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2 Rumors of a split in China's
elite By David Fullbrook
In China, what promises to be a year
rich in rumor has begun with a whopper: Vice
President Zeng Qinghong will take over the
presidency, one of three top posts currently held
by Hu Jintao, the country's No 1 leader. That may
be signaled when deputies of the Chinese Communist
Party (CCP) get together in Beijing this autumn
for its biggest meeting since 2002.
Most
rumors in the run-up to big party meetings in
Beijing, such as this year's 17th National
Congress of the party and the first plenum of the
17th Central Committee, turn out to be hot air.
There is little reason to suspect that the rumor
about Hu being
urged to cede his presidency
to Zeng will be any different.
For one
thing, Zeng is two years short of 70, the age at
which Chinese politicians have been retiring since
the mid-1990s, with the exception of Jiang Zemin,
leader from 1992 until 2002, when Hu took over.
For another, Jiang set the pattern of China's main
leader simultaneously holding the posts of general
secretary of the CCP, chairman of the Central
Military Commission (CMC), and head of the state
as president.
These two norms are part of
the party's ongoing efforts to institute smooth,
orderly transfers of power from one generation to
the next and add a little more professionalism to
party careers. Though exceptions could plausibly
be made for Zeng, a respected and long-serving
cadre, they might not augur well for the future of
norms that only began to take root in the
mid-1990s.
Moreover, in the current
political structure in China, the state presidency
is an honorary or nominal post with little real
power. It puzzles political analysts in Beijing
that if Zeng were capable of challenging Hu to
force him to cede the presidency, why he would not
have demanded a more powerful post such as deputy
party chief or CMC vice chairman.
"If Hu
did give up the presidency, it would only come in
the event China was already facing some kind of
political or economic crisis," said Eric Harwit, a
China specialist at the University of Hawaii.
Talk of sharing the presidency is a
reminder that some dispute the wisdom of putting
three top posts in one pair of hands, a practice
that began with Jiang. Sharing the posts might
avoid a dangerous concentration of power and ease
disaffection within the party.
"This, I
believe, would be step toward greater stability
and political maturity," said Harwit. "By
empowering more individuals with leadership
responsibility, it would further the goal of
establishing norms for more predictable transfers
of power among experienced officials."
On
the other hand, China's leader might need such
power to pull together a country rent by huge
forces of change and provinces increasingly
inclined to go their own way, picking and choosing
which edicts from Beijing to follow.
Hu is
not the only leader to combine several roles. US
President George W Bush is also head of
government, commander-in-chief, and head of state.
Of course, Bush faces the checks and balances of
Congress and open elections. Hu does not, although
it must be said that China's Parliament is far
more critical than it once was. But in the absence
of a legislature with real powers, open rule, and
free and fair elections, dividing the roles might
not be such a bad idea.
Still, while the
idea itself has little credibility, that such an
outlandish rumor can bob up is a consequence of
the mystery over who will succeed Hu. That no
clear successor has yet emerged for Hu might
signal that disagreement dogs the upper echelons.
Deng Xiaoping, father of China's reform,
marked Hu as Jiang's successor around 1992. So far
Hu has given no clear indication as to who will
fill his shoes, though rumor has it that Li
Keqing, currently Liaoning provincial party chief,
is likely to be Hu's choice. As vice president,
Zeng would seem to be on the right track were it
not for his age.
That his name should
figure in these loud whispers is a sign of the
politicking behind the party's inscrutable public
face of unity as candidates for Hu's job and seats
coming vacant on the Politburo this year try to
build support.
The Zeng rumor might have
stemmed from the fact that he has been considered
the most senior serving representative of the
Shanghai clique, supported by Jiang, the former
leader. It dominated the party with pro-capital,
pro-coastal policies that were at the heart of
China's domestic agenda from 1978 until 2002, when
the leadership passed to Hu.
Zeng
reportedly supported Hu's purge of Shanghai Party
boss Chen Liangyu for the purity and unity of the
party and thus tactically became allied with Hu.
Political analysts therefore say it is likely that
the rumor about Hu being urged to cede his
presidency to Zeng was deliberately spread by
members of the
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