Special to WorldTribune.com

By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com

After taking tough measures to silence dissidents and clamp down on the Internet, President Xi Jinping was supposed to have given his blessings to economic reform in the just-ended Central Economic Work Meeting, whose function is to provide a road map for financial and fiscal policies for 2014.

While President and commander-in-chief Xi has repeatedly tried to pass himself off as a devoted disciple of Deng Xiaoping, he is much more interested in stability than market-oriented economic reforms.

The growth rate for 2014 has been set at 7.5 percent — the same clip as this year. This is despite suggestion by even government economists that the less ambitious growth rate of 7 percent is more suitable for China.

While three decades of obsession with rapid GDP expansion has produced the “China miracle,” the Chinese government has ruined the environment and run up huge debts.

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  Central Economic Work Meeting, Deng Xiaoping, In year one of his new era, pushes aggressive growth, Xi Jinping, Xi Jinping gives lip service to reform