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WUKONG Grooming China's future
leaders By Wu Zhong, China
Editor
HONG KONG - Shortly after the
conclusion of the annual session of the National
People's Congress (NPC) in mid-March, the Chinese
Communist Party (CCP) has begun a new round of
reshuffling its provincial leaders as a
preparation for the convention of its 17th
National Congress this autumn.
So far this
year, the CCP has announced the appointment of new
party secretaries for two provincial-level
municipalities and four
provinces. They are the
municipalities of Shanghai and Tianjin and the
provinces of Shandong, Zhejiang, Shaanxi and
Qinghai. With the appointment of new party chiefs,
these six provinces will soon have their new party
committees.
According to the reshuffle
plan, all of the 31 mainland provinces will have
new party committees and new party secretaries by
end of June. All new provincial party secretaries
will automatically become deputies to the 17th
Party Congress and candidates for the new Central
Committee.
By the end of last year, 14
provinces had completed the reshuffle. The
remaining 17 provinces, including the above-said
six, will need to complete the reshuffle in the
second quarter. New party secretaries for 11 of
the remaining 17 provinces have yet to be
announced.
Of the six newly appointed
provincial party chiefs, three are in their 50s
and therefore could be regarded as the "fifth
generation" cadres who may move up the official
hierarchy in future. And it is almost certain that
the new party secretaries of Shanghai and Tianjin,
Xi Jinping and Zhang Gaoli, will become members of
the new Politburo in the 17th Party Congress,
following the adopted practice.
The most
eye-catching is the appointment of Xi Jinping, 54,
as the party secretary of Shanghai municipality,
which has surprised many political watchers inside
and outside the country. Before obtaining his the
new job, Xi was the party chief of Zhenjiang
province.
In late September, the CCP
leadership removed Shanghai party chief Chen
Liangyu on corruption charges and appointed
Shanghai Mayor Hang Zhen, 52, as acting party
secretary. But Hang was in that post only for half
a year, and Xi's appointment dashed Hang's hope to
sit in the new Politburo. This is a rare case in
which the acting party chief was not formally
appointed to the post.
Given his age, Hang
used to be thought to have a bright political
future. The latest decision of the CCP power
center therefore has sparked speculation that Hang
might also be implicated in Chen's corruption
case. But analysts in Beijing say Hang could never
have had a chance because the power center has
always wanted someone from outside Shanghai to
take the post after Chen's removal in the hope of
shaking up the power base of the so-called
Shanghai Clique.
Xi's new appointment came
as a big surprise partly because he had never been
predicted as a candidate for the job by pundits of
Chinese politics. Instead, several others,
particularly Liu Yandong, director of the CCP's
Central Department of United Front Work and vice
chairwoman of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC), had been
short-listed.
In fact, a Shanghai deputy
to the CPPCC said during the annual sessions of
the NPC and CPPCC in the first half of March,
"There was no sign about Xi's Shanghai
appointment." Even Xi himself, after taking his
new office, said he was informed of his new
appointment "on very short notice".
And
given the importance of Shanghai, it had been
expected that President Hu Jintao would have
appointed one of his so-called tuanpai, or
faction of the Chinese Communist Youth League
(CYL), to take over the job.
Xi has never
worked as a CYL official. Instead he started his
political career as a county party official in
Hebei province. Just about the only thing in Xi's
life that could be related to Hu is the fact that
they both graduated from the privileged Tsinghua
University, majoring in engineering.
In
fact, Xi could be regarded as a princeling, or
offspring of senior party officials. His father Xi
Zhongxun was a communist veteran who was purged by
Mao Zedong in the late 1950s but made his comeback
after Mao's death in 1976. Xi is also well known
because his wife Peng Liyuan is a popular singer.
Because of his background, Xi is widely
considered a protege of Vice President Zeng
Qinghong, who is regarded as leader of the
princelings. Thus Xi's new appointment is seen by
overseas China watchers as a victory of Zeng over
Hu.
For instance, Poon Siu-tao wrote on
the Chinese version of Asia
Times Online: "It seems that Hu cannot yet
completely dominate the reshuffle of senior
officials ... It becomes increasingly obvious that
Zeng Qinghong has gotten off Jiang Zemin's leash
to go his own way ... and Zeng has replaced Jiang
to become the most powerful challenger to the CYL
faction." In Poon's view, in addition to Xi, Zhang
Gaoli and the new Zhejiang provincial party chief
Zhao Hongzhu are also Zeng's proteges.
Analysts in Beijing say that indeed the
latest reshuffle could be seen as a result of a
compromise among factions within the party. But
politics is an art of compromise. And Hu
now is the supreme leader instead of only heading
one faction. As such, he must carefully seek a
power balance rather than cater to the interests
of one faction alone.
In the previous
reshuffles, tuanpai officials have taken
over several provinces. For example, Li Keqing is
Liaoning provincial party chief. Li Yuanchao is
Jiangsu provincial party secretary. Wang Yang is
party secretary of Chongqing municipality. Zhou
Qiang is governor of Hunan province. "It would
have been rather odd had all provincial posts be
taken by the CYL faction," an analyst said.
From another perspective, it could be said
that Hu and Zeng have formed a cooperative
partnership. As reported earlier, Zeng is
now
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