Wife of China next president Xi Jinping

China's Singing Future First Lady

BEIJING, (AFP) - For the first time since Mao, China's next leader will have a wife who is famous in her own right: Xi Jinping will ascend to power with hugely popular singer Peng Liyuan at his side.

The soprano, who holds the rank of general in the army, is renowned from Shanghai to Urumqi and starred for 25 years in CCTV state television's Lunar New Year gala, a broadcast watched by hundreds of millions of viewers.

Her husband is widely expected to become China's president next year and will be under the spotlight at the annual set-piece session of the country's parliament, which opened Monday.

Since the fall of Jiang Qing, Mao Zedong's last wife and the widely-loathed leading member of the Gang of Four blamed for the worst excesses of the Cultural Revolution, Chinese leaders' spouses have been expected to stay in the shadows.

''After the Mao era, the wives of senior Chinese leaders stopped appearing in public,'' said Zhang Yaojie, a researcher at the National Academy of Arts.

But Peng will be a deeply atypical first lady. In videos seen on the Internet, the 49-year-old seizes the limelight with her high cheekbones, thick jet-black hair, and radiant smile.

Her costumes range from military uniform to richly embroidered ethnic dress, and her repertoire includes syrupy melodies and folk songs whose lyrics have been altered to glorify the Communist Party.

Apparently in perfect harmony with her husband, a Party ''princeling'' with strong military links, her ver-sion of one traditional Tibetan tune describes the People's Liberation Army (PLA) as ''the saving star of the Communist Party''.

Peng, who comes from an area in the eastern province of Shandong known for its peonies and was nicknamed the ''Peony Fairy'' by her admirers, joined the army at the age of 18.

A semi-official biography posted on Chinese web portals tells how she began as an ordinary soldier, but began performing at PLA shows to boost troop morale.

In the 1980s she was one of the first people to take a master of arts in folk music in China. Her professor has spoken of her dedication to her studies.

Peng has performed in 50 countries and won many awards, but it was the Lunar New Year gala that propelled her to stardom.

When she finally retired from the television show in 2008, some speculated that it was to avoid overshadow-ing her husband, who was then far less well-known than her but had just joined the Politburo Standing Committee, the party's highest-ranking body.

''As an artist, she may suffer, in the way that Carla Bruni has a bit,'' said Michel Bonnin, director of the Franco-Chinese Centre at Tsinghua University, referring to the former model and singer who married French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

But Peng can help Xi ''to have a less dull image than Chinese politicians usually do,'' Bonnin added.

In interviews with Chinese media, Peng heaps praise on the ''ideal husband'' she married 25 years ago, and with whom she has a daughter, now a student at Harvard.

''He is simple and honest, but very thoughtful,'' Peng told the China News Weekly, adding that he has told her: ''In less than 40 minutes after I met you, I knew you would be my wife.''

But Peng's parents were not keen to see their daughter marry such a senior figure, fearing she would not be treated well because of her humble origins.

''He treats me like a little sister. Jinping is always busy. He is concerned about thousands of households, without thinking of himself,'' she said on the government site China.org.cn.

''When he is at home, I cook the dishes he likes to help him relax.''

Peng has been keen to convey a homespun image, telling the People's Daily's Huanqiu Renwu magazine she has simple tastes, enjoying ''going to the market by bicycle and bargaining with vendors''.

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Learn to ‘sow to reap’

TRANSFORMATION is the catchword in schools nowadays. Every headmaster and principal seems to be enthusiastically talking about transformational change.

They aspire to see their schools attain better grades and higher rankings in public examinations, gain more medals and awards in sports and co-curricular activities, and own a well disciplined student populace.

All these are very well and good. The Education Ministry deserves commendations for having thus inspired the schools.

While the objectives for school improvement and advancement are noble, the same nevertheless cannot be said of the means and ways by which some school heads use to arrive at them.

To achieve higher and more, some heads think it right to just do more and more of what they have been doing all along.

