Xi’s Southern Tour

A tour of China’s commercial heartlands in Shenzhen and Guangdong Province by the new General Secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee Xi Jinping is believed to be a show of commitment to Reform and Opening-up， and an homage to a similar tour by Deng Xiaoping in 1992.

Beginning December 7， Xi visited the southern cities of Shenzhen， Guangzhou， Zhuhai and Nanhai， taking a similar route to Deng’s 1992 inspection tour， during which the architect of China’s economic miracle remarked that “to halt reform is a dead end.”

Deng’s Southern Tour was an iconic turning point for China’s fortunes， coming over a decade after Deng had proposed a policy of Reform and Opening-up shifting the focus of the Communist Party away from politics and towards economics. Xi Jinping’s father Xi Zhongxun， then Party secretary of Guangdong Province， defined Shenzhen as a Special Economic Zone in 1980， loosening many of the commercial restrictions which remained in place elsewhere in China.

“It is definitely not coincidental that Xi Jinping chose Shenzhen as the first stop on this tour…he intends to declare the new leadership’s resolve to continue the path set down by his predecessor，” Chen Xuewei， a Party history specialist with the Party School of the Central Committee told NewsChina.

On December 8， Xi laid a wreath at a memorial to Deng Xiaoping in Shenzhen’s Lianhuashan Park. “We are firmly committed to reform and opening-up… and Shenzhen and Guangdong Province should play a bigger role on this path，” he said.

“Reform and Opening-up would always make or break China…we should dare to break through the barriers，” Xi told press during his trip. At the central government’s 2013 economic conference， held shortly after Xi’s tour， he urged his staff to work out a roadmap for deepening reform.

Many analysts， including Chen Xuewei， believe that China’s economic progress has hit a bottleneck， and further reform is essential to the country’s survival. However， many blame this stagnation on the fact that political reform has lagged far behind economics， resulting in a widening income gap and the concentration of both money and power in the hands of officials. This has created a hugely powerful network of interest groups straddling the political and commercial arenas， a bloc which critics say will be difficult to break.

“China now needs another Deng Xiaoping to break the bottleneck by hewing out politi-

cal reform，” Chen Xuewei told NewsChina.