Will ‘common prosperity’ address China’s inequality?

This episode is part of the ZhōngHuá Mundus series of The Sound
of Economics.



ZhōngHuá Mundus is a newsletter by Bruegel, bringing you monthly
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The concept of “common prosperity” has deep roots in the Chinese
Communist Party. It was already used in the 1950s and the late
1970s under different leaderships. On August 17 2021, President
Xi Jinping highlighted this concept again, calling for China to
achieve "common prosperity", seeking to narrow a yawning wealth
gap that threatens the country's economic ascent and the
legitimacy of Communist Party rule. Since then, there have been
simultaneous crackdowns on business sectors and individuals, many
of which fall under the umbrella of ‘common prosperity’.



Why is this term being brought up again? Why now? What policies
have followed? What does the regime want to achieve? Giuseppe
Porcaro is joined by Bruegel Senior fellow Alicia García-Herrero
and Minxin Pei, Professor of Government at Claremont McKenna
College and a non-resident senior fellow at the German Marshall
Fund of the United States to discuss.