New Chinese Leadership Challenges and Deglobalization
David Ignatius argues that Chinese leadership is facing party-threatening case of corruption at the top.  Wang Qishan is Xi Jinping’s (the new party general secretary) point person on this front.  Because failure on this issue will have negative consequences for globalization, we all ought to wish him success in 2013.

“Wang’s mission is to address China’s greatest vulnerability. There are 80 million party members in China, competing for about 40,000 important local positions. China experts say these jobs are now routinely bought and sold, often for huge sums, with the winners soliciting graft from subordinates and local businesses.

The corruption isn’t limited to politics. Top military positions are also obtained by bribes, with the winners harvesting millions in graft. U.S. experts say that a one-star general can expect to receive up to $10 million in gifts and special deals; a four-star regional commander can make $50 million or more.

This out-of-control corruption frightens China’s new leaders, who know the public is increasingly angry about dirty dealings by public officials. But Xi and many of his fellow rulers are known as “princelings,” because their families have grown rich from their closeness to power. They want to clean out the stable without burning it down….

A hint of the purges that may lie ahead was Wang’s decision in early December to investigate the deputy party chief in Sichuan province for allegedly buying and selling party positions. Wang himself is seen as uncorrupted, partly because he doesn’t have any children, who often operate as family bribe-takers. “If Xi has the inclination and power to unleash Wang, it could be transformative,” says Christopher Johnson, a former CIA official who’s the top China scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies….

What risk does Wang, the party hatchet man, see if the regime fails to discipline corruption in its ranks? Perhaps he fears a revolution. A Chinese publication noted on Dec. 24 that he has been urging officials to read Alexis de Tocqueville’s The Old Regime and the Revolution, evidently as a warning of how a regime can destroy itself from within.”

The China Daily calls Wang Qishan's emergence the 'rise of the trouble shooter.'  And speaking of globalization, Robert Samuelson argues there are already signs of nationalist retrenchment on that front, and some reason to believe this might be good for American workers.

“The United States will be a more attractive production platform. Imports will weaken; exports will strengthen. BCG [Boston Consulting Group] predicts between 2.5 million and 5 million new factory jobs by 2020. (For perspective: 5.7 million manufacturing jobs disappeared from 2000 to 2010.)”