So, to secure more and better grades, they direct more/extra holiday classes, more workbook exercises/homework, more trial exams/tests, more scores/exam analyses, more motivational seminars/workshops, and etc.

To gain more and greater sporting medals, awards and honours, they want to see more training/practice sessions, more trial runs, more friendly matches and more competitions.

To improve discipline, they want school rules and regulations more stringently followed and enforced. And, if the need arises, new rules and regulations are introduced and implemented. More teacher “power” is also deployed to catch and punish the culprits.

This “doing more of the same” approach seems to be the understanding of these heads and their application of transformational change. While their putting in more efforts does drive results upwards to a certain extent, their advocacy of the “doing more of the same” culture has certainly driven their charges up the wall.

Doing more of the same, even more efficiently, is merely managing a cause. Schools will go forth all right, but very much stereotypically. It is not transformed. It experiences no innovation, no creativity, no paradigm shift; it is, in fact, still in the same old band of performance.

To execute transformation, school heads must play the role of both manager and leader. It is not just about managing efficiently; it is more about leading effectively.

School heads must come out of their comfort zone of doing the same old and routine things right, even if it is with greater intensity and frequency.

They must begin to think of new, innovative and creative approaches to doing the right things. It’s then and only then that their schools will truly move forward, reach new heights and acquire a new, more enriching learning culture.

I have seen schools that had gone all-out to achieve better grades in exams using the “doing more of the same” approach, having their results moved up by a certain percentage point for a year or two, and then dropping again in the following year(s).

The results behaved like a yo-yo within a fixed range of percentages. These schools were not really out of the deep, so to say. The year’s results depend very much on the available crop, with the schools’ efforts making an insignificant difference.

Instead of just focusing on teaching students how to study to get better grades in exams, school heads should encourage their teachers to impart upon students the importance and the know-how of learning effectively and efficiently.

I always believe that when a child wants to learn, his/her grades will take care of themselves. Of course, it is more difficult to teach learning for the sake of acquiring knowledge than to teach studying for the sake of scoring in exams. Here indeed lies the essence and the challenges of transformational change.

There is much truth in the cultural proverb “Sow a thought, reap an act. Sow an act, reap a habit. Sow a habit, reap a character”.

School heads need to initiate activities that will facilitate sowing. It is wrong simply to prioritise and busy themselves with drafting and establishing new rules and regulations to restrict and constrict further, and to catch and punish undisciplined students.

A mind that is made to conform by “laws, rules and regulations” is not going to be transformed. “Sowing to reap” is a leader’s calling; the essence and challenge of transformational change.

Transformation is not about doing more of the same.

Some school heads need to reassess and reorganise their approach to transforming their schools lest their teachers be unjustly and overly burdened.

LIONG KAM CHONG, Seremban.

Malaysians, work hard to succeed !

Hard work, long hours and a focused approach ensure the country and rakyat succeed

I AM an amateur musician and I play the guitar and I sing. I like all types of music but one that tugs at my heartstrings is the blues.

We all know what the blues are: simple, direct, strongly expressive music with a steady beat and rhythm, leaving plenty of space for singing and solo instruments. Letting it all hang loose, so to speak.

But to me singing the blues means eventually rising above the blues, even if you have to pour out all your problems and wail for a while. That's what this column is about.

I am fortunate to be involved in and driving one of the most exciting projects around. What can be more meaningful than raising incomes and the quality of life for all Malaysians, irrespective of race, creed or religion?

But as hopeful as I am that we can do this, I am not so naive that I do not know that there are many problems and obstacles to overcome before this dream becomes reality.

So I will sing the transformation blues here: I will air the problems, the big ones, which face us in our programme to transform us into a high-income nation. And then we will say what we are doing to overcome them.

Idris: ‘I like all types of music but one that tugs at my heartstrings is the blues.’ 
 

A big part of this is putting right misinformation. We will need your help as Malaysians to understand what we are trying to do and to tell us what it is that we are not doing right and what we should be doing instead. The e-mail contact is in the logo above.

We promise to read every response and if appropriate respond to some here. We ask only three things: that you are fair, reasonable and realistic.

