Love of stability foreign groups are concerned

A crucial political appointment in 2007. A clan war between ancient and modern. Populist speeches promising "break" to appease social resentment. But this time, the decor is... Chinese. Under the apparent unity of the faces of its leaders wax, the country and his party holds all powers since estimates years find themselves, they also immersed in a complex transition period which the outcome could disrupt the national economic landscape. Heads fall. Love of stability, foreign groups are concerned.

A few days of the opening Sunday of the plenum of the central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and one year of the 17th Party Congress, which is at stake, his re-election, the team led by President Hu Jintao and its premier, Wen Jiabao, has launched a large clean-up operation of party and Government. Arrived at the top of the CPC in 2002, at the head of the State in 2003, the current President took possession of all of the commands only when his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, left him, end of 2004, the reins of the all-powerful Central Military Commission. Hampered during its first years of reign by the omnipresent at all levels of the State apparatus, supporters of the old man strong known in China under the name of "Shanghai gang" , the President of the Republic wants to prepare a new quinquennium without obstacle.

Member of the very exclusive (only 24 people) Politburo of the CCP, the Shanghai party boss has been the first senior officer to bear the costs of this purge. Officially, Chen Liangyu was suspended a broad anti-corruption campaign. Very close to Jiang Zemin, he is suspected of seeking profits "illegitimate" for his relatives and covered the fraudulent use of a third of the great the city pension fund assets. Recognizing that the fight against corruption and the war of the currents were certainly motivated the dismissal of Chen Liangyu, many analysts believe that its loss however was precipitated by his resistance to launched economic reforms over the past two years by Beijing. "For me, it's more a problem of insubordination that a problem of corruption, respect, him, always, more or less, everyone in the country", noted Joseph Cheng, a researcher of the City University of Hong Kong. If it has never challenged the leadership of Hu Jintao, the boss of Shanghai, which had encouraged the installation in his home town of the regional headquarters of major foreign groups, supported the Pharaonic infrastructure (the deep water port) work and won the Organization of the universal exposition in 2010, had not shown great spirit to implement the antisurchauffe measures ordered by the central Government. According to the Hong Kong media, it would have even dared challenge, in 2004, in internal meetings before pointedly refuse instructions recommending to all of the country a slowdown in credit, a fight against the constitution of real estate bubbles, more deferential in major investments or the construction of inexpensive housing. An intolerable affront to Beijing authorities, seeking for two years to recalibrate their economy, convinced that the pursuit of a development model focused on growth only consumerism could generate a fatal plan social crisis. The insolent success of Shanghai, his luxurious arteries, the skyscrapers futuristic for its financial centre, the apartments of the "Tomson Riviera" to 14,000 dollars per square metre, its holiday hellish on the roofs of the Bund fit poorly with the portrait of "harmonious society" that Hu Jintao will represent this weekend to 350 senior dignitaries of party. In his remarks, made behind closed doors, he will seek a strengthening of the fight against inequality, the development of the medieval provinces of Central and Western, the establishment of a free education for all and the launch of the huge site of social insurance.

If anyone in Beijing, to punish Shanghai or hinder its development always generating wealth and valuable jobs, not gradual refurbishment seems likely under the aegis of the discrete Han Zheng, Mayor of the city, powered the week last leader of the local party. By hitting the leaders of the economic showcase of the country, the Government hoped especially to scare all the smaller barons red, which, in their distant provinces, continue, too, to focus on growth in double digits at the expense of the environment or social tensions. Refractory management, who felt protected by their links with the former team are now warned: turn will come. Three-fourths of the Governors and patterns of the Party of the 31 Chinese provinces have already been replaced. In total, at the Congress of the next year, are almost 170,000 official positions that could have been redistributed. Within the Politburo, the last representatives of the "Shanghai gang" should also be excluded. The Vice-President of the Assembly, Zeng Qinghong, and President, Wu Bangguo, would be in the spotlight. Very ill, Huang Ju, the Deputy Prime Minister, in charge of financial and banking records, has already disappeared from the public scene. "Hu Jintao will have a firm and total control over the direction of the country." "The resistance to his policy of balanced development will diminish," summarizes Joseph Cheng.

View to the empowered concerned some foreign observers. They fear, with the dissolution of the influence of the profiteers of Shanghai, a possible strengthening of the more conservative and nationalist discourse, which, since a few months, denounce the too rapid opening of the country to foreign investment and the risks that they run some local industries still immature. Their thesis is accompanied by a long list: one of the projects of the acquisition of Chinese enterprises by foreign groups frozen since the beginning of the year. A year after having proposed to buy, for 375 million dollars, 85 of Xugong Construction Machinery Group, the largest manufacturer of cranes in the country, the US investment fund Carlyle has thus still not received the green light from Beijing. It would now consider to review his claims down to unlock the file. The purchase of 38 of the Chinese steelmaker Laiwu by new giant Arcelor Mittal appears to him, questioned, when French SEB, seems, on its side, struggling to get the approval of the central authorities in its attempt to purchase of 61 of Zhejiang Supor Cookware. In the "strategic" telecommunications sector, foreigners did in finish more to wait for the distribution of third-generation mobile phone licenses. Promised as early as 2004, should be passed, in dribs and drabs, that next year, when Beijing will be decreed that its TD-SCDMA standard is able to compete with standards American and European. More reassuring, the most optimistic analysts want to see in these indecisiveness single sign of increased caution of decision makers in the midst of transition, rather than the beginnings of a strong political shift.