Moving forward

FOUR decades into China’s earth-shaking reform and opening up, some outsiders wonder whether that 40-year-old commitment will persist.

The apparently escalating trade friction with the US, initiated by Washington alleging Beijing has failed to honour WTO obligations, for one, has inspired conflicting readings of China’s behaviour and intention as a rising economic powerhouse.

But one basic, yet often-ignored truth is that China has an inherent need for deeper and wider reform and opening up in order to move forward.

As the past 40 years have shown, little headway can be anticipated without the national leadership adhering to reform and opening up, which has been tried and tested and proven effective since the late 1970s. That is precisely why the outside world to which China means so much is preoccupied with identifying any clue to a change in Chinese policy orientation.

Earlier this year at the World Economic Forum in Davos, now Vice-Premier Liu He assured those unsure about China’s new era policy orientation that there would be reform and opening-up moves that go far beyond what people might imagine.

Measures of such extent are necessary, not because there is a ceremonial need for them in commemorating the 40th anniversary of reform and opening up, but because there are too many problems in the country crying out for more reforms and greater openness to solve them.