BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) - Chinese President Xi Jinping’s use of the term “common prosperity” surged this year, evidence of the Communist Party of China's commitment to closing the country’s yawning wealth gap.
The term appeared sporadically in his first eight years in power. Last year, he began to reference "common prosperity" more often and has picked up the pace: The phrase has appeared 65 times in his speeches and meetings so far this year, compared with 30 in all of last year.
The sloganeering signals the strength of Mr Xi’s intent, said Ms Maria Repnikova, who studies China’s political communication at Georgia State University.
"Slogans often capture new policy directions or shifts and can signal how the policy is changing," she said. "They’re also often broad, leaving some space for ambiguity and adjustment in interpretation."
The government put a finer point on it last week.
The party’s top economic and financial affairs committee vowed at a meeting last Tuesday (Aug 17) to "reasonably adjust high incomes", encourage philanthropy and pursue other strategies to bring the country’s income distribution into the more ideal olive-shaped structure, small on both ends and fat in the middle.
During the meeting, top policymakers pledged to use "taxation, social security and transfer payment" policies and to tackle illegal and "unreasonable" income.
They also suggested that Mr Xi’s target may for the first time expand to include the merely wealthy in addition to the ultra-rich.
Mr Xi had previously focused on "excessively high income", according to a Bloomberg analysis of his speeches.
£££ เมื่อเช้าทรงดีๆ ท่านประธาน Xi ก็ออกมาย้ำ common prosperity อีก
BEIJING (BLOOMBERG) - Chinese President Xi Jinping’s use of the term “common prosperity” surged this year, evidence of the Communist Party of China's commitment to closing the country’s yawning wealth gap.
The term appeared sporadically in his first eight years in power. Last year, he began to reference "common prosperity" more often and has picked up the pace: The phrase has appeared 65 times in his speeches and meetings so far this year, compared with 30 in all of last year.
The sloganeering signals the strength of Mr Xi’s intent, said Ms Maria Repnikova, who studies China’s political communication at Georgia State University.
"Slogans often capture new policy directions or shifts and can signal how the policy is changing," she said. "They’re also often broad, leaving some space for ambiguity and adjustment in interpretation."
The government put a finer point on it last week.
The party’s top economic and financial affairs committee vowed at a meeting last Tuesday (Aug 17) to "reasonably adjust high incomes", encourage philanthropy and pursue other strategies to bring the country’s income distribution into the more ideal olive-shaped structure, small on both ends and fat in the middle.
During the meeting, top policymakers pledged to use "taxation, social security and transfer payment" policies and to tackle illegal and "unreasonable" income.
They also suggested that Mr Xi’s target may for the first time expand to include the merely wealthy in addition to the ultra-rich.
Mr Xi had previously focused on "excessively high income", according to a Bloomberg analysis of his speeches.