After the First 100 Days of Xi Jinping

Xi Jinping has been general secretary of the Communist Party of China for just over 100 days. Last week, official media praised Mr. Xi’s first 100 days in office and his focus on the “Chinese Dream” as well as people’s livelihood issues like health, education, property prices and corruption.

Three important political meetings will occur in the next two weeks. First, the Central Committee of the 18th Party Congress will hold the Second Plenum for three days starting Feb. 26. The National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the top advisory body for the Chinese government, begin to go into session for about two weeks of what is known as the “two meetings.”

At the N.P.C. meeting, Mr. Xi will formally replace Hu Jintao as president and Li Keqiang will take over for Wen Jiabao as premier. The legislature will approve a streamlining of certain government ministries, and we should learn the official duties for senior politicians Wang Yang and Li Yuanchao.

The environment is likely to be on the N.P.C. agenda. Smog continues to plague much of China, and there are increasingly dire reports about water pollution, food pollution and soil pollution. For the first time, the government officially admitted the existence of a large number of “cancer villages” caused by pollution.

In addition to allowing much more open reporting on the environmental degradation, Beijing is also taking steps to address what increasingly appears to be one of the biggest risks to the Community Party’s rule and China’s future development. Examples of policy responses include a plan to invest hundreds of billions of dollars on water projects over the next 0 years, a new environmental tax, much stricter fuel emission standards for new cars in Beijing and a requirement that companies in heavy pollution industries buy environmental damage insurance.

While there are signs of regulatory progress, a recent article from Caixin, a leading Chinese business magazine, highlights the bureaucratic and special-interest challenges of reaching a consensus on new rules for cleaning up China’s relatively dirty gasoline, cited as one of the causes of the recent “smog sieges” across China.

THE ENVIRONMENTAL DEGRADATION can no longer be covered up and Beijing has ! given the! media more room to report on the problems. Now, the government must make aggressive, concrete progress or it is potentially setting itself up for a significant popular backlash.

Last week’s column noted that new measures to repress property prices were expected. Those measures were announced on Feb. 20 and the news contributed to the Shanghai stock market’s worst weekly loss in 20 months. The government has had policies in place for nearly three years to cool the real estate market but prices and transactions both began increasing again in the second half of 2012, even though housing is barely affordable to much of China’s middle class.

Jing Ulrich, managing director and chairman of global markets in China at JPMorgan Chase, usually has bullish things to say about China. But on Monday, she told a group of journalists that “property prices are a reflection of overall liquidity in the system” and China may be near the peak of its latest property cycle.

One of the providers of the liquidity in the system is the People’s Bank of China. Its chief, Zhou Xiaochuan, is reportedly staying on. The central bank is seen by some as one of ! the leadi! ng forces in China’s economic reform push.

The hacking accusations discussed last week continue, and The New York Times reported on Monday on the “new cold war” in cyberspace between the United States and China. The Obama administration’s public responses have more muted than some had expected, perhaps because:

“We were told that directly embarrassing the Chinese would backfire,” one intelligence official said. “It would only make them more defensive, and more nationalistic.”

Regardless of the response from Washington, it is unrealistic to expect cyber espionage and cyber theft to stop completely. American companies need to be much more effective at securing their data. Can you imagine a bank securing its doors with simple combination lock while leaving its the cash scattered around its offices That is effectively how many organizations protect their data.

The Academy Awards were popular in China even though the awards program was not broadcast live on television. China is now the second-largest film market after the United States and has grown over 30 percent a year for the last nine years. The movie channel of CCTV streamed the show online and on Sina Weibo, akin to Twitter, the Oscars were the top trending topic for several hours.

The size and explosive growth of the Chinese box office has forced Hollywood to acq! uiesce to! censorship demands and led some to charge it with “kowtowing” to China. Hollywood’s China dealings have also raised an Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry.

A Chinese production has so far not won for best picture. Ang Lee’s award for directing was widely praised but also “bittersweet for Chinese film fans.”