NANJING - When Caabi el-Yachroutu
Mohamed, vice president of Comoros, decided to join
officials from 19 African states to attend a
four-day symposium on population and development
jointly organized by the Organization of African
States and China, he most likely was not aware he
was about to meet China's future premier.
The workshop was held last October in the
scenic city of Suzhou, half an hour by train from
Shanghai, the most thriving city in China.
However, it was not for its proximity to the mega-
metropolis that Suzhou was
chosen. The venue allowed Li Yuanchao, Communist
Party secretary of Jiangsu province, to which
Suzhou belongs, to deliver a keynote address.
Li, 55, is not the senior-most nor the
highest-graded among provincial party bosses of
China. Yet he was given the task to talk to senior
African officials on what Beijing means by
building a harmonious society in China, and in
particular, on his practical experiences in
Jiangsu.
This honor is the strongest sign
yet for the cadre tipped to become premier in
2013. Seven years sounds a long time, but in
China, with its emphasis on planning, it's the
right time to work on a candidate list.
On
paper, Li already has remarkable merits: he is one
of the very few PhDs of his rank, a former vice
minister of culture and a former secretary of the
Communist Youth League, the power base of the
current president of the state, Hu Jintao.
But there has been no lack of good omens
over the past three years.
No other
province in the country has been as frequently
visited by the incumbent premier as Jiangsu. Since
his assumption of office in 2003, Wen Jiabao has
made a visit every year to Li's domain. And Hu
dropped by in 2004 and 2005. The year 2004 was
most extraordinary as six out of nine of the
ruling Communist Party politburo standing
committee members called on the province, denoting
its importance.
Jiangsu is far ahead of
its peers in introducing political reform
measures, including opening some of its
departmental grade staff positions to public
recruitment, inviting more than 10,000 residents
to a public appraisal of the party and the
government's performance, and enacting a law to
empower the news media to monitor public bodies
and officials.
The last item is
still in progress. In the form of legislation
to prevent public-office crimes, the law is
scheduled for final approval next month and will bestow an
unconditional task on the media to monitor public
bodies and officials. People who attempt to hinder
the media in discharging this duty will be subject
to reprimands or even prosecution.
The
first piece of local legislation to prevent
public-office crimes was born in Jiangsu in 2001,
in the city of Wuxi. Nowadays, a few provinces
have already surpassed this in enacting similar
laws at the provincial level. Yet, when Jiangsu
tabled its legislation last April, it immediately
caught the eye because of its mandate for the
media.
Legislation in some other
localities also contained clauses calling on the
media to monitor public bodies and officials, but
none are as blanket as the one in Jiangsu.
In fact, Jiangsu is a good arena in which
to involve the media in monitoring officials.
Outside the capital, Beijing, there are only two
non-business newspapers as subsidiaries of
state-level media outlets. The Jiangnan Shibao, or
South of Yangtse River Times, is owned by the
People's Daily, the official paper of the Central
Committee of the ruling Chinese Communist Party
(CCP). Xiandai Kuaibao, or Modern Express, is
under Xinhua, China's official news agency. Both
are based in Nanjing, the provincial capital.
According to rules designed by the CCP,
all media outlets are subordinate to the
propaganda departments of the party. Most often
when officials are aggrieved by reporters prying
into their possible misconduct, these people will
complain to the relevant propaganda departments.
In Nanjing, it is arguable, however, whether the
provincial propaganda department can govern over
either Jiangnan Shibao or Xiandai Kuibao, as both
have their own ministerial-ranking bosses.
On Chinese New Year's Eve of 2003, Li
visited peasants in one of the most backward
villages on Nanjing's outskirts. Few of his peers
did the same that year, as appeasing city
entrepreneurs during festivals was the normal
agenda then. Li has been visiting the same village
since then as a Chinese New Year ritual, to
witness with his own eyes the progress of rural
improvement which he initiated.
From 2004
onwards, Hu and Wen both elected to spend some
Chinese New Year days with rural peasants, and
then provincial bosses started to follow suit. Li
has demonstrated his advanced acumen in being the
earliest bird in adapting to the fashions of the
central leadership. Such a quality was always a
big plus for mandarins in the 3,000 years of
dynastic China. It is by no means dated in the
modern republic.
Jiangsu's immediate task
is to become the forerunner province in building a
well-off society in an all-round way for its 74
million population by 2007. When that happens, it
will lord it over all other provincial regions,
including economic heavyweights Shanghai and
Guangdong.
It could also be the time for
Li to be elevated to the CCP politburo, and then
to a vice premiership, paving the way for the top
position in 2013.
Wong Kwok Wah
is a former Editor of the ATol Chinese website.
MONDAY: The darker side of
Li Yuanchao
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