He has all the right credentials to be the new head of the People’s Republic of China and to manage its odd brand of capitalist socialism. The quintessential team player, Xi Jinping is a consensus politician at ease in the West, but a staunch conservative when it comes to defending the system of open markets and closed politics which characterizes modern China.
Still, it won’t be easy. Popular discontent among both the peasantry and the workers – who are the real architects of China’s economic miracle – is growing every year. In 2010 there were 180,000 ‘mass incidents’ – the charming official phrase used to describe strikes over work conditions, or protests over land seizures, or various other self-enrichment tactics of the political élite and their families.
