6 | WEDNESDAY, JUNE 5, 2013 o lar’ ° ° International Herald Eribune l¢ WS THE GLOBAL EDITION OF THE NEW YORK TIMES Xi Jinping’s Chi Dream 1 JINpmMgs Inese L/rea EDITORIAL OPINION OBAMAMEETS Robert Lawrence Kuhn XI JINPING American policy makers BENING What to make of Xi Jinping, * Need to consolidate power. Xi was not threaten to tragment society — and all must under- China’s new senior leader, who holds selected by Deng Xiaoping, the archi- are exacerbated by an energetic social stand that the his first summit meeting this week with tect of reform, as were his predecessors media. Only nationalism, which reson- : President Barack Obama? (Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao), and he ates intrinsically and passionately new Chinese The hope is that Xiis a reformer who was not elected by the people. Conven- across Chinese society, can provide suf- leader needs to __ will guide China through domestic tional wisdom had it that Xi would be a ficiently strong social glue. bea transformation and to responsible weak leader. In order to realize his © Differentiate from predecessors. Top . . statecraft. The fear is that Xi is ana- Chinese Dream, Xi needs to assert Chinese leaders must combine historic- nationalist to tionalist, who has set China on an ag- strength and assure control. So far, he al continuity with their own distin- be a reformer. gressive course of bullying its neigh- has exceeded expectations. guishing theories and practices. How bors and confronting the United States. * Need to enable reform. Xi and Premier shall Xi fare? The fear seems not unfounded. China Li Keqiang are determined to enact far- Economic growth rates must decline, has intensified its territorial claims, reaching economic reforms, the most and a host of domestic tensions (or from island disputes with Japan to vast extensive in 15 years, but there is stiff crises) are coming his way, such as areas of the South China Sea. resistance from those whose domi- public anger at corruption and resis- Xi frequen