THERE IS NO REPRESENTATION WITHOUT TAXATION:

It's the latest baby step toward tax reform, to which Beijing has aspired for years without much success. With one-party control and little overt political opposition, using the tax code to advance social policy wouldn't seem so difficult. But the Communist Party is sensitive to public opinion, particularly among the middle class, and taxes are as politically fraught in China as they are anywhere else. 

In 2013, China's top governmental body called for broader property taxes and moving toward an inheritance tax, according to an official notice. Months of internal debate downgraded the recommendations from guidelines to "opinions." To further weaken their impact, the State Council released them right before the country's busiest holiday. 

"All the sharp corners were smoothed out," said Jia Kang, director of the China Academy of New Supply-side Economics and the former head of the Ministry of Finance-backed Chinese Academy of Fiscal Sciences which was a party to the talks.

Beijing's latest move on property taxes shows how much Xi relies on the support of China's massive middle class, which in turn has gotten richer under his leadership.

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