近
几个月来市场对中共三中全会的期待日益高涨，官方已承诺将公报一个全面计划，为实现国家主席习近平提出的民族复兴之梦指引未来的前进道路。就在几天前，一些与习近平、总理李克强和一批政府及军队领导人会面的外国人士得到的明确信息是，他们应当期待三中全会提出一个全面的改革蓝图。党报文章也透露了（未详细说明的）政治改革的前景，这是几十年来不曾触及的领域。
然而在周二公布的三中全会公报中，最终公布的改革方案非常具有选择性。
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周二，北京，一名商贩向路人展示一款带有中国国家主席习近平和前主席毛泽东相片的纪念品。
中共通常通过措辞来释放政策调整信号，这在局外人看来就像是猜谜游戏，同样此次公报的措词也为未来深化改革的方向提供了一些令人遐想（可以说是比较隐晦）的线索。
举例来说，一些分析师探究了公报中使用“决定性”这个词的意义，公告称，让市场而不是政府在资源配置中起“决定性”作用，以前的提法是起“基础性”作用。然而措词变化的确切含义无从知晓。许多自由派经济学家一直憧憬，共产党将发出收缩国有企业权力、促进民营企业发展的明确信号。但是公报重申了国有企业的领导作用。
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中国观察人士一直持谨慎态度，他们认为，预计公报会在中国实现首要任务方面拿出具体方案是不切实际的，这个首要任务就是如何推动经济进入更可持续发展的轨道，扭转破坏环境的局面，缩小社会差距，控制迅速膨胀的信贷规模，建立更强大的机构来改善经济治理以及清理腐败。
即使对于许多观察人士希望公报能够对关键改革内容作出高级别承诺这一较为温和的期望，公报也未能完全予以满足。
比如，公告中没有提及户籍制度改革，许多经济学家认为，这一改革可推动中国转型至由生产和消费拉动经济增长的模式。
改革也没有提及让农民获得更多土地权利--包括出售土地的权利，这被认为是他们移居城市的前提条件。
公报中也没有任何有关利率市场化或资本帐户开放等金融业改革措施的细节，而这是将经济增长引擎由效率较低的国有企业转向创新型私营企业的计划中必不可少的一部分。
最引人注目的是，公报中对政治改革只是一笔带过，吴敬琏等中国自由派经济学家认为经济改革必须以政治改革为起点。这是因为真正的经济改革意味着将对中国共产党的既得利益造成冲击；中国经济对投资的专注创造了大量实现个人富裕的机会，令这些既得利益集团受益。
公报指出有必要加强司法独立，与政治改革齐头并进。但除此之外没有其他相关表述。
现在的问题是，究竟是公报对改革那种乍看上去显得半心半意的态度是中共改革派在保守派的反对面前所能表现出的最佳水平，还是公报的文字中隐含着施政方向的一种更为根本性的改变，这种改变可能要到中国决策机构认真研究相关细节时才会明朗起来。
另外，也不清楚公报是会议的最终结论，抑或只是需要稍后完善的框架草案。
在三中全会前的大规模铺垫之后，结果令人失望几乎不可避免。但三中全会仍然标志着习近平在任第一年的顶峰，在此期间，他提出了“中国梦”的宏观概念。
事实上，习近平就任主席后前几个月中，最值得一提的举措是治理腐败以及重提毛泽东思想，对网络上的自由言论予以严厉打击。
对习近平“左倾”姿态的一个解读是，他在为将于三中全会后发布的大规模经济改革计划寻找掩护。在更多改革细节浮现出来之前，上述观点必然受到质疑。
习近平称自己肩负着实现中华民族复兴的历史重任。实际上，中国在19世纪初前后的清朝达到了顶峰，但之后迅速衰败，一部分原因是外敌侵略和掠夺，但同时也因为国内出现诸多问题，其中很多问题直到现在仍然对中国造成困扰，包括不利的人口结构、受到严重破坏的生态环境、无所不在的腐败和国内的不满情绪。
当前国内很多精英（互联网企业家、房地产大鳄、学者和实业家）一直在私下交流，讨论在不进行重大改革的情况下当前制度本身是否会面临危机。对他们中的很多人而言，三中全会提供了一个对未来恢复信心的契机。
在三中全会开幕前，中国一位主要的科技投资家表示，他的朋友要么背井离乡，要么生活在恐惧之中。现在的问题是，三中全会公报及之后的措施是否会吸引他们回国。
Andrew Browne
（本文版权归道琼斯公司所有，未经许可不得翻译或转载。）
For months now, anticipation has been building in China about a Communist Party meeting that would, it was officially promised, offer up a 'comprehensive' plan to illuminate the way ahead for President Xi Jinping's goal of national rejuvenation.
