China Herald: Clean-up shows Xi is in charge

Arthur Kroeber

After the recent closure of the Bo Xilai trial, expectation was that China's current leader Xi Jinping would lay down for a while. But the opposite is happening as he takes on both Zhou Yongkang and Jiang Jiemin, a former and a current polit-bureau member, tells analyst Arthur Kroeber, according to Bloomberg.

Bloomberg:

Party leaders agreed to investigate Zhou because of rising anger in the party at the scale of corruption and the vast fortune amassed by his family, the SCMP said.

That would make Zhou the first former member of the elite Politburo Standing Committee to be prosecuted since the 1966-76 Cultural Revolution.

It would also indicate that Xi has amassed enough power to push through economic policies aimed at maintaining 7 percent annual growth, including controlled financial liberalization and more competition for state-owned companies, said Arthur Kroeber, Beijing-based managing director of GaveKal Dragonomics, an economic analysis firm.

“A takedown of Zhou, who was usually seen as a proponent of state enterprises and political repression, would make clear that Xi does have the power to push through difficult changes,” Kroeber wrote in an Aug. 30 note.

More in Bloomberg.

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