Abstract
Within the first year of Xi Jinping’s elevation to the presidency, China has moved further ahead on its path to achieving primacy in the world. In the last week of November 2013, Beijing imposed an Air Defence Identification Zone (ADIZ) over the conflicted Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands in the East China Sea, much to the consternation of its feuding neighbours such as Japan and South Korea. Their howls of protest found expression in the US attempt to challenge China to promulgate what it has done in deed.
In the third plenary session of the 18^th Communist Party of China (CCP) Central Committee (CC), also held in early November, China laid out a plan for the country to move forward on its path of economic progress. In related developments, it appeared that the much touted speculation of Western observers about whether the country would descend into chaos if it fails to achieve 10 per cent growth remained only in the realm of the formers’ collective imagination.
Although the nation’s economy grew by seven per cent in the past year—and the near future does not promise a quick return to double-digit growth—there has not been any marked rise in social dislocations that could augur bleak days ahead. However, the CCP still understands that if it has to keep ‘Middle Kingdom’ on its current trajectory of an emerging superpower, it must retain economic progress at the present levels. They understand that it is economic prosperity that can validate their ‘socialism with Chinese characters’, as Marx never talked about distribution of poverty as the hallmark of Communism. On the other hand, the credo of the Communist manifesto, ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs’, can best be achieved when the ever-widening disparities in income and wealth are bridged through redistributive justice, only when wealth is generated.
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