On August 17, Xi Jinping, in his keynote speech at the tenth meeting of the Central Finance and Economics Committee, highlighted the need to redistribute wealth and strengthen the “regulation and management” of high-income earners.
After cracking down on Chinese technology giants, financial companies, and the after-school training industry, the CCP is now targeting “high-income earners.”
According to the People’s Daily, Xi told the CCP leadership that there must be a mechanism to redistribute wealth, to promote “social equality,” to establish basic system arrangements for the coordination of primary distribution, redistribution, and third-time distribution; to intensify efforts and to improve the accuracy in taxation, social security, transfer payments, and related areas.; … to rationally regulate high income; ban illegal income; … and to promote social equality.”
It is necessary to “strengthen the regulation and adjustment of high incomes, …, rationally regulate excessively high incomes, and encourage high-income groups and enterprises to return more to the society. We must clean up and standardize unreasonable income, rectify the order of income distribution, and resolutely ban illegal income.”
Xi Jinping’s “common prosperity” is regarded as the key for the CCP to maintain its power. “The meeting emphasized that common prosperity is the prosperity of all people, ‘not the prosperity of a few people.’ We must take the promotion of common prosperity for all the people as the focal point for seeking happiness for the people, and constantly consolidate the foundation of the Party’s long-term governance.”
At this meeting, the CCP did not provide specifics on the criteria for “high-income earners.” Xi Jinping’s focus on wealth redistribution is closely related to the broader economic goals of the CCP. In recent months, in the name of curbing financial risks, protecting the economy, and fighting corruption, the CCP has issued a number of regulations and directives against industries such as technology, finance, and education. Xi Jinping’s redistributing wealth and realizing “common prosperity” is believed to be behind the CCP’s latest regulatory crackdown on these industries.
Source: People’s Daily, August 18, 2021.
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