CHINA:Expect minor reforms as window dressing but it's steady as she goes for China next year, with president Hu Jintao consolidating his grip on power, writes Clifford Coonanin Beijing
The phrase on every good Chinese communist's lips in 2006 was "harmonious society" and with a crucial party congress scheduled in October, you can expect the political focus in China to remain on harmony and stability next year. After a year of high-profile international visits, expect China to spend 2007 looking in on itself as president Hu Jintao consolidates his power base among the cadres.
Neighbouring Asian countries and the United States are worried about an annual double-digit increase in China's defence budget in recent years, so the Beijing government has been eager to emphasise what it calls the country's "peaceful rise". And what could be better for creating love, peace and harmony than a spectacular summer Olympics in 2008, when China gets to showcase the remarkable changes in recent years?
The Beijing games are never far from anyone's thoughts and next year will bring more window-dressing and the announcement of the completion of key buildings. Hu's main domestic political focus for 2007 will be keeping a lid on corruption. The problem of crooked local officials is an all-too-common complaint among China's citizens, both in the cities and in the countryside. Top officials say graft is the most potent threat to single-party rule in China. In 2007, the leadership will aim to send strong signals to the people that it is serious about stamping out corruption.
The moves began in earnest last year. In June, a deputy mayor responsible for hundreds of billions of euro in infrastructure spending for the Olympics was sacked, to everyone's surprise.
During the summer, in a major power play, hundreds of investigators swept into Shanghai in limousines and occupied suites in a hotel in the financial hub. They were in town to investigate pension fund embezzlement and building industry graft scandals. Their biggest scalp was Shanghai's top communist and Politburo member Chen Liangyu, who was fired in September.
This high-profile sacking was accompanied by anti-corruption moves behind the scenes. The communist leadership discreetly filled top anti-graft posts in Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin.
But the highly public defenestration of Chen was read as the most potent signal yet that Hu will step up his efforts to gain total control of the party at the 17th party congress in Beijing in October. The early months of the year will be marked by a series of appointments to key positions by Hu, who is trying to cement his authority ahead of the meeting, which takes place every four years.
Consolidating power in the Communist Party is a slow process. Hu became general secretary of the party at the last congress in 2002, president in 2003 and head of the army a year later and he is currently engaged in the long process of filling the top jobs with his allies, replacing those of his predecessor Jiang Zemin.
Hu's appointment as party leader at the national congress four years ago was the first peaceful leadership transition since the Communist Party took power in 1949. Observers will be keen to see if details of a rumoured "New Deal"-style plan by Hu emerge after the party congress. With the growing wealth gap between the rich coastal cities and Beijing still a potentially destabilising problem, this scheme could be aimed at developing the domestic market in China, boosting investment and improving living standards in rural areas.
In November, senior official Luo Gan, a member of the party's standing committee, made a high-profile public call on political and legislative departments to "safeguard law and justice and create a harmonious social environment for the 17th National Congress".
He said the government would have to safeguard social justice and the legal rights of the people.
Underpinning all of these developments will be continued economic buoyancy. The government is targeting lower gross domestic product (GDP) growth of 8 per cent next year, but then it did the same thing last year and growth still came out at over 10 per cent. However, expansion is expected to gradually slow as cooling measures start to take effect.
Analysts are still trying to establish whether Hu's government is a relatively liberal or a restrictive one.
One liberalising measure introduced with the 2008 Olympics in mind was the announcement that from January 1st, 2007, accredited foreign journalists will be allowed to report from anywhere in China. At the moment they are required to tell the government when they leave their home cities, usually Beijing or Shanghai. Whether this is just for the games or whether the government keeps this freedom intact has yet to be seen.
Many major Olympic venues are expected to be finished by the end of 2007, including the spectacular Herzog & De Meuron stadium. But air pollution is still near crisis levels in the capital and the challenge will be to clear the smog.
The Beijing government took many steps to crack down on the internet in 2006. There have also been moves to muzzle freedom of speech both on the web and in traditional media and civil rights campaigners and lawyers have been harassed and jailed.
Late in 2006 the government announced retrials for Chen Guangcheng, the activist known as the "blind barefoot lawyer", who was jailed for 4½ years on trumped-up traffic offences, and of Ching Cheong, a Hong Kong journalist who was jailed for spying for the Taiwanese. The announcement sparked hope that things may be about to take a more liberal turn in China.
Both appeals were rejected, however, so don't expect any major softening of China's stance on the expression of any opinions other than those of the Communist Party during 2007.