In Xi Jinping’s China, central planners rule

The problem with central planners is not that they make mistakes. After all, everyone is fallible: even (oh, the shame of it) newspaper columnists. The trouble with technocrats is how they respond when plans go awry. All too often, when goals are missed or policies backfire, their solution is another plan laid on top.

This dynamic is increasingly visible in the China ruled by Xi Jinping. And it is especially true in the countryside. Policies for rural areas have become a tangled thicket of clashing priorities, core principles and “red lines” that must be defended. The transformative reforms of the 1980s, when collective farms were broken up and peasants were allowed to plant whatever the market was eager to buy, seem ever further away.