Just days ago, the clear message that went out to a group of foreign visitors who met President Xi, Premier Li Keqiang and an array of government and military leaders was that they should expect a 'comprehensive blueprint of reform' from the party's meeting, known as the Third Plenum. Inspired leaks in party-run newspapers had dangled the prospect of unspecified political overhaul, which have been on ice for several decades.
But the reforms that finally emerged in a communique from the Communist Party on Tuesday turned out to be highly selective.
What's more, the details were almost completely missing, even though the document ticked off many of the items that appear on standard lists of reform objectives for China, both inside and outside the country. These include pledges to overhaul the fiscal system, health care and education.
The party has historically signaled policy changes in words and phrases that appear as riddles to outsiders, In that vein, the language of the communique offers a few tantalizing, if murky, clues to deeper reform that may lie ahead.
Some analysts, for instance, have divined significance in the use of the word 'decisive' in the communique's call for the market to play a 'decisive role in allocating resources' rather than the state. Previously, the operative adjective in that standard formulation was 'basic.' But what, precisely, the shuffling of the party's lexicon means is left unanswered. Many liberal economists had been hoping for a clear message that the party would roll back the power of state-owned enterprises and promote private enterprise. Instead, the document reaffirmed the leading role of state enterprise.
China watchers have cautioned all along that it is unrealistic to expect the communique to produce concrete action points for leaders' main priorities: how to move the economy onto a more sustainable track, reverse environmental devastation, narrow social disparities, rein in runaway credit and build stronger institutions to improve economic governance and clean up corruption.
Yet, even by the more modest expectations of many observers for a high-level commitment to key elements of reform, the communique that emerged from the four-day meeting in a military hotel was piecemeal.
For instance, there was no mention of overhauls to the hukou registration system that prevents farmers from migrating to cities, a reform that many economists believe could underpin China's transition to a more productive and consumer-led model of growth.
Changes that would give farmers more secure title to their land, including the right to sell it--seen as a prerequisite for their move to cities--are skimmed over.
Nor are there any specifics on financial reform, including interest-rate liberalization or capital-account opening, an essential component of any plan to shift the drivers of growth toward innovative private enterprise and away from more-inefficient state-owned companies.
Most glaringly, the communique carries only a fleeting reference to political reform, which liberal Chinese economists like Wu Jinglian believe must be the starting point for economic overhauls. That is because genuine economic reform implies an assault on vested interests in the party itself who have benefited from the economy's singular focus on investment--which has created vast opportunities for personal enrichment.
There is a nod--no more than that--to the need for greater judicial independence, which goes hand-in-hand with political reform.
The question now is whether what appears at first glance as a limited approach to change is the best that the reform wing of the party could manage in the face of opposition from their conservative opponents. Or, whether lurking in the text are clues to a more fundamental change in direction that may not become apparent until the details are chewed over within the vast decision-making machinery of the Chinese party-state.
Also, it's not clear whether the communique is the final word out of the meeting, or just an outline sketch to be shaded in later.
After the big wind-up to the plenum, it is perhaps inevitable that the outcome would be a letdown. Yet the Third Plenum was heralded as the climax to Mr. Xi's first year in office during which he spoke in grand terms about a 'China Dream.'
The reality is that Mr. Xi's first months in office have been most notable for an attack on corruption and a revival of Maoist slogans that foreshadowed a harsh crackdown on free speech on the Internet.
One interpretation of what has been widely called Mr. Xi's 'lurch to the left' is that he is seeking cover for an aggressive economic reform program that would be unveiled after the Third Plenum. Until more details of reform emerge, that scenario must now be questioned.
Mr. Xi presents himself in historic terms as a leader who will revive China's ancient position of pre-eminence in the world. China, in fact, reached its apogee around the turn of the 19th century under the Qing Dynasty, but then crumbled rapidly, partly due to foreign depredations but also because of homegrown problems, many of which bedevil the country today. These include unfavorable demographics, an exhausted ecology, pervasive corruption and internal dissent.
Many of today's elite-Internet entrepreneurs, real-estate tycoons, academics and industrialists-have been making private calculations about whether, in the absence of drastic change, the current regime will face a crisis of its own. For many of them, the Third Plenum represented a chance to revive their faith in the future.
