China installs Cabinet of party vets, technocrats

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP-Excite

By JOE McDONALD

BEIJING (AP) - China's new leaders turned Saturday to veteran technocrats, many with strong international experience, to staff a Cabinet charged with overhauling a slowing economy and pursuing a higher global profile for the country without triggering opposition.

The ceremonial legislature approved nearly three dozen trusted politicians, experienced officials and career diplomats who make up the State Council under Premier Li Keqiang, who was named Friday. Their appointment largely completes a once-a-decade transfer of power to a new generation of communist leaders.

The new team takes charge at a time of difficult transitions. With the economic model that brought decades of high growth sputtering, the government is looking to transform the world's second-largest economy by nurturing self-sustaining growth based on domestic consumption and technology industries instead of labor-intensive exports and investment.

A more assertive foreign policy, cyber-hacking and years of scouring the world for resources have touched off nervousness among China's neighbors and the U.S. and set off a small but potentially threatening backlash against Chinese investment in Africa and Latin America.

FULL story at link.


Read more: http://apnews.excite.com/article/20130316/DA5253A02.html

---

Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, and Premier Li Kiqiang, right, get to their seats during a plenary session of the NPC held in Beijing's Great Hall of the People, China, Saturday, March 16, 2013. China’s new leaders turned Saturday to veteran technocrats with greater international experience to staff a Cabinet charged with overhauling a slowing economy and pursuing a higher global profile without triggering opposition. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)

[Xithras]

1. Someone pointed out to me a few years ago....

In China, 8 of the 9 members of the Chinese politburo are scientists, and the Chinese Premiere is a mechanical engineer. A huge percentage of the Peoples Congress come from backgrounds in science, engineering, or technology.

In the USA, of the 530-odd members of Congress, 200+ are lawyers, 200+ are businesspeople, and most of the remainder range from career politicians to comedians. Only NINE members of Congress have any kind of science background, and none are in positions of any real power.

And we wonder why China is kicking our economic ass? We get Presidential candidates who think that Jesus rode dinosaurs. They get Politburo members who can out-engineer most PhD candidates. The difference speaks volumes about our priorities.

[David__77]

2. Mechanical engineers have long-dominated Chinese politics.

Jiang Zemin was one, and trained at an auto factory in Moscow.

Hu Jintao specialized in hydraulic engineering, whereas his deputy Wen was also a mechanical engineer.

The new Chinese president Xi Jinping is an anomaly because he's a chemical engineer, but his premier Li Keqiang has a background in law and economics.

The Communist Party of China raised a slogan that science and technology are the leading force economic development. They have that part right.

That said, China is most definitely NOT kicking the US's ass in the economic sphere, and they know it. They are still a century behind, but that is better than a century and half behind. Some coastal regions of China are beginning to resemble a moderately developed country, but there is still an poor, backward interior where the majority resides. China is a third world country and will remain so for a long time - several decades at least.