Pakistanis angry over detentions in Times Sq. case Monday, May 24, 2010
ISLAMABAD – Relatives of three men detained by Pakistan for alleged links to the suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing say the men are innocent.
They
AFP - Thursday, August 6TAIPEI (AFP) - - Taiwan's Beijing-friendly government on Wednesday denied boycotting an Australian film festival amid a row over the e
BERLIN (Reuters) - Chancellor Angela Merkel suffered a double blow on Thursday as a senior party ally in east German
Minister seeks closure of anti-Berlusconi websites Wednesday, December 16, 2009
ROME (AFP) - – The Italian government moved Tuesday to close down Internet sites encouraging further violence against Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who
By ELAINE KURTENBACH,AP Business Writer AP - Wednesday, March 18SHANGHAI - Asia's stock market rally seemed to be running out of steam Wednesday, despite an
Edition:
U.S.
Africa
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
Home
Business
Business Home
Economy
Technology
Media
Small Business
Legal
Deals
Earnings
Social Pulse
Business Video
The Freeland File
Aerospace & Defense
Markets
Markets Home
U.S. Markets
European Markets
Asian Markets
Global Market Data
Indices
M&A
Stocks
Bonds
Currencies
Commodities
Futures
Funds
peHUB
World
World Home
U.S.
Brazil
China
Euro Zone
Japan
Mexico
Russia
India Insight
World Video
Reuters Investigates
Decoder
Politics
Politics Home
Election 2012
Campaign Polling
Political Punchlines
Supreme Court
Politics Video
Tech
Technology Home
MediaFile
Science
Tech Video
Tech Tonic
Social Pulse
Opinion
Opinion Home
Chrystia Freeland
John Lloyd
Felix Salmon
Jack Shafer
David Rohde
Bernd Debusmann
Nader Mousavizadeh
Lucy P. Marcus
David Cay Johnston
Bethany McLean
Anatole Kaletsky
Edward Hadas
Hugo Dixon
Ian Bremmer
Lawrence Summers
Susan Glasser
The Great Debate
Steven Brill
Jack & Suzy Welch
Frederick Kempe
Christopher Papagianis
Mark Leonard
Reihan Salam
Breakingviews
Equities
Credit
Private Equity
M&A
Macro & Markets
Politics
Breakingviews Video
Money
Money Home
Tax Break
Lipper Awards 2012
Global Investing
MuniLand
Unstructured Finance
Linda Stern
Mark Miller
John Wasik
James Saft
Analyst Research
Alerts
Watchlist
Portfolio
Stock Screener
Fund Screener
Personal Finance Video
Money Clip
Investing 201
Life
Health
Sports
Arts
Faithworld
Business Traveler
Entertainment
Oddly Enough
Lifestyle Video
Pictures
Pictures Home
Reuters Photographers
Full Focus
Video
Reuters TV
Reuters News
Article
Comments (1)
Full Focus
Editor's choice
Our best photos from the last 24 hours. Full Article
Images of August
Follow Reuters
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
YouTube
Read
Italian magazine plans 26-page special on topless Kate photos
|
15 Sep 2012
Chicago teachers fear wave of school closings after strike
15 Sep 2012
Sudan rejects U.S. request to send Marines to guard embassy
15 Sep 2012
Chicago teachers rally after tentative labor deal
15 Sep 2012
Crude oil ought to be $150 per barrel: Iran
3:15pm EDT
Discussed
286
U.S. ambassador to Libya, three staff killed in rocket attack
185
Insight: GM’s Volt – The ugly math of low sales, high costs
162
Egyptians angry at film scale U.S. embassy walls
Sponsored Links
Pictures
Reuters Photojournalism
Our day's top images, in-depth photo essays and offbeat slices of life. See the best of Reuters photography. See more | Photo caption
Dancing horses
Lipizzaner horses spend their summers in the Austrian mountains, before returning to train as dancing horses. Slideshow
Will & Kate's Asia tour
The royal couple are on a nine-day tour of Southeast Asia and the South Pacific. Slideshow
Analysis: China hurts own credibility with Xi's vanishing act
Tweet
Share this
Email
Print
Related News
Anti-Japan protests erupt in China over islands row
Sat, Sep 15 2012
China's Xi finally appears in public amid rumors over health
Sat, Sep 15 2012
China's Xi cited in state media as health rumors fly
Thu, Sep 13 2012
China maintains silence on Xi, rumor mill on overdrive
Wed, Sep 12 2012
China's Xi not seen in public because of ailment: sources
Tue, Sep 11 2012
Related Topics
World »
China »
China's Vice President Xi Jinping speaks with Egypt's President Mohamed Mursi (not pictured) during a meeting at the Great Hall of the People, in Beijing August 29, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/How Hwee Young/Pool
By John Ruwitch
SHANGHAI |
Sun Sep 16, 2012 5:07pm EDT
SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's leader-in-waiting, Xi Jinping, did more than apparently injure his back this month - by vanishing from public without explanation for two weeks, he also wounded his own credibility.
China political experts expressed dismay over the ruling Communist Party's handling of Xi's ailment, which remains a state secret despite sources close to the leadership saying he did no more than hurt his back in a swimming pool.
