Key anniversary raises hopes for China's liberals

Subject

Elite politics in China.

Significance

President Xi Jinping marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of former Communist Party chairman Hu Yaobang last month with exactly the same public display that last year honoured the 110th anniversary of post-Mao China's paramount leader, Deng Xiaoping. Giving the two late leaders equivalent stature is striking because Hu, who was purged by Deng, was the closest the People's Republic of China has ever had to a liberal reformer and his death catalysed the protest movement that was violently crushed in Tiananmen Square in 1989.

Impacts

• Consensus documents such as Plenum communiques give the most authoritative indications of ideological and policy direction.
• Policy under Xi is not uniformly authoritarian; liberalisation still looks likely in certain areas.
• Cautious foreign policy and economic liberalisation need not imply support for political openness.