Concept of income

The first thing I would like to explain is the concept of income, which is key to the entire concept of transforming into a high-income country. At what level of income do we become developed and achieve high income? How do we do it? How do we measure this? And can we achieve it?

A lot has been said about how we measure income and the level of income in 2020, and how we have not taken the right things into account. It's been said that we have used the wrong measures. We have not.

Intentionally, we have used globally accepted definitions and methodologies, i.e. the World Bank approach and benchmarks. Without getting too technical, we used the current definition for high-income countries in nominal terms and then using projected inflation rates, derived what it would be in US dollars in 2020.

Hence, the figure of around US$15,000 per person was arrived at RM48,000 based on a projected exchange rate of RM3.20 to the US dollar. The current rate is close to RM3 which means that if this rate prevails, the target will be lower at RM45,000. In 2009, our income, using prevailing exchange rates, was US$6,700 per capita. Yes, we have a long way to go but we are well on the way.

From here, we project the population at 2020 and multiply that by the income per capita to obtain the total income of the nation in 2020, in nominal terms.

Working backwards, we then estimate the growth rate needed to get there, again in nominal terms.

Then we take out the projected inflation rate from this figure to arrive at the real rate of income increase that we need for the nation as a whole to achieve high-income status which is on average around 6% annually, assuming all other factors hold equal.

“Real” here means the income is adjusted for inflation and reflects the actual rise in income even after taking into account price increases. The real gross national income or GNI is just the real gross domestic product plus net income from abroad.

Our methods are rigorous and our results were reviewed in January 2012 by an international accounting firm and a globally renowned panel of experts.

The latter also shared outside-in feedback and global best practices. We have no interest in deceiving anybody on how we are performing.

That is how we set the target.

Getting there

The next thing is getting there. Basically, we identify all the major projects on hand and estimate their contribution to economic and, ultimately, income growth. We don't pretend that these are accurate but they are the best estimates we can get. No country in the world can accurately measure and predict with precision its economic growth.

These estimates are also targets. If we can meet them year-to-year, we are on our way. If we run short we have to do more, and if we are doing very well we can lift up our hands to the heavens and give our thanks to God. It's a moving, dynamic target and it changes all the time.

Yes, there are risks to the achievements we have set out for ourselves. What worthwhile endeavour comes without risks? The world economic growth can remain low for longer than expected. We are not completely insulated from the world. The private sector may not invest as much as it should.

But what we are doing at the Performance Management and Delivery Unit is to get the Government to facilitate all efforts to increase incomes, no matter by whom. And we will monitor to see if we are on track and recommend the appropriate changes to put us back on track, as and when necessary.

According to Tan Sri Nor Mohamed Yakcop, Minister in the Prime Minister's Department: “At the end of last year, annual per capita income in Malaysia rose to more than RM29,000 (US$9,400).”

At current prices, this is 12% growth compared with RM26,174 (US$7,985) in 2010 and RM23,850 (US$6,677) in 2009. This is a big improvement compared with only RM1,070 (US$347) in 1970.

In April, the Government will release a full report on the performance of Economic Transformation Programme (ETP) in 2011.

Our income growth in the last two years shows that we can achieve the targets that we have set for Malaysia as a nation. If the projects under the ETP and others come through, we will do it.

We may also see others setting up their own projects to take advantage of opportunities, and that would definitely be a bonus.

This shows that we have made good progress as a country. Under the leadership of our Prime Minister, we are on our way to transforming Malaysia to become a high income economy. Hard work, long hours and a focused approach are being put into ensuring that Malaysia and Malaysians succeed locally and globally.
Any Malaysian can join us on this journey. Simply by working harder and smarter you can contribute to increasing your employer's revenues and growing yourself, hopefully.

That way, all of us Malaysians can move forward together to achieving our goal of becoming a higher income nation and creating a better life for all of us. That's what transformation is about.

Together, we can do it.

● Datuk Seri Idris Jala is Minister in the Prime Minister's Department and CEO of Pemandu. Feedback and comments are most welcome.