era collective farming system, was among the honourees.

President Xi Jinping warned Tuesday that no one can "dictate" China's economic development path as the Communist Party marked 40 years of its historic "reform and opening up" policy amid a stern challenge from the United States.

In a speech at the grandiose Great Hall of the People, Xi vowed to press ahead with economic reforms but made clear that Beijing will not deviate from its one-party system or take orders from any other country.

Without directly referring to the United States, Xi said China "poses no threat" to any country but warned that it would not be pushed around.

"No one is in a position to dictate to the Chinese people what should or should not be done," China's most powerful leader since Mao Zedong told the party faithful.

"We must resolutely reform what should and can be changed, we must resolutely not reform what shouldn't and can't be changed."

While Xi promised more reforms, he did not offer any specifics. The US and Europe have long complained of lingering obstacles to fully entering China's massive market while Chinese companies enjoy the benefits of open Western economies abroad.

"We actively promote the construction of an open world economy, build a community of human destiny, promote the transformation of the global governance system, clearly oppose hegemonism and power politics," Xi said, referencing Chinese geopolitical ambitions.

"China is increasingly approaching the centre of the world stage and becoming a recognised builder of world peace, a contributor to global development, and a defender of the international order."

The commemoration of the reforms enacted under late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping on December 18, 1978, came as China is locked in diplomatic spats and a bruising trade war with the United States.

The rivals have agreed to a 90-day truce as they seek to negotiate a solution, with the US seeking a reduction in its massive trade deficit as well as deeper reforms in China to stop the alleged theft of intellectual property.

China's reforms pulled hundreds of millions of people out of poverty and turned the country into the world's second biggest economy.

But it is currently facing a debt mountain and a slowing economy, which grew by 6.9 percent last year and the rate is expected by the government to ease to around 6.5 percent this year.

- 'Emancipating the mind' -

Tuesday's ceremony included the awarding of medals to more than 100 individuals whom the party recognised as key contributors to the country's development, from people involved in rural reform and poverty alleviation to China's richest man, Alibaba founder Jack Ma, and retired NBA legend Yao Ming.

Deng's reforms broke with Maoist-style collectivisation that left the nation impoverished and backward.

The poverty rate among the rural population dropped to 3.1 percent last year from 97.5 percent 40 years ago.

China now boasts the most dollar billionaires in the world with 620, according to Shanghai-based magazine publisher Hurun Report.

But the economic transformation has not brought changes to the Communist Party-controlled political system, with authorities harshly cracking down on the Tiananmen protests in 1989 and activists complaining of a deterioration of human rights in recent years.

"There's a very stark contrast with the spirit of Deng leadership 40 years ago. If there's one thing which is missing, it's emancipating the mind," Hong Kong Baptist University political science professor Jean-Pierre Cabestan told AFP.

"Now they're just constraining the mind of the people and party members... it's like China is moving in another direction from reform."

Xi's speech paid lip service to the idea of reform but without any concrete plans, it hints at divisions within the leadership on how to deal with the trade war and other political situations, Cabestan added.

- Second reform? -

The trade war could be a chance for China to enact more changes, said Beijing-based political analyst Wu Qiang, who described the current system as "state capitalism under a one-party dictatorship, or party-run capitalism".

"If the Communist Party is smart enough, it may transform it into the starting point of a second reform and opening up and change the role of the party and the state," Wu said.

When the party enacted the reforms under Deng, China was still suffering from famine and was emerging from the Cultural Revolution, a period of intense social and political upheaval launched by Mao.

This new "revolution" started in the countryside, where authorities began to de-collectivise land and dismantle communes, but it quickly spread to cities.

Wary of an opposing power base in economically powerful Shanghai, Deng chose the extreme south of the country as the guinea pig for his reforms.

Southern cities including Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong and was still a fishing village, were designated China's first Special Economic Zones that became powerhouses and models for the rest of the country.

bur-el/lth/qan

Alibaba


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