Hu's new era: Kinder, gentler, more
relaxed By Wang Chu
HONG KONG
- It's been a little more than a month since reformist
Chinese President Hu Jintao grasped all the reins of
power - state, Communist Party and military - and
already signs are emerging of a new Hu era. While
maintaining political control, the Hu regime appears to
be kinder and gentler, more relaxed, more tolerant and
less autocratic than the previous administration. He
wants long-term stability, and not confrontation any
time soon in the Taiwan Strait. And stand by for some
housecleaning.
Contrary to the policies under
Jiang Zemin's leadership - he was Hu's predecessor,
reluctant to bow out and still known as the old "phantom
regent" - Beijing has softened its stance over the
Taiwan-unification issue and the leadership has proposed
not trying to solve the Taiwan issue with a pressing and
rigid timetable. An informed source told Asia Times
Online that central departments responsible for Taiwan
affairs convened a major policy meeting soon after the
decisive party plenum ended on September 19. That was
the session when Jiang officially stepped down, giving
up his chairmanship of the party's Central Military
Commission.
The meeting on Taiwan put forward
new guidelines, namely that authorities must stay
prepared for the possible breakout of conflict but
refrain from radical or forced reunification efforts
regardless of the cross-strait situation. At the same
time, Oriental Outlook, a well-regarded magazine
sponsored by the official Xinhua News Agency, published
an article in its recent issue featuring two Taiwan
experts sharing the same viewpoint - slow, steady
progress and no confrontations.
In contrast,
former president Jiang repeatedly had stressed hasty
efforts to solve the Taiwan issue. As early as December
1999, after the handover of Macau to mainland China,
Jiang vowed that the Taiwan issue should not be
indefinitely protracted and he pressed for a timetable.
According to a July report by Wen Wei Po, Beijing's
official mouthpiece in Hong Kong, a meeting of the
Central Military Commission then steered by Jiang
emphasized the need for a timeline in dealing with
Taiwan. Beijing considers it a renegade province, but
most Taiwanese identify strongly with Taiwan, not China,
and see themselves as an independent, or at least
self-governing, entity.
Participants at the
major post-plenum meeting on Taiwan said that in the
next two decades, the biggest threat to China's security
would be Taiwan. Some even averred that Beijing set a
deadline for reunification with Taiwan, either in a
peaceful or military way, for the year 2020. Political
observers, however, suggest that Hu has nonetheless
moderated Jiang's policy and made cross-strait stability
the top priority.
Another sign of the end of the
Jiang era is that Hu has given personal assurances that
non-governmental organizations (NGOs) should play a
larger role in social development, crucial in a country
as vast as China with limited government resources. This
is seen as an important signal that he is willing to
relax control. Analysts said that he supported NGOs last
Wednesday in a meeting with representatives from China's
Red Cross. Hu's statement is interpreted as a tendency
to relax some central control and grant more freedom and
flexibility to these organizations, helping them make
more contributions in areas that are beyond the grasp of
the Communist Party or the government.
Hu was
accompanied to the Red Cross reception by the
influential Wu Yi, known as China's "Iron Lady", who
also is a vice premier and a member of the Central
Politburo, the party's key policymaking body. Her
presence was interpreted as an endorsement of Hu's call
for greater NGO freedom and relaxed government control.
In fact, Wu herself has been introducing more NGOs into
the work of helping the disadvantaged, including AIDS
patients, since she took charge of public-health affairs
last year.
In comparison, Jiang always had
emphasized that the Communist Party should ensure its
absolute control of the state and that NGOs should be
strictly controlled. In fact, all NGOs had to register
with the authorities and they were strictly administered
by the party in Jiang's era. That state of affairs is
changing.
Another sign of changing times is the
political reshuffling of important positions and filling
them with those who share Hu's reformist views. This too
is seen as proof of Hu's domination of Beijing's
political scene. A key example: the authorities in
northeastern China's Jilin province recently announced a
reshuffle - incumbent Governor Hong Hu will be replaced
by one of three candidates, one of the contenders being
Wang Min, who is the former party head of the developed
industrial city Suzhou in eastern China. Given that an
officer in Wang's capacity is seldom promoted to the
governorship, China experts consider the reshuffle the
prelude to a housecleaning movement by Hu to reorganize
the leadership in some regions to address provincialism
and bad governance.
Jilin's Hong Hu could be the
first casualty. The son of an influential party elder,
Hong suffered a fall in popularity last year after a
major fire that left more than a hundred dead and
injured. Further, during Hong's tenure, Jilin has been
plagued by stagnant economy due to a large number of
non-performing, money-losing state-owned enterprises.
It is noteworthy that all of the three possible
replacement candidates were Suzhou's municipal party
heads for three successive terms. Li Yuanchao, the
incumbent provincial party head of Jiangsu province
governing Suzhou, was a colleague of Hu Jintao in the
central Communist Youth League in 1980s. The background
of the candidates and links to President Hu leads
political observers to believe that Hu is trying to
expand his influence to Jilin.
Simply put, the
biggest difference between Jiang's old and Hu's new
leadership is that Jiang vowed to rule with an iron
fist, while Hu enshrines the more common touch and urges
leaders to listen to and learn from the people. Jiang's
mindset and approach to social control were similar to
those of old bureaucrats in the former Soviet Union
where government/party control prevailed in every aspect
of life - politics, economy, culture and daily life at
the grassroots level. As in the Soviet Union, the Jiang
government even tried to determine and regulate what the
normal and acceptable lifestyle should be.
Hu's
governance style is characterized by the government's
looser control of the state and greater leeway to
trusted, reform-minded colleagues. The government
retains firm control of political affairs but not of all
aspects of life. In addition, diversity of lifestyle is
tolerated by the Hu's Communist Party regime.
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