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Keira Huang

The Communist Party's newspaper warned on Friday that cadres must get behind the leadership's reform push and have results showing they are carrying it forward.
Performance reviews and any job promotions would depend on their commitment to President Xi Jinping's agenda, People's Daily said in a commentary, which was unusually direct in its language.
"The crucial point to help the reform push succeed is personnel management," it said.
Xi's reforms have encountered resistance partly due to the party's bureaucratic structure, where orders from a cadre's immediate supervisors are given greater weight than instructions from the central government or rules written down on paper.
The commentary came a day after state media ran a tersely worded piece by "Guoping", a pen name the authorities use to comment on major state and party issues, saying Xi's reform ambitions had encountered "fierce resistance" that was "beyond what could be imagined".
Analysts said the resistance could be from powerful groups including retired leaders, serving cadres whose powers had been trimmed, and civil servants who no longer enjoyed extravagant lifestyles.
The Daily's commentary pointed to another obstacle in Xi's path - the "shallow" and even "fake" changes that officials implement to deflect pressure from Beijing. "In reality, fake reforms are not rare to see," the commentary said. "As changes should bring solutions to problems in reality, in-depth reforms should attack the problems in the reform itself."
Perfunctory shake-ups of local SOEs are especially problematic, since reforming such enterprises is a core element of the mainland's wider economic restructuring. However, the overhauls have not gone well.
"Some places only know to look upwards" said the article, referring to fulfilling the requirements of the central leadership. They gave "empty slogans about inviting private investment and cutting executives' salaries".
Recently, discussion about SOE reform has increased as many expect to see the principled guidelines released soon.
"After this central meeting on in-depth reform, it is expected that there will be a handful of powerful, practical, and realistic reform plans on SOEs released together," the commentary said.
It acknowledged, however, that public patience for the reforms was starting to wear thin in the absence of obvious results.
But more time was needed during the current transition phase, it said.


No promotion for slackers on reform agenda, China's state media tells Communist Party cadres

Portraits of China's current and former leaders at a trinket stall in Beijing. Analysts say retired leaders could be one of the groups resisting President Xi's reform ambitions. Photo: AFP

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Officials will be judged by their support for President Xi Jinping's agenda: state media


No promotion for slackers on reform agenda, China's state media tells Communist Party cadres