The injury kept the likely next leader of the world's second-largest economy and a nuclear power out of public view until Saturday when - after a swirl of unanswered rumors that ranged from a heart attack to attempted assassination - he appeared smiling for the cameras at a Beijing university.
It was as though his disappearance - which forced Xi to skip meetings with U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and the prime ministers of Singapore and Denmark - had never happened.
"The basic issue is that they have not come to terms with what running a globalized power means in this day and age...," said Roderick MacFarquhar, an expert in Communist Party history at Harvard University.
"The next leadership will have to come to grips with this because it's going to get worse. There will be times when there are real problems," he said, adding that he believed the party was likely to at least review how it had handled the episode.
Xi's vanishing act highlighted the perils of the party's tendency toward secrecy at a politically sensitive time, just a few weeks before the party is expected to finalize a once-in-a-decade leadership change at its 18th congress.
Xi, 59, is all but certain to be promoted to party chief at the congress - the timing of which is still secret but expected in mid-October - before taking over the presidency in March.
He will take the helm of a nation that has been transformed economically but, as his disappearance showed, not politically.
"Basically, you have a system that's inherited from the early 20th century that is totally mismatched with the demands of 21st century China," said Damien Ma, a China analyst at the Eurasia Group.
The party has always closely guarded and carefully manicured the public images of its top leaders. Details of their private lives, including health issues, have been mostly kept secret since Mao Zedong's days at the helm.
Mao himself famously vanished from public view at times.
From late-1965 to mid-1966 he was nowhere to be seen in public, likely due to health reasons. His return was heralded by a widely publicized swim in the Yangtze river, an event orchestrated to send a message of his vitality.
China could get away with it back then, before its rapid industrialization put it at the centre of the global economy and of financial markets and before the birth of the Internet.
"They have not got acclimatized to the differences between running a dynamic economy and sticking in the past with a very, very un-dynamic leadership," said MacFarquhar of Harvard.
'READING THE TEA LEAVES'
Rumors about Xi's health burst onto China's popular Twitter-like site Sina Weibo and elsewhere, with some guessing he had gone incommunicado after an assassination attempt or was laid up after a heart attack, stroke or surgery for early-stage liver cancer.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei dodged question after question on the issue at routine media briefings and berated a journalist who at one point asked if Hong could confirm if Xi was still alive.
Xi's last known previous public appearance had been on September 1, but it took Chinese state media until late on Sept 12 to cite Xi as having issued a public statement - a message of condolence to the family of a deceased party official - and then another three days before he re-emerged in the flesh.
In the meantime, the information vacuum was filled by wild and potentially dangerous speculation in a year that has already proven to be a tumultuous one for the party.
In the months leading up to Xi's disappearance, China's rumor mill was already near fever pitch over a murder scandal that had ruined the career of a senior politician, Bo Xilai, who had had ambitions to join Xi's top team in the new leadership.
"By not communicating it allows people to see weaknesses in the system which may not be there," said Dane Chamorro, Director Asia Pacific at Control Risks.
"People start to question: Is the system weak? Is the system breaking down? Can it deal with the modern world?"
For now, Xi's unexplained disappearance has not wrought much tangible damage. Financial markets, though paying close attention, did not trade on the rumors.
"It didn't (cause damage) this time, but that doesn't mean that it won't in the future," said Ma of Eurasia Group.
"The biggest danger under the new ... administration, we believe, is if they don't concertedly and seriously address some of these issues in an information-intensive environment, they're going to increasingly face a deepening legitimacy crisis."
Until then, we are "condemned to carry on reading the tea leaves", said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, an expert on Chinese politics at Hong Kong Baptist University.
"So much for China's great openness to the outside world which started in 1978."
(Additional reporting by Michael Martina; Editing by Mark Bendeich)
World
China
Tweet this
Link this
Share this
Digg this
Email
Reprints
We welcome comments that advance the story through relevant opinion, anecdotes, links and data. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. For more information on our comment policy, see http://blogs.reuters.com/fulldisclosure/2010/09/27/toward-a-more-thoughtful-conversation-on-stories/
Comments (1)
mathhero wrote:
Edition:
U.S.
Africa
Arabic
Argentina
Brazil
Canada
China
France
Germany
India
Italy
Japan
Latin America
Mexico
Russia
Spain
United Kingdom
Back to top
Reuters.com
Business
Markets
World
Politics
Technology
Opinion
Money
Pictures
Videos
Site Index
Legal
Bankruptcy Law
California Legal
New York Legal
Securities Law
Support & Contact
Support
Corrections
Connect with Reuters
Twitter
Facebook
LinkedIn
RSS
Podcast
Newsletters
Mobile
About
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
AdChoices
Copyright
Our Flagship financial information platform incorporating Reuters Insider
An ultra-low latency infrastructure for electronic trading and data distribution
A connected approach to governance, risk and compliance
Our next generation legal research platform
Our global tax workstation
Thomsonreuters.com
About Thomson Reuters
Investor Relations
Careers
Contact Us
Thomson Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms. Thomson Reuters journalists are subject to an Editorial Handbook which requires fair presentation and disclosure of relevant interests.
NYSE and AMEX quotes delayed by at least 20 minutes. Nasdaq delayed by at least 15 minutes. For a complete list of exchanges and delays, please click here.