China newly elected President Xi Jinping and Premier Li Keqiang

China has a new president. The National People’s Congress has elected Xi Jinping, General-secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China as the president. The 60-year-old Xi Jinping, is expected to lead the country for the next decade.

The handover of power, in the world’s most populous nation.

Xi Jinping is elected as President by nearly 3,000 deputies of the National People’s Congress. Congratulations from his predecessor Hu Jintao.

The NPC has given Xi Jinping the platform to lay out policies to build the “prosperous nation”, “harmonious society”, and “beautiful China”, which he describes in public appearances.

Xi Jinping: Man of the people, statesman of vision CCTV News - CNTV English

• Xi Jinping shakes hands with Li Keqiang  

VIDEO: LI KEQIANG APPOINTED CHINESE PREMIER CCTV News - CNTV English


Li Keqiang was endorsed as Chinese premier Friday morning at the ongoing session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), the country's top legislature.

Nearly 3,000 NPC deputies voted to approve the nomination of Li, by newly-elected President Xi Jinping, as the candidate for premier at the ongoing parliament session.



He has been the seventh premier since the People's Republic of China was founded in 1949, replacing Wen Jiabao who had headed the State Council since 2003.

Li, born in 1955 in Anhui Province, joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1976 and graduated from Peking University with law and economics degrees.

After working as provincial leaders in Henan and Liaoning provinces, he was elected to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in 2007 and appointed vice premier in 2008.

Li was re-elected to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in November.

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China’s Communist Party Chief Xi Jinping reads as attendants serve tea at the Great Hall of the People during the third plenary session of the National People’s Congress in Beijing, yesterday.  


VIDEO: LC: TIAN WEI ON NPC CPPCC CCTV News - CNTV English

(Reuters) - China unveiled a government restructuring plan on Sunday, cutting cabinet-level entities by two and dissolving its powerful Railways Ministry, as the country's new leaders look to boost efficiency and combat corruption.

The reforms mark the biggest reduction in ministries since 1998 when then-premier Zhu Rongji oversaw the overhaul of the State Council, and coincides with growing public concern over transparency and overlapping bureaucracies.

The government will join the Family Planning Commission -- the agency that controls the controversial one-child policy -- with the Health Ministry, and strengthen the powers of the food and drug regulators, it said in a report released during the on-going annual meeting of parliament.

"Currently, numerous operational, organizational and division of labor problems exist in State Council ministries," State Council Secretary-General Ma Kai said in a speech on the plan to the National People's Congress.

Ma added that "breach of duty, using positions for personal gain and corruption" under the structure had not been effectively constrained.

China's president-in-waiting Xi Jinping and premier-designate Li Keqiang assume their new roles after the annual congress concludes next week.

The Railways Ministry and Family Planning Commission have been particularly unpopular, and their restructuring was widely expected.

The Railways Ministry has faced numerous problems over the past few years, including heavy debts from funding new high-speed lines, waste and fraud.

Railways planning will be coordinated under the broader transport ministry. The government has pledged to open the rail industry to private investment on an unprecedented scale.

Family planning officials, meanwhile, have been known to compel women to have abortions to meet birth-rate targets. High profile cases have sparked national fury, such as when a woman in inland Shaanxi province was forced to abort her 7-month pregnancy last year.

Some analysts have said the merger of the health and family planning agencies would be a blow to the political base needed to maintain the one-child policy, which many demographers say should be relaxed.

The report said family planning must continue "on the basis of stable and low birth rates", but added that policies would be "improved". China's one-child policy is still generally enforced, although there are a number of family situations exempt from the rule.

A recently retired official from the Family Planning Commission who maintains close ties with the agency, said the merger does not mean the commission's power will be reduced.

"For such a long time, hundreds of millions of people had to have contraception and birth control, this kind of work is necessary. But it's possible that there will be fewer things done by force," the retired official said.

SUPER MINISTRIES

The restructuring plan, which will cut cabinet-level agencies to 25, will also boost the role of the food and drug regulators, placing it within the cabinet in response to an almost never-ending series of scandals over product safety.

Prosecutions for producing or selling fake drugs or toxic food jumped to more than 8,000 in 2012, more than five times the number in 2011, according to a report by the office of China's top prosecutor also issued on Sunday.

China's maritime enforcement agencies will be consolidated, as well, giving the National Oceanic Administration control over coast guard forces, customs police and fisheries enforcement as China faces growing tensions with Japan and South East Asian neighbors over disputed seas.

The move will bring China's maritime law enforcement forces, currently scattered among different ministries, under the unified management of a single administration, according to a report delivered by State Councilor Ma Kai at the annual parliamentary session on Sunday.

The new agency will still be named the National Oceanic Administration (NOA). It will have under its control the coast guard forces of the Public Security Ministry, the fisheries law enforcement command of the Agriculture Ministry and the maritime anti-smuggling police of the General Administration of Customs, Ma said in his report about the plan on the institutional restructuring and functional transformation of the State Council, China's cabinet.

The NOA currently has only one maritime law enforcement department, China Marine Surveillance.

The proposed administration, administered by the Ministry of Land and Resources, will carry out law enforcement activities in the name of China's maritime police bureau and under the operational direction of the Ministry of Public Security, said Ma, who is also the secretary-general of the State Council.

In addition to law enforcement, other functions of the new administration include outlining the oceanic development plan, supervising and managing the use of sea waters, and protecting ocean ecology, Ma said.

A high-level consultative and coordinating body, the National Oceanic Commission, will also be set up to formulate oceanic development strategies and coordinate important oceanic affairs, Ma said.

One parliament delegate said on the sidelines of the congress session that the move was not linked to the military.

"Our coastline is very long and our oceans cover a vast area. There is no military thinking behind it," said Zhang Guibai.

China will also merge its two media watchdogs -- the General Administration of Press and Publication and the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television -- and restructure the National Energy Administration, Ma said.

The move is meant to coordinate the resources of each sector and promote the reform of cultural institutions, Ma said in his report on the plan for the institutional reform and functional transformation of the State Council, China's cabinet.

The new administration will be responsible for promoting the development of these sectors and supervising related agencies and their businesses, said Ma, who is also secretary-general of the State Council.

The merger will be conducive to establishing a modern communication system, which is rapidly shaped by digital information technology, and boosting the country's cultural influence, said a statement from the State Commission Office for Public Sector Reform, which explains the reason of the institutional reform

Sources: Reuters - Reporting by Michael Martina, Shen Yan, Sui-Lee Wee and Ben Blanchard; Editing by Jonathan Standing and Michael Perry; CCTV, Xinhua

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China's NPC (Parliament) Photograph: Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

Delegates attend the closing ceremony of the closing session of the National Peoples Congress (NPC) at The Great Hall Of The People on March 14, 2012 in Beijing, China. The National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament, adopted the revision to the Criminal Procedure Law at the closing session of its annual session today.

Should China push for radical reform or return to a more government-directed economy? It’s a familiar question made more urgent by the downfall of Bo Xilai, seen by many as a leader of the Communist Party’s conservative faction. A recent People’s Daily editorial that strongly supported more reform, plus a call by the World Bank and a research arm of China’s Cabinet for a smaller state role in financing and industry, have highlighted the issues. “The debate will be messy,” wrote Standard Chartered (STAN:LN) China economist Stephen Green in a March 1 report. However, he added, “something good is stirring in Beijing.”

The back-and-forth focuses on two models. The Chongqing model calls for a top-down push for social equality, with a stronger role for government in the economy; its name evokes the giant southwestern city where Bo Xilai ran the show until early March. The other model plays down the role of state companies, encourages the growth of more capital-intensive, value-added industries, and favors grassroots political reform. This is the Guangdong approach, named for the coastal province that was first to grow rich on exports and now is a center for experiments in governance. “I am strongly supportive of the Guangdong model and wary of the Chongqing model,” wrote Tsinghua University sociologist Sun Liping on March 16 in the Beijing-based business weekly Economic Observer. “In the long term, it is more important that the masses have the right to struggle for their own interests.”

Despite Bo Xilai’s fall from power, the Chongqing model still has its adherents. A website whose name translates as Utopia in English supports the state-heavy approach, and was blocked after Bo’s dismissal in an unfolding scandal that may implicate him in corruption. The site, back in business, has posted hundreds of articles supporting Bo, says David Kelly, research director at the Beijing-based consulting firm China Policy.

To reverse growing social inequality in its region, Chongqing has encouraged farmers to become urban residents and qualify for better benefits, and started to build 800,000 units of public housing. Bo also created several large conglomerates by merging more than a dozen smaller state companies. Despite Chongqing’s success in attracting such investors as Ford Motor (F) and Foxconn Technology Group, foreign businessmen have worried that government-backed businesses could squeeze them out. A crackdown by city officials last fall on Wal-Mart Stores (WMT) over mislabeled pork forced the world’s biggest retailer to shutter 13 stores temporarily, spooking investors. “If the Chongqing model is one that favors a greater role for the government, with state enterprises managing the economy, that is a negative for foreign businesses,” says Christian Murck, president of the American Chamber of Commerce in China. Also disturbing was Bo’s handling of a cleanup of the mob in Chongqing: He jailed not only the alleged mobsters but also a top Beijing lawyer who was defending one of the accused.

Guangdong party secretary Wang Yang has been upgrading the province’s economy from labor- and energy-intensive, polluting export industries such as toys, textiles, and plastics to newer and cleaner ones including software, new energy, and biotech. Wang has opted to rely mainly on private businesses, encouraging their growth with tax breaks and squeezing lower-margin industries with tighter labor and environmental regulations. Shenzhen, for example, has seen many of its dying industries depart in what Wang has dubbed “emptying the cage and changing the bird.”

What excites Chinese liberals more is Wang’s encouragement of grassroots policy making. That includes giving workers more of a voice within the official union, as well as a soft-handed approach to last year’s Wukan village uprising over land grabs and the death of a protester. Wukan, on Guangdong’s coast, just held what appear to be unrestricted elections for a new village chief.

Which of these two models will gain the upper hand is unclear. Clarity is unlikely at least until the fall Party Congress, when China will replace most of its top leaders, and both camps may vie for supremacy for years. “In 2001, we had a road map and that was the World Trade Organization accession agreement. Today we don’t have a sense of what comes next for China,” says the Chamber’s Murck. “There is more uncertainty than we’ve seen in years.”

The bottom line: As social inequality deepens and growth slows, China’s leaders must choose between more market reforms or a stronger state.

By Roberts is Bloomberg Businessweek's Asia News Editor and China bureau chief.
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