스크랩 Parsing China`s New Politburo-wsj 11/15 : 중국 지도부 교체 향후 정치,경제 개혁 전망

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Members of the new Politburo Standing Committee Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli greet the media at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

The seven men who embody the Chinese Communist Party's "fifth generation" of leadership revealed themselves to the world Thursday morning. Standing on numbers stencilled on the carpet to denote their position in the hierarchy, they submitted to a few potted questions from the media and then retired behind the screen, leaving China watchers to speculate about what the lineup means for future policy.

The consensus is that the hardliners defeated reformers, and political liberalization is unlikely. While there is some basis for this assessment, it's important to remember that the experts are wrong all the time. Outgoing leader Hu Jintao was heralded as a potential political reformer when he came to power in 2002, but his term has seen an increase in political repression and a slowdown in economic liberalization.

It is clear that new Party General Secretary Xi Jinping will have an easier time consolidating power than Mr. Hu did. For that he can thank his mentor, former General Secretary Jiang Zemin, who helped place members of their faction in key positions. Mr. Hu has also agreed to hand over to Mr. Xi the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, which controls the People's Liberation Army. Mr. Jiang only gave up this post in 2004, and then reluctantly.

The Party is spinning all this as part of its institutionalization of the mechanisms for selecting new leaders, which will make its rule more stable. But this year the facade of stability was smashed when rising star Bo Xilai was removed from his posts and his wife convicted of murder. Mr. Bo has been accused of corruption, but his real crime was an attempt to use populist rhetoric and policies to force his way into the Politburo Standing Committee.

That threat to the dull but stable leadership system set up by the last paramount leader Deng Xiaoping looks to have been averted. But another may be brewing in the form of Mr. Xi's early dominance.

Deng elevated Mr. Jiang to Party chief after the 1989 Tiananmen massacre, and he also picked Mr. Hu as his successor. This put in place two centers of power that balanced each other to some degree and also sought consensus. But Mr. Jiang has now succeeded in putting in place his protege Mr. Xi, and he may have so packed the new Politburo with his own men that Mr. Hu's faction goes into terminal decline.

Some expect Mr. Xi's dominance to be positive in the short term, as he will be freer to pursue economic reforms not seen since Mr. Jiang's time. But politically it could have several negative effects. Mr. Xi's power would be largely unchecked, creating a danger of greater adventurism and corruption. Those within the Party who are not his favorites might look for more unconventional ways to move ahead, like Mr. Bo.

In short, the institutional dynamics of the Chinese system bear watching more closely than does the professed ideology of Politburo members. Westerners have a tendency to pin their hopes for change on supposed liberals, like Mr. Hu in 2002. Yet the top officials come up through a system that jealously guards the Party's prerogatives and they are united in opposing democratization.

That much was clear from this week's anachronistic, stage-managed Party Congress. In the provinces, pressure is building from the grass roots for greater participation in government, and some officials are experimenting with new ways to deal with social unrest. Change will come to China when the regime has reached an economic or political impasse as the Soviet Union did in the 1980s, and only then will Beijing find its Gorbachev.

Printed in The Wall Street Journal, page 16