China Herald: What after eight years of harmonious society?

English: THE KREMLIN, MOSCOW. Zhu Rongji, Chin...

Back to Zhu Rongji's legacy? (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

On Thursday November 1 the China Weekly Hangout will look back at eight years of harmonious society. When Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao replaced the Jiang Zemin/Zhu Rongji team, it tried to capture its mandate with this beautiful but very vague concept of a "harmonious society".

Eight years down the road, we will ask ourselves whether we have a better clue of this concept. Relations between the poor and the rich did deteriorate, but the straightforward fight for economic growth from Jiang Zemin has certainly become more nuanced. Or did a harmonious society mean the political elite would not go after state-owned companies, like Zhu Rongji sometimes did, and gave those SOE's a free ride?
What does China need in the upcoming eight years? And what is it likely going to get?

We are still working on the guest list, but you can start raising your hand, sending comments and questions both publicly here at this space, or by email.

The China Weekly Hangout is held almost every Thursday on 10pm Beijing time, 4pm CEST (Europe) and 10am EST (US&Canada)

On Thursday 18 October we will at the China Weekly Hangout welcome David Wolf, the author of Making the Connection: The Peaceful Rise of China's Telecommunications Giants and Andrew Hupert, author of The Fragile Bridge: Conflict Management in Chinese Business for a discussion on the future of China's telecom giant Huawei, after last week's devastating report by the intelligence panel of US Congress.

The options for the China Weekly Hangout for 25 October are still under debate and announcements will follow suit. One of the options: how did the position of foreign correspondents in China change over the past decade. Interested? Let us know.