In an article published today in the Wall Street Journal:
"China is turning to the quiet, 62-year-old Mr. Liu, a Communist Party apparatchik known to colleagues and Western leaders as an economic reformer, to lead development of the latest blueprint for China's economy. It is to be unveiled next month at a closed-door session of the top 450 party officials.
"China is turning to the quiet, 62-year-old Mr. Liu, a Communist Party apparatchik known to colleagues and Western leaders as an economic reformer, to lead development of the latest blueprint for China's economy. It is to be unveiled next month at a closed-door session of the top 450 party officials.
The session, held every five years, in the past has been a vehicle to announce some of China's biggest economic changes. This year's meeting is crucial because of fears China's economy is losing its fire. Gross domestic product expanded 7.5% year-over-year in this year's second quarter, down from 14.8% in the second quarter of 2007.
Without substantial changes in the next five years, International Monetary Fund economists estimate, Chinese growth could fall to an average of 4% annually through 2030.
The goal of China's top leadership, repeated by Mr. Xi and other officials, is to attempt to create a more U.S.-like economy: Promote a consumer culture—encourage Chinese citizens to buy more of the cars, clothes, appliances and electronic gizmos that China currently exports—while also encouraging innovative private firms.
"China must change its mode of economic development more quickly," including increasing domestic demand, Mr. Liu He wrote in a 2011 paper. He used the document to take a swipe at party leftists. The party, he said, must be "a ruling party rather than a revolutionary one," referring to its history of trying to transform China through central planning and by mobilizing Chinese peasants and students.
"Liu He is an example of Chinese pragmatism," says Michael Spence, a Nobel-prize winning economist at New York University whom Mr. Liu has turned to for economic advice. "He thinks markets are important mechanisms for getting things done efficiently," he says, but "they're not religion to him."
In an email response to The Wall Street Journal, Mr. Liu's office said, "Director Liu He thinks that there are a lot of misunderstandings about his role in making China's economic policies. In fact, China's economic policies are made via a collective decision-making system, and the role played by any individual is rather limited."
