W, meet Mr President
Secretary
General By Todd Crowell
HUA HIN, Thailand - Actually, they call
him Comrade Hu Jintao. China is, after all, a
communist country. It just doesn't like to
advertise the fact. Everyone else in the
English-speaking world refers to Hu as the
president of China, and in that capacity he is
visiting the president of the United States,
George W Bush, in Washington this week.
In
fact, it is only fairly recently that China's Mr
Big has been known by the title "president". Mao
Zedong was famously known as "Chairman Mao",
chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, I
imagine, although it is customary now to refer to
the CCP leader as its secretary general.
The next most important figure in
post-1949 China, Deng Xiaoping, never had an
official government title higher than vice
premier, which came nowhere
near conveying his power and influence.
Journalists had to invent such terms as "Paramount
Leader" or "Patriarch", titles nowhere mentioned
in China's constitution, to describe him.
China has had a president since the
communists came to power in 1949. But for most of
those years the post was a powerless sinecure for
aging party elders. In essence it still is
powerless. Hu's real authority derives from the
two other positions he holds: secretary general of
the CCP and chairman of the party's Central
Military Commission, ie commander-in-chief.
Hu's immediate predecessor, Jiang Zemin,
was the first Chinese leader to garner to himself
all three positions as head of state, head of
party and head of the army. Jiang was a
globetrotter. He loved the pomp and ceremony of
being a head of state. He thrived on trooping the
line, listening to 21-gun salutes.
Jiang
even paid a state visit to Iceland, of all places.
Pity Iceland doesn't have an army, so there were
no soldiers to inspect.
I don't know if Hu
has these same personal proclivities, but he
obviously puts value in such gestures as due the
titular leader of a rising Chinese state.
Americans and Chinese argued strenuously over the
modalities of Hu's visit to Washington. The
Chinese wanted the full monty - state dinner, red
carpet, 21-gun salute. The Bush administration
balked at the state dinner but was willing to
grant the red carpet and salute.
Ever
since China emerged from its self-imposed
isolation in the 1980s, China's leaders have found
it politic to use the government title rather than
those that emphasize where their power really
lies. That's especially true now that China's
president is popping up everywhere.
Mao
Zedong never left China in his entire life except
for one visit to Moscow. Hu has been in perpetual
motion. In two months last year he visited Canada,
Mexico, New York (to address the United Nations),
London, Madrid, Pyongyang, Hanoi, Seoul and Busan.
He has addressed Australia's parliament, Vietnam's
National Assembly and South Korea's National
Assembly (where he got a standing ovation).
Deng is best known for his economic
reforms and opening of China, but he actually put
a lot of thought into political reform. Nothing as
far-reaching as democracy, of course. But he
wanted to inculcate at least a sense of term
limits and something of a normal secession.
Deng didn't want old party octogenarians
and even nonagenarians clinging to power to their
death beds, blocking the way for younger blood. He
knew what he was talking about: Deng didn't
surrender his last real power post, chairman of
the party's Central Military Commission, until a
couple years before his death at 94.
He
was not as successful in arranging for an orderly
succession as he was in opening China to the
world. His first choice as party leader, Hu
Yaobang, was removed from the post in 1987 as
favoring faster political changes than the elders
were willing to consider. His replacement, Zhao
Ziyang, was ousted in 1989 for supporting the
student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.
Third time lucky. Deng plucked Jiang Zemin
out of Shanghai, where Jiang had managed to keep
the Tiananmen infection from spreading, and made
him party leader. This time his decision stuck.
Jiang served as China's leader for more than a
decade, surrendering his last post, chairman of
the military commission, in 2004.
It is
perhaps too soon to be speculating about Hu's
successor (though plenty of people do). Before
becoming president, Hu served a spell as vice
president. If the presidency was an empty suit in
years past, one can imagine how inconsequential
the office of vice president was. Yet this was the
immediate stepping stone for Hu.
So is
there a pattern forming? Does one now advance
naturally from being vice president to the top
job? Certainly the current incumbent, Zeng
Qinghong, is no cipher. He was considered a rival
to Hu, and there are some China-watchers who still
think he is a rival, though the two seem to
cooperate well.
But at 63, Zeng is a
couple of years older than Hu. If in the normal
course of events Hu stays in power for a decade or
so, Zeng will probably be too old to succeed him.
Of course, this does not preclude moving Zeng out
after a few years and moving an anointed successor
into that position. We have to wait to see how the
wheel turns.
Todd Crowell is an
Asia Times Online correspondent based in
Thailand.
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