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China's changing of the
guard
By Xu Yufang
BEIJING - August has dawned on
Beijing with
its usual torrid heat. It is time again for the
annual Beidaihe bathing session. But the meeting of party leaders
in Beidaihe this year, ahead of the party congress,
will be the least political in the quarter-century since
the official conclusion of the disastrous Cultural
Revolution. Senior cadres can concentrate on their
enjoyment of the waters, as everything has been tidied
up now.
Despite recent wild guesses by the
international media of possible postponement, the 16th
Congress of the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC)
has now been set for the middle of September, according
to reliable sources. Diplomatic activities have been
brushed aside during the period. The Central Wenxian
(Documents) Press and the Hongqi (Red Flag) Press are
losing no time in producing booklets relating to the
grand event. Veteran photographers of the Xinhua News
Agency, the only agent for the official photo album,
have already started shooting historic images leading up
to the event.
The main principles and directions
have now been fixed. The first peaceful change of the
top guards of the CPC in its 81-year history will take
place. Minor amendments will be introduced to the
party's constitution. The rest will consist of
relatively trivial matters.
Jiang Zemin, the
incumbent uppermost leader, will hand over the party
reins, including both the post of general secretary and
the nominal chairmanship of the Central Military
Commission, to Hu Jintao, at present the No 5 gentleman
on the hierarchy list. Hu, now 59, was hand-picked in
1992 by the late patriarch Deng Xiaoping for grooming to
succeed Jiang.
In the present run-up to the
congress, cadres across the country are being told to
study two all-important speeches: Jiang's May 31 address
to the Central Party School and Hu's July 22
teleconference address on the appointment of cadres.
Jiang's address was described by those who were present
as a farewell message, while Hu's was sort of an
inaugural sermon.
On both occasions, Hu
demonstrated sufficiently that he had come out of
Jiang's shadow.
Jiang made a thorough
recollection of the 13 years of his stewardship, with
the emphasis on the need of new ideas and methods to
cope with the changing world. He also called upon all
cadres to unite and put aside their own preferences in
front of interest of the whole. Hu, who was presiding
over that session which summoned all provincial leaders
to the capital city, highlighted only the need to unite
together in his concluding remarks.
On July 22,
Hu detailed his concepts on the appointment of cadres,
without making reference to Jiang's last important
speech. The person presiding then was Zeng Qinghong,
Jiang's principal protege and a candidate to the
standing committee of the creme de la creme
Politburo. He cited Jiang's May speech in his concluding
notes.
The obvious difference in the gestures of
the two key persons of the coming collective leadership
was literally dumbfounding. Provincial party bosses, who
were all required to sit before the television and
listen to the message from Beijing, did not know how to
respond. Guangdong's Li Changchun, another candidate for
the Politburo standing committee, was in better command
of the realpolitik and made possibly the only
substantive responding statement among his peers. He did
not try to associate Hu's speech directly with Jiang's
former addresses. Instead, he said the rules Hu was
promulgating embodied the spirits of Jiang's three most
important addresses since July 1, 2001, and "also the
May 31 important speech". It was a state-of-the-art
choice of words by a small player caught between two
heavyweight boxers.
Hu's extraordinary status
was further exhibited in the evening of July 31 on the
national television.
The most important headline
item for that evening's television news was the banquet
celebrating the 75th anniversary of the founding of the
People's Liberation Army. Each of the seven members of
the Politburo standing committee was given single
close-up shots several times in the footage. Jiang, the
sitting No 1 man, was as usual given 10 seconds. Other
members got their customary five seconds. Hu, although
still ranking fifth, got seven seconds, which was enough
to distinguish him from others.
On the same day,
the military published an article praising Jiang's
contribution to the military during his 13-year rein.
Many overseas observers took it as the military's
support for Jiang to hang on to his nominal military
role. But knowledgeable insiders said that article meant
to serve as a final tribute to a chairman about to step
down.
There has never yet been a peaceful and
constitution-abiding transfer of power of the top
echelon in CPC's 81-year history. Topmost leaders either
died or got booted out of their jobs and then lived in
disgrace in order to discharge their powers. Next month,
history will turn a new page. By willingly handing over
power, Jiang will offer his most memorable contribution
to the development of the party, much more than any of
his semantic inventions such as "Three Talks" or "Three
Represents".
(©2002 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd.
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