Via FT:
China’s Communist party has cleared the way for President Xi Jinping to rule for life, and in the process strengthened the state’s “command and control” power over the world’s second-largest economy. Mr Xi’s unparalleled power theoretically allows him to push through painful reforms in the face of recalcitrant vested interests, particularly in state-dominated sectors.
The question is whether he intends to. When Mr Xi took over the Communist party in 2012, bureaucrats hastened to reassure foreign businesses and diplomats that the president was merely consolidating power to enact economic reforms. So far economic liberalisation has been slow to materialise.
