By Rikki N Massand (China Daily)
Updated: 2007-11-02 07:13

Some say China's a train going warp speed and praise General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Hu Jintao, while others say much more needs to be done. Everyone has an opinion to share as China remains the hot topic.

The Brookings Institution, a renowned American research and public policy center, hosted an afternoon of speeches and panels to inform the public about the recently completed 17th National Congress of the CPC and put in a few words about the progress made and what policies and reforms still need to be addressed.

Huang Jing, senior Brookings fellow and moderator of the session, said China had made great strides. He said 58 revisions to the political report were made under Hu's eye, and Hu's leadership has been consolidated and reinforced.

"There is collective leadership ... Hu is first among equals," Huang said.

Huang summed up the CPC of today in three words: independence, persistence and adaptability. These terms were expanded upon by Brookings' other esteemed in-house scholars and representatives from the Peterson Institute and the Asia Society.

The first presentation of the afternoon focused on the leadership change and institutional development as Li Cheng, a senior fellow at Brookings and a professor of government at Hamilton College, outlined key members of the CPC.

Li presented slides on the Party's makeup and gave detailed introductions to Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, the two youngest members of the new Standing Committee of the Political Bureau.

Dr Li said the era of technocrats is past its peak and then pointed out that the 25 younger members are mostly CEOs and entrepreneurs.

Drawing a bit of shock from the crowd, Li explained the Party's policy of keeping the vitality and youthfulness of its leadership, saying it was both good for the Party and the individual.

Li's Brookings Institution colleague David Shambaugh said policies and Party-building are the key objectives of the 17th National Congress of the CPC.

"I'm more interested in what the Party has been doing since the 16th Congress - in particular the 4th plenum of the Congress in 2004 - to strengthen itself, improve the cadre quality and political and public governance in the country," Shambaugh, who is also a professor of political science and founding director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University, said.

Shambaugh commented on the CPC as an institution, saying it's now an adaptive Party, and that the Party has "reflected on maladies" and not only looked at a mirror to see what's going on in China, but more importantly looked outside to the rest of the world.

"They've absorbed a number of lessons from the view domestically and internationally, and those views are embodied in the 4th plenum of the 16th Congress and Part 12 of Hu Jintao's opening speech of the 17th Congress - called Party building," he said.

Although Shambaugh believes too much rhetoric and "sloganeering" was on display at the Congress, he was encouraged by China's "human-capacity building" in five areas - diversifying the membership of the Party, recruitment into the Party, improving member competence, its meritocracy and training programs.

Another scholar pointed out some things an improved and diversified Party needs to recognize and implement.

Nicholas Lardy, senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, said Hu's opening speech to the Congress was consistent with claims that China had indirectly created some of its own problems.

"Forty percent of the increase in energy used has gone into exports - because it's more profitable to produce energy intensive products in China. So China has this huge environmental problem in part because of distortions in the interest rate, price of energy and the exchange rate," Lardy said.

Jeffrey A Bader, director of Brookings' John L Thornton China Center, said the US and China will have to collaborate on the environment.

"I think it's inevitable, after 2009, that our two countries will take the lead in determining the future course of the international regime on climate change because no other country makes as substantial a contribution to the problem as our two countries," he said

Bader is certain that the US and China will not come out with identical positions, but he insists that both nations need to come up with a common approach.

Bader said one advantage that the Chinese have is that many of China's leaders are engineers by trade, and because they have backgrounds in science and technology, thinking about climate change scientifically comes naturally to them.

Unlike some US officials, Bader says the Chinese will not approach it from an ideological perspective. They approach it as a practical problem.

Looking ahead to the future of China-US relations, experts agreed that China's relationship with the US is partially contingent upon continued diplomacy and foreign policy. Both Li and Bader cited Taiwan as having a critical impact on how the US and other nations look at working with China in the future. Because of that they said Hu Jintao has made the right moves so far.

Bader said that in all dealings with China, trade and economic relations will get the most scrutiny and attention, pointing out that while China's leadership will remain in place and provide stability, the next US president - who will be elected next November - must continue the Sino-US relations progress and take them much farther.

Bader said it's an anomaly that one of the biggest economies in the world is not part of the G8, "The US has a major election next year, but if you look at the major candidates I don't see anything in their backgrounds that would lead to dramatic new departures for America's relationship with China - I see fundamental continuity."

(China Daily 11/02/2007 page11)