Xi Jinping's "very important" person Liu He becomes subject of spotlight ahead of Beidaihe meeting. (Photo : Getty Images)
Chinese magazine featured the people inside President Xi Jinping’s inner economic circle led by Liu He, something that observers dubbed as proof of intense preparation for this year’s Beidaihe meeting.
Citing a feature from the China Newsweek magazine, the South China Morning Post revealed how Liu and his comrades from the General Office of the Leading Group for Financial and Economic Affairs became subject of headlines, weeks ahead of the annual meeting of Communist Party of China's elite members in Beidaihe.
Liu and his team were believed to be the ones responsible for anonymous "authoritative figure" who made comments about the economy as featured previously in Chinese news.
Liu He, a Man of Many Titles
Liu He has been under the spotlight so many times in recent years that he had already earned so many titles from different media outlets both in China and abroad.
For instance, The Wall Street Journal considered him as "Xi Jinping's Choice to Fix a Faltering Chinese Economy" in a report in 2013.
At the time, Xi described Liu as a man who is "very important" to him.
In Sept. 2015, The Diplomat called him "the Architect of China's Economic Policies," further revealing how he became close to the Chinese president.
According to the outlet, both Xi and Liu had experiences as "sent-down youths" though in different places.
Apparently, Liu was invisible to Xi until 2007 when the president started full-time work as a standing member of the Politburo.
Liu became important to Xi because his job was to create plans and designs of the economic policies of the current administration, contributing over 60 economic reforms to the Third Plenum document, The Diplomat noted.
Liu's Most Recent Title
Now, Liu and his crew are stars of a magazine feature because they were stepping up preparations for the upcoming Politburo meeting, where the elite members of the Party will decide reforms that could shape the country's future economy.
Also, China Center for International Economic Exchanges Vice-Director Wei Jianguo believes that the massive media coverage means that Liu's group is clearing the way for economic reforms to be decided by the Politburo elite group.
"In addition to the summer meeting, [the coverage is] for reaching broader consensus and removing differences to push ahead with reform," he said.
Wei told the SCMP that since "economic issues could be one of the important items" in the Beidaihe meeting, actions should be done to "reach consensus on the way ahead for reform" particularly on matters revolving around overcapacity and "zombie" firms.
