China's New Boss

Xi Jinping has charisma, a common touch and a beloved pop-star wife. But can he reform a Communist elite accustomed to the fruits of corruption?

By JEREMY PAGE, BOB DAVIS and TOM ORLIK

The Wall Street Journal
November 9, 2012

Where is a new leader of China to turn for advice? Xi Jinping, who takes the country's top post on Thursday, knows better than to look to Mao, the revered founder of the Communist regime who vowed never to take "the capitalist road." Tell that to the hundreds of millions of Chinese who, in the past three decades, have risen from poverty thanks to market-oriented reforms.

Mr. Xi might instead dig deeper into Chinese history, to the austere ancient wisdom of Mencius, the Confucian scholar who advocated the "mandate of heaven" principle that an unjust Emperor could be overthrown. "Why talk of profit?" Mencius asks a ruler in his most famous work. If a king seeks profit over humanity and duty, so will his lords and common people, he says. "Then everyone high and low will be scrambling for profit, and the nation will be in danger."

And there indeed is the rub for Mr. Xi and the rest of China's new leadership. China as a whole has benefited enormously from the "scrambling for profit" of the great masses of Chinese, but the lords on high have been unable to resist doing the same, taking advantage of their privileged positions in a system that is far from being a true market.

To read more....