'My friends are all living in fear or exile,' said one of China's leading technology investors, speaking before the Third Plenum opened. The question is whether the communique, and what follows, will inspire them to return.
Andrew Browne
Just days ago, the clear message that went out to a group of foreign visitors who met President Xi, Premier Li Keqiang and an array of government and military leaders was that they should expect a 'comprehensive blueprint of reform' from the party's meeting, known as the Third Plenum. Inspired leaks in party-run newspapers had dangled the prospect of unspecified political overhaul, which have been on ice for several decades.
But the reforms that finally emerged in a communique from the Communist Party on Tuesday turned out to be highly selective.
What's more, the details were almost completely missing, even though the document ticked off many of the items that appear on standard lists of reform objectives for China, both inside and outside the country. These include pledges to overhaul the fiscal system, health care and education.
The party has historically signaled policy changes in words and phrases that appear as riddles to outsiders, In that vein, the language of the communique offers a few tantalizing, if murky, clues to deeper reform that may lie ahead.
Some analysts, for instance, have divined significance in the use of the word 'decisive' in the communique's call for the market to play a 'decisive role in allocating resources' rather than the state. Previously, the operative adjective in that standard formulation was 'basic.' But what, precisely, the shuffling of the party's lexicon means is left unanswered. Many liberal economists had been hoping for a clear message that the party would roll back the power of state-owned enterprises and promote private enterprise. Instead, the document reaffirmed the leading role of state enterprise.
China watchers have cautioned all along that it is unrealistic to expect the communique to produce concrete action points for leaders' main priorities: how to move the economy onto a more sustainable track, reverse environmental devastation, narrow social disparities, rein in runaway credit and build stronger institutions to improve economic governance and clean up corruption.
Yet, even by the more modest expectations of many observers for a high-level commitment to key elements of reform, the communique that emerged from the four-day meeting in a military hotel was piecemeal.
For instance, there was no mention of overhauls to the hukou registration system that prevents farmers from migrating to cities, a reform that many economists believe could underpin China's transition to a more productive and consumer-led model of growth.
Changes that would give farmers more secure title to their land, including the right to sell it--seen as a prerequisite for their move to cities--are skimmed over.
Nor are there any specifics on financial reform, including interest-rate liberalization or capital-account opening, an essential component of any plan to shift the drivers of growth toward innovative private enterprise and away from more-inefficient state-owned companies.
Most glaringly, the communique carries only a fleeting reference to political reform, which liberal Chinese economists like Wu Jinglian believe must be the starting point for economic overhauls. That is because genuine economic reform implies an assault on vested interests in the party itself who have benefited from the economy's singular focus on investment--which has created vast opportunities for personal enrichment.
There is a nod--no more than that--to the need for greater judicial independence, which goes hand-in-hand with political reform.
The question now is whether what appears at first glance as a limited approach to change is the best that the reform wing of the party could manage in the face of opposition from their conservative opponents. Or, whether lurking in the text are clues to a more fundamental change in direction that may not become apparent until the details are chewed over within the vast decision-making machinery of the Chinese party-state.
Also, it's not clear whether the communique is the final word out of the meeting, or just an outline sketch to be shaded in later.
After the big wind-up to the plenum, it is perhaps inevitable that the outcome would be a letdown. Yet the Third Plenum was heralded as the climax to Mr. Xi's first year in office during which he spoke in grand terms about a 'China Dream.'
The reality is that Mr. Xi's first months in office have been most notable for an attack on corruption and a revival of Maoist slogans that foreshadowed a harsh crackdown on free speech on the Internet.
One interpretation of what has been widely called Mr. Xi's 'lurch to the left' is that he is seeking cover for an aggressive economic reform program that would be unveiled after the Third Plenum. Until more details of reform emerge, that scenario must now be questioned.
Mr. Xi presents himself in historic terms as a leader who will revive China's ancient position of pre-eminence in the world. China, in fact, reached its apogee around the turn of the 19th century under the Qing Dynasty, but then crumbled rapidly, partly due to foreign depredations but also because of homegrown problems, many of which bedevil the country today. These include unfavorable demographics, an exhausted ecology, pervasive corruption and internal dissent.
Many of today's elite-Internet entrepreneurs, real-estate tycoons, academics and industrialists-have been making private calculations about whether, in the absence of drastic change, the current regime will face a crisis of its own. For many of them, the Third Plenum represented a chance to revive their faith in the future.
'My friends are all living in fear or exile,' said one of China's leading technology investors, speaking before the Third Plenum opened. The question is whether the communique, and what follows, will inspire them to return.
Andrew Browne
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