NOT since Mao Zedong came to power in 1949 has a Chinese leader been so quick to unveil such a wide-ranging blueprint for change. Even Deng Xiaoping, after taking over in 1978, was slow to reveal his hand. President Xi Jinping, in a 22,000-character document released on November 15th, has pledged sweeping reforms. These range from a relaxation of the country’s strict one-child policy and the abolition of labour camps to the scrapping of controls over interest rates. But rarely has a leader faced such a challenge to his plans.
Despite having overtaken Japan in 2010 to become the world’s second-largest economy, China still struggles to understand the world’s interest in its policy pronouncements. The Communist Party announced it had approved the document on November 12th after a closed-door meeting of its 370-strong Central Committee. But it had hoped, as usual, to keep its contents secret for a week while it briefed its own members. In the end it relented after three days; pressed, it appeared, by speculation (even in Chinese newspapers) that the meeting had failed to live up to its billing as a turning-point for reform. The party even took the unusual step of publishing a speech by Mr Xi in which he revealed he had personally led the document’s 60-member drafting team. State media said he was the first party chief since 2000 to take on such a role. In effect, they were saying, this was Mr Xi’s manifesto.
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