Wikileaks and China’s Next Top Duo

Contributed by Cathy Zhu


Two wikileaked conversations from 2007 have brought China’s fifth generation leadership back under the spotlight. Xi Jinping, has been considered “heir” to Hu Jintao ever since his appointment to vice chairmanship of the Central Military Commission (October 18, 2010). Li Keqiang, China’s current Executive Vice-Premier, is speculated as Premier Wen’s likely successor. Recent Wikileaked cables include two conversations these two leaders respectively had with US Ambassador Clark J. Randt back in 2007, when both of them were provincial party secretaries. Recent press commentary suggest that these conversations were surprisingly revealing to the international community.


Li Keqiang was formerly party secretary of Liaoning Province, one of China’s poorer regions. Candidly admitting that China’s GDP figures were “man-made” or “for reference only”, he claimed to use electricity consumption, volume of rail cargo, and amount of loans disbursed as indicators of Liaoning’s economic health. Demystifying the party slogan “harmonious society”, he translated the term into policy as creating jobs for Liaoning residents. He admitted that corruption was the gravest concern of most Liaoning residents. Besides increasing transparency and supervision, Li added prison tours as part of public official education--taking incumbent bureaucrats to visit former corrupt party officials in prison. (Wikileak accessible here.)


As party secretary of one of China’s richer provinces, Xi Jinping faced different concerns. With a relatively low income gap and the one of highest GDP per capita’s among China’s provinces, Zhejiang’s residents were more worried about how to invest their savings in context of China’s undeveloped financial sector. Among healthcare, education, and housing, work styles of party officials was apparently a concern of Zhejiang residents, but not something that people would “take to the streets” for. The Guardian highlights the paragraph in which Xi discusses his preference for Hollywood WWII movies, saying that clearly demarcate between good and evil, unlike certain recent Chinese movies that “neglect the values they should promote”. (Wikileak cable accessible here.)