I only agree about Jiang. He did do a very good job. But Hu? Hu had the positive momentum created by the Jiang-Zhu government. China was basically on auto-pilot at that time with multiple positive converging trends pushing China ever higher, farther, richer, faster. Hu didn't actually initiate anything or sustain anything lasting that he could claim he actually accomplished. What I remember of his time is rampant corruption that became worse during his time and almost every single accomplishment was the result of decisions made not by his direct decisions but by the tens of thousands of other CPC officials in positions of power. That is what I mean. China was doing a bang up job at that time, but I am focused on HIM, what did HE do? To me, he did practically nothing other than being a good bureaucrat who didn't rock the boat. By contrast, look what Xi has done. It's not just about the corruption. The guy improved living standards dramatically, he raised the poor with multiple changes to minimum wages, went on an actual F**king war on poverty, not just intermittent campaigns. He dramatically ramped up R&D spend, drove the higher education system expansion into hyperdrive to the extent that CHina now has 54.4% of its school age population enrolled in tertiary education, with that number closing in on 75% within 10 years. Given the ratio of STEM students in China universities, that in the next 25-30 years, we are going to see China having something like twice the STEM researchers of the entire OECD combined. Yes, double the number of engineers or higher level researchers within China than the entire developed world combined. That is how sick it is going to be. I didn't mention anything about what is going on with the environmental progress but it is also stupendous, but this message is already getting too long.
I usually don't want to comment much about China's contemporary internal politics at SDF, which can be quite a big subject and very controversial. It's also off topic in this thread. But still, I felt the urge to defend Hu and the performance of his administration.
The Hu-Wen period has been the decade China grew the fastest economically and burst onto the world stage as an emerging global power. Shortly before their term started, you had Foreign Affairs publish the article "
" (1999). In the midst of their term, the hot topic among the elites and leadership was China's "Peaceful Rise" (later changed to Peaceful Development to avoid alerting the international community). In 2006, CCTV aired the well-known 12-series documentary "The Rise of Great Powers" ("
"). By the end of their term, the US had already started to implement their "Pivot to Asia" strategy (2011), after failing to get a positive response from China on the idea of G-2.
Hu-Wen administration also adopted many far reaching domestic policies, including abolishing the thousands-year old agricultural tax. This was also the decade when China's infrastructure boom took off and had started to make strong impressions around the world. Many of the large and critical defense R&D programs were actually started during Hu-Wen administration, including J-20, 052D, etc.
In terms of their governing style, they tried to project the more humane side of the government and leadership - think about "Grandpa Wen" and "Harmonious Society" - which was largely to correct many of the excesses and shortfalls of Jiang-Zhu administration. This was actually quite important to the mood of the country at the time. Also subtle but critical was that Hu-Wen's relatively laissez-faire governing ("无为而治") had foster an environment that was conducive to the growth of private industry and entrepreneurship. This had its downside clearly, including wide-spread corruption. In many ways, Hu-Wen period was a contrast to the Xi period, which isn't always favorable to Xi. But Xi had to correct some of the excesses and missteps of the previous administration, and the extreme pressure from and the severe competition with the US as well as the pandemic all serve to reinforce a strong leader and distract and release many of the internal stress and tension.
In the end, the CCP leadership since Deng has a lot more continuity and stability than disruption, compared to Mao's era and relative to the western countries let alone developing countries. China has been growing by leaps and bounds, creating both new opportunities and challenges. Each generation of Chinese leadership has had to adapt to changes ("与时俱进"). In the last forty plus years, China has been blessed with successive four generations of very capable and competent leadership. In the same periods, the caliber of the western leaders ...
