Hu Chunhua has been appointed secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), replacing Wang Yang, the CPC Central Committee announced Tuesday.

Wang Jun will replace Hu as secretary of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Regional Committee of the CPC, according to the announcement.

Hu, born in April 1963, is currently a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. Wang Yang is also a Political Bureau member.

Hu previously served as deputy secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee of the CPC, first secretary of the Secretariat of the Communist Youth League of China Central Committee and governor of north China’s Hebei Province.

At the South China Morning Post, Mimi Lau described a range of views on Hu’s appointment and prospects:

Liu Kaiming, director of the Institute of Contemporary Observation, a labour rights NGO in Shenzhen, said Hu lacked the track record of outstanding political achievements necessary to impress Guangdong officials.

“After spending extensive time in remote inland areas, Hu might find it hard to fit in at first in Guangdong, especially when dealing with vested interests,” Liu said. “I’m not very sure about officials from remote regions because they often appear very conservative and arrogant, but Hu might be different because he’s young.”

[…] Dr Peng Peng, a researcher with the Guangzhou Academy of Social Sciences, said Hu would have to hunker down after arriving in Guangdong because it was unlike any other mainland region.

“The press here is outspoken and the public can often complain directly to leaders,” Peng said. “In order to do a good job in Guangdong, Hu needs to be even more open-minded than Wang Yang.

“Wang Yang laid a solid foundation. Hu is much younger than Wang. I’m guessing Hu is more likely to flow with the open atmosphere in Guangdong.”

But at The Diplomat, David Cohen sounded a cautious note on the prospects for bold reform:

A Guangdong posting will give “Little Hu” a chance to burnish his reformist credentials, like Wang Yang before him. If Xi follows through on his talk of reform, that may prove to be a valuable skill. Guangdong is China’s most liberal province and frequently given to experimentation — if Xi is looking for models for national reform the leader of Guangdong may get some chances to influence the direction of national policy with some inventive provincial initiatives, such as Wang Yang’s much-ballyhooed “Wukan model.”

This trend should also give us some pause before rooting for Wang or Hu as reformers — neither of their records shows particularly bold action before traveling to Guangdong, so to some extent Wang’s liberal policies in the southern province may simply reflect institutional momentum. In fact, besides his time in Tibet, Little Hu initiated a harsh crackdown at the first signs of protests in Inner Mongolia in the spring of 2011. Some felt Hu had overreacted but he did not shirk from his decision, recently telling the Financial Times, “When we deal with mass incidents, there is no question we will take compulsory measures . . . We will be tough when we need to be tough, and we will be soft when we need to be soft.”

Reuters’ Sui-Lee Wee outlined Hu’s earlier career:

In Inner Mongolia, Hu Chunhua, also known as “Little Hu”, has been referred to as a future president. While there, Hu Chunhua oversaw rapid economic growth and dealt successfully with protests last year by ethnic Mongols.

Hu Chunhua came to Inner Mongolia following a brief stint in Hebei, the arid province which surrounds Beijing, where he was rapidly moved after a scandal over tainted milk in which at least six children died and thousands became ill.

Hu Chunhua remains something of an enigma, even in China. He has given few clues about his deeper policy beliefs. One of the best known things about him is that he does not appear to dye his hair jet black like many politicians.

In meetings with the public, Hu Chunhua comes across as low key and self effacing, in line with an image of a loyal, humble Communist Party member. People who have met him describe him as relaxed, easy-going and spontaneous, unlike stiffer party leaders.

Hu and newly appointed Chongqing Party chief Sun Zhengcai were both elevated to the Politburo last month, and are likely to rise further to the Politburo Standing Committee in 2017 and the presidency and premiership in 2022. (See Cheng Li’s profiles of the two men at the Brookings Institution.) None of this can be taken for granted, however: neither of their predecessors, Wang Yang and Bo Xilai, has followed the trajectory widely anticipated even at the start of this year. The Associated Press’ Didi Tang focused on Wang Yang, Guangdong’s previous Party chief, whose next assignment has not yet been revealed:

Xinhua gave no indication of Wang’s next job, but China watchers said he is likely to be named a vice premier when China’s legislature meets in the spring.

Wang, 57, is seen as a politically liberal figure. He failed to win a seat on the party’s ruling seven-member Standing Committee when new leaders were installed last month but was named to the lower-ranking Politburo.

[…] Wang was seen at Xi’s side when the general secretary visited Guangdong in early December. Li Cheng, an expert on China’s elite politics at Washington-based think tank Brookings Institute, said the appearance of the two together was to show the solidarity of the party leadership, because Wang is not considered to be in Xi’s camp in China’s factional politics.

“It’s a symbol of unity,” Li said.

Hu’s replacement in Inner Mongolia, Wang Jun, has extensive experience related to the autonomous region’s heavy mining industry. Wang was appointed governor of coal-rich Shanxi province following an accident which claimed more than 270 lives at an iron mine in 2008, and had previously headed the national work safety agency. His acting replacement in Shanxi is Li Xiaopeng, son of former premier Li Peng. New Party chiefs for Zhejiang, Shaanxi and Jilin were also announced on Tuesday, with appointments for Fujian and