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Looking to the future

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s three-day visit to Beijing will be his first official trip across the Great Wall. Nonetheless, he is well acquainted with China’s top-level leadership duo of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. Not only has Dr. Singh received them in New Delhi, they have also had occasion to interact over the years on the sidelines of multilateral fora across the world.

The unique opportunity that this trip will offer Dr. Singh is thus not his interactions with Mr. Hu and Mr. Wen, but the chance to meet for the first time with the recently appointed next generation leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

The new faces that will lead China into the future were revealed last October at the end of the CCP’s 17th Party Congress. When the party holds its next Congress in 2012, President Hu and Premier Wen will step down to make way for a younger crop of leaders. It is the hands of these rising stars of Chinese politics that will thus shape the long-term contours of the cross-Himalayan engagement.

The two main contenders for the top jobs in 2012 are the former party secretary of Shanghai, Xi Jinping, and the former party secretary of the northeastern province of Liaoning, Li Keqiang, both of whom were elevated to the CCP’s exclusive nine-man Polit Bureau Standing Committee.

Mr. Xi, a party “princeling,” the son of a former Vice Premier, has spent most of his career in the booming coastal provinces of China’s east. In contrast, Mr. Li is the son of a low-ranked rural official. He spent much of his career away from the prosperous seaboard, in the less developed regions of China and worked his way up the party’s ranks, through the Communist Youth League, also the power-base of Mr. Hu.

What the two candidates have in common is their age — both are in their early 50s — and the fact that unlike virtually all previous Party leaders neither are engineers. Mr. Xi has a doctorate in law (although his early training was in chemical engineering), while Mr. Li holds one in economics.

Along with other recently appointed Polit Bureau members such as the former Commerce Minister, Bo Xilai, a journalism graduate, and the former party secretary of Jiangsu province, Li Yuanchao, a PhD in law, they are emblematic of a new breed of Chinese leaders. These men are likely to be somewhat less focussed on the process of economic construction and more so on political management.

Thus, over a period of time, analysts predict that the style, priorities and methods of governance in China will shift accordingly.

Born after the communist accession of 1949, the majority of these men received their university educations after Deng Xiaoping initiated the economic reforms of the late 1970s. Many are fluent English speakers, who feel more comfortable in an international setting than their predecessors. Most have demonstrated themselves to be business-friendly, playing key roles in attracting foreign investment and reconstructing the economies of the provinces they have spent their careers in.

Under Mr. Li Keqiang for example, the rust-belt reputation of the Liaoning province underwent a major makeover with firms such as Intel and BMW taking the place of crumbling state-owned enterprises. Shanghai continued its spectacular rise into the elite club of the world’s top financial and business capitals under Mr. Xi, while Mr. Li Yuanchao is known for having attracted record amounts of FDI to Jiangsu while running the province.

While little is known about the next generation leadership’s stance on foreign relations, it is likely that given their age their attitudes on Sino-Indian ties will be less burdened by the weight of the 1962 war. They would also probably place more emphasis on cross-border economic ties, pushing for arrangements such as the Regional Trade Agreement currently under consideration.

For the moment, Mr. Xi is believed to have an edge over Mr. Li Keqiang in their bid for the post of Chinese President and party general secretary, although the succession is by no means a fait accompli. Over the next five years, both must walk a delicate line between carving out a reputation for themselves and avoiding upstaging their powerful seniors or straying too far from the Party line.

These future leaders are thus loathe to push themselves forward too obviously, too soon, and it is uncertain what kind of openings Dr. Singh will have for interacting with them. However, from the standpoint of understanding not only how the governance dynamics of China are likely to evolve but also what India’s future strategy towards its northern neighbour should be, it is important for the Prime Minister to become familiar with them. It is, after all, these men who will soon be leading the increasingly intricate tango of Sino-Indian ties, and India needs to take measure of their rhythm to match their steps with corresponding skill.

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