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China’s Xi Jinping talks of ‘common prosperity’ as the rich get richer, with little indication of how it will reduce inequality
- Beijing’s campaign to eliminate absolute poverty, which started in 2015 and was said to have been accomplished last year, also coincided with a rise in inequality
- Booming asset growth among China’s wealthy and urban middle class appears to have stalled efforts to help close the gap between urban and rural incomes, analyst says
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Beijing’s next major economic target after poverty alleviation could be reducing income inequality, based on officials’ speeches and government documents published over the past few weeks.
But how exactly officials plan to do that is the trillion-dollar question.
In a speech delivered at the Communist Party’s Central Party School this week, Chinese President Xi Jinping reiterated the importance of “common prosperity”, saying it is not only an economic issue but also a major political issue critical to the party’s rule. And he called on the government to proactively tackle problems such as income gaps to improve people’s sense of “gain, happiness and security”.
Xi’s rhetoric followed up on his comments in early November after the party had finished drafting a blueprint for the nation’s next five-year plan, with a goal of turning China into a “great modern socialist nation” by 2035. And this commitment to common prosperity for all Chinese citizens appeared in the party’s plenum document for the first time.
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