Chinese President Xi Jinping’s top economic adviser, Vice Premier Liu He attended the 20th anniversary conference of the Chinese Economists 50 Forum, a club he helped co-found when he was a government adviser, on September 16, and met a group of pro-reform economists in a show of support for a liberal vision of the country’s economic future. Liu He did not address the conference and his attendance was not reported by the official Xinhua news agency or the government website as he was not there in his official capacity. However, the fact that Liu He spared an hour from his busy agenda – which includes the ongoing trade tensions with the United States – showed he was open to views on how to revitalise the process of “reform and opening up” at a time when Beijing’s commitment to market-based policies is facing rising scrutiny at home and abroad. He did not speak during his meeting with the liberal economists but listened attentively to the opening speech by Wu Jinglian, one of the country’s most eminent pro-market economists. "What we learned from the past 40 years is that we must insist on a market-oriented and law-based direction of reform,” the 88-year-old Wu Jinglian told Liu He and the room full of government officials, economists and entrepreneurs at the event in the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing. The audience included central bank Governor Yi Gang and Finance Vice Minister Liao Min, two of Liu He’s closest aides. Wu Jinglian said the most important task for China now is to fulfil its reform promises made five years ago, when the Chinese leadership for the first time promised to let market to play a “decisive” role in resource allocation. In the face of “disharmonious voices”, including a recent debate about ending private property ownership in China, the government has to “build a consensus [on reforms] through debate and then implement them one by one”. Liu He left the venue after Wu’s speech “to take a flight”. On September 17, Liu He attended the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, calling upon the world to address complex ethical, legal and other issues surrounding the technology. Li Yang, former deputy head of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the event that fears about the future role of private firms were being reinforced by the fact that they are being hit hardest by the trade war as well as government programmes to reduce excess production capacity and to crack down on the shadow banking activities on which many small businesses depend. He said “Many cannot survive amid this de facto discrimination.”
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