YEARENDER: Trust us, China's Communist Party urges world

By Bill Smith Dec 5, 2011, 2:06 GMT

Beijing - 'Trust us' is the implicit message from China's ruling Communist Party to 1.3 billion Chinese people and the rest of the world.

Sixty-two years after it founded the People's Republic, the party wants to project an international image as a responsible wielder of economic and political power, and to cooperate with other major economies to help them over the global financial crisis.

At home, the party's bargain is to continue economic development while spreading the benefits to poorer inland areas. In return, the Chinese people must allow it to defer meaningful political reform indefinitely.

On the economic front, growth was expected to slow marginally to 8.5 per cent next year from 9.2 per cent this year. Cooling property markets could even push growth below 8 per cent in the first quarter of 2012, some analysts said.

The government is trying to stimulate domestic demand and steer manufacturing industries away from their dependence on exports, but many Western politicians are concerned by the slow pace and uncertain direction of recent economic measures.

China's central bank has announced a relaxation of its reserve requirement for commercial banks from December 1. The People's Bank of China's announcement mirrored a coordinated move of six central banks and suggested that China was trying to play its part in rebalancing the global economy.

Yet on the same day, Michael Punke, the US ambassador to the World Trade Organization, said China seemed to be opting for more state control of its economy, appearing to be 'embracing state capitalism more strongly each year.'

'This is a troubling development, and the United States urges the Chinese government to reconsider the path it is on,' Punke said in a speech in Geneva.

Punke's criticism followed strong remarks by US President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton a few weeks earlier. Although some analysts attributed the recent tougher rhetoric to electioneering by the Obama administration, there are also signs of genuine rifts opening between the two nations.

Conflicts of interests between domestic and international demands have forced the Chinese government to perform a delicate balancing act.

It wants to benefit from the global economy but insists on tight economic controls, protection of key industries and the maintenance of social stability under Communist Party rule.

Stability is its top priority, enforced by draconian, sometimes brutal methods to suppress dissent that put it at odds with the values of Western powers.

This year's crackdown on dissent was expected to continue as China enters a crucial year in which it hopes to enforce another 'smooth transition' of power from Hu Jintao and other older leaders to a younger group who appear equally bureaucratic and equally unlikely to promote democratic change.

Scores of activists across China have disappeared for days or months since February when online calls began for weekly 'jasmine' gatherings, similar to the Arab Spring rallies, to call for democratic change. Some of the activists were sentenced to prison, others threatened, tortured and apparently silenced.

Among them was acclaimed artist Ai Weiwei, who was seized at Beijing's main airport in April, held for 81 days and released on bail pending tax charges.

'I think they used the jasmine movement,' Ai told dpa recently. 'I think they are nervous, so they act like that.'

In reaction to the protest calls, the government 'expanded restrictions on online information and access to communication services, reported government propaganda in domestic news outlets, restricted the freedom of foreign journalists and arrested dissidents with little or no cause,' the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said in a report to the US Congress in November.

China already spent an estimated 83.5 billion dollars on domestic security in 2010, slightly higher than its military spending, the report said.

The rapid increase in military spending and China's plans to modernize its forces with the addition of hardware, such as aircraft carriers, anti-satellite missiles and stealth jets, have also raised eyebrows in the West and among China's Asian neighbours.

The People's Liberation Army is nominally headed by state president and party leader Hu. Vice President Xi Jinping was expected to replace Hu in all three posts, starting with the party leadership in late 2012.

Xi and Vice Premier Li Keqiang, who is lined up to succeed Wen Jiabao as state premier, have raised their profiles since their elevation to the all-powerful, nine-member Standing Committee of the party's Politburo in 2007.

No major policy changes were expected from Xi's administration, meaning China could continue to bring both hope and frustration to the rest of the world for the next decade.