China’s new premier Li Qiang appeared to have pushed all the right buttons to project a pro-business and pragmatic governing style.
My key takeaways from his first public debut in a press conference.
Monday’s press conference which immediately followed the close of the annual session of the National People’s Congress was the only media event China’s premier or any other top leader for that matter would attend in a year, broadcast live on national television. Given its significance, the press conference is strictly choreographed with questions from reporters pre-screened to give the leader the comfort of expounding on the issues he wants the public to hear while helping him to avoid awkward questions.
As this was Li Qiang’s first public debut in a media event since he was installed as the premier on Saturday, the event has thrown up several interesting takeaways.
1 – Li sent a very clear message that he would focus on reviving the economy in the next five years. Nine out of the 10 questions posed to him were about China’s economy and issues related to Hong Kong and Taiwan. He used the bulk of the time to project confidence and pragmatism as he tried to reassure the private sector and promised to tackle challenges of a declining population and rising unemployment.
In particular, he acknowledged that China’s private sector, which contributed about 60 per cent of China’s GDP and 80 per cent of the employment had gone through a tough patch. “Indeed, last year, there were some inappropriate discussions about private entrepreneurs, which made them feel frustrated,” he said.
A gross understatement but nevertheless, he was the first top leader to publicly admit the difficulties the private sector was faced with. Li promised that the environment for entrepreneurship would improve and that equal treatment would be given to all types of companies under his leadership.
2 –Although Li is No 2 in the Chinese Communist Party’s leadership hierarchy, he made his standing and positions very clear that he was hired to focus on execution, transforming plans into actions and achievements. When a Chinese reporter asked him to outline priorities for his administration, he minced no words in stating that the plans were already set out in the political report delivered by President Xi Jinping at the party’s 20th congress in October last year. His job was to ensure those plans were fully and accurately implemented.
His frank acknowledgement of his focus on execution stands in sharp contrast to the style of his immediate predecessor Li Keqiang who tried to present himself as a kind of partner with Xi when he first became premier in 2013. Before Xi came to power in 2012, there was widespread belief that his predecessors had some kind of partnership arrangements with their premiers, like Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji, and Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao. The understanding was that while Jiang and Hu, as the party chief and the state president, were in overall charge, the premiers were given plenty of latitude of steering the economy. But things are very much different under Xi’s leadership. Even before Xi secured his third term as the party chief last October and as the president last week, it has been very clear that he is the undisputed supreme leader.
3 – My belief that Li would focus on reviving the economy was further reinforced by the fact that his public debut press conference ran only about 80 minutes including the time of interpretation, as compared to the annual events held in recent decades by his predecessors, which usually exceeded two hours. His predecessors including Li Keqiang and Wen allowed ample time for questions regarding China’s relationships with its major trading and strategic partners including the United States, Russia, Japan, Europe, and even ASEAN countries.
At Monday’s press briefing, however, Li devoted little time to China’s international relations and diplomacy. In replying to the only question on China’s diplomacy--China-US relationship, Li said he would not elaborate China’s policies towards the United States, referring reporters to Foreign Minister Qin Gang’s press conference a couple of days earlier when Qin adopted a tough stance against the US and warned that Washington’s policies towards China could push the two countries to potential conflict.
Instead, he struck a more conciliatory tone and briefly addressed the issue of decoupling, one of many flashpoints between the two countries.
“I know that in recent years, some in the US have been trumpeting the idea of decoupling with China…..but I wonder how many people can truly benefit from this kind of hype,” he said.
“China and the United States are closely intertwined economically. We have both benefited from the other side’s development.”
“China and the US can and must co-operate. And there are a lot that the two countries can achieve by working together. Encirclement and suppression are in no one’s interest.”
All these have clearly shown that he intends to maintain a sharp focus on reviving the economy after three years of zero-Covid restrictions.
4 – He has tried to project a pro-business and pragmatic governing style. Citing his local experiences in Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces where China’s private sector has thrived, he has commented several times about his meetings with private entrepreneurs and multinational executives.
Li also stressed the importance of undertaking the field trips to conduct research and studies.
“My experience is that when you sit in the office, you see lots of problems but when you reach out to the people, you see all kinds of solutions. After all, the brightest minds are among the people.”
All in all, Li appeared to have pushed all the right buttons to project a pro-business and pragmatic governing style.
For more on Li Qiang, please check out my previous substack article: https://wangxiangwei.substack.com/p/why-chinas-incoming-premier-li-qiang.
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