China’s ‘Common Prosperity’ Drive Morphs Into Common Poverty
Governments across the globe are discovering that narrowing the wealth gap is an impossible task. Xi Jinping is determined to give it another try.
Not much happiness to go around.
Photographer: Qilai Shen/Bloomberg
China’s upcoming party congress — a twice-a-decade event — is a closely watched affair. Personnel changes among senior leadership (some will have to retire because of age limits) as well as President Xi Jinping’s thoughts on the key economic policies that affect daily lives of 1.4 billion people will be pored over by analysts and investors wanting a hint of what’s to come next.
“Common prosperity,” a signature program Xi championed last year, will get a fresh push at the congress, a senior party ideologist told the South China Morning Post. Beijing will deliver a clearer and more detailed road map at the meeting, which is due to start on Oct. 16, Han Baojiang, director of the economics department at the Central Party School of the Communist Party of China told the paper.