In a country where the division between rural and urban populations — and the disparity of their wealth — is as stark as it is, the failure to produce a public statement on such highly touted reforms is highly conspicuous.

It has been 30 years since China began its monumental “opening-up” policy in 1978 and unleashed the productive forces that catapulted it out of totalitarian isolation and into the ranks of the great world powers. Chinese President Hu Jintao has promoted the coming land reforms, his pet project, as the most radical of changes in land policy since then. State media have hyped and heralded the changes for weeks — trumpeting the symbolic meaning of Hu’s visit to the small village of Xiaogang where the early reformers from 1978 lived — and have followed the comments of every scholar and analyst attempting to predict what the new policies might look like.

But when the Third Plenary Session of the 17th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China drew to a conclusion Oct. 12, the party issued forth a vague promise to double the income of all rural residents by 2020. No relaxation of land transfers or property leases, and no major projects to boost development in underdeveloped areas. Nothing grand, and nothing historic.

With each day that passes, the absence of the new policies becomes more conspicuous. There are essentially two possibilities for this absence. First, the party might have decided, with Hu’s permission, to hold off on reform due to the rapid deterioration of the global financial situation. It is understandable that Beijing would have misgivings about making wonderful promises, in the face of a global recession, to devote public funds toward renovations that cannot easily be reversed. Though China is not at all short on liquidity, it needs to have every store of cash at its disposal. If the recession in the United States and Europe is deep and prolonged, it will need to subsidize its most profitable industries in the coastal area, as exports and foreign investment lag. Moreover, there is fear that loosened land leases would drive poor farmers into urban areas to find work, or lead to government exploitation and stir up a popular backlash. While Beijing has no problem m aking promises it cannot keep, specific promises will generate more disappointment than vague ones about rural happiness and an end to poverty.

The second reason for the delay on reform also stems from the financial crisis, though it suggests that the central committee is acting not out of precaution but out of confusion. There is a chance that the party leadership could have fallen out over Hu’s reforms, with one faction urging delay or even attempting to veto them. This possibility would suggest that divisions within the party have gotten deeper as members grow apprehensive about China’s economic prospects. Because the land reforms were meant to appease Hu’s power base, this option could suggest a direct blow within the party to Hu’s hold on power.

Either way, the outcome will be bad for China. The missing communique reveals that the West’s financial crisis is reverberating in the highest echelons of the Chinese government, derailing, if only momentarily, its plans to stabilize the most vulnerable (and potentially most restive) sections of its society. If the rural reforms are never announced, Hu’s credibility will suffer. But even if the reforms appear tomorrow, the postponement itself is significant, revealing the hesitancies and internal divisions within Beijing that will weaken it as it prepares to slog through the next global recession.