Xi offers hope of clarity

China watchers will be paying close attention to the speeches of Xi Jinping, the general secretary of the Communist Party of China, as they seek clues to the future direction of government policies. Sometimes it is not easy to do this from the speeches of Chinese officials and I am tempted to paraphrase the quote from that great wordsmith, former US president Bill Clinton, who, when speaking about the very tight election campaign in the United States in 2000, said that while the American people had spoken it was going to "take a little while to determine what they said". It might truly be said that while some Chinese officials have delivered speeches, it has taken a while to figure out what the message was.

This contrasts with speeches given by politicians in Western nations, where, a sound bite that succinctly captures the message and can easily be repeated in the media is a key element of any major policy speech. Such sound bites can then be repeated on other occasions and become a rallying cry for supporters. However, it is evident that such brave statements, sometimes controversial, can be misinterpreted by the audience and Western politicians also have to spend time recalling and redefining a sound bite, which has not been understood as intended or which they claim was taken out of context or been misconstrued.

Thus Chinese officials may well be wary of saying too much that perhaps oversimplifies a situation or too clearly defines policy that is still work in progress. To avoid that, they regularly fall back on speeches repeating many already familiar principles and beliefs of the Party and stop short of a clear statement on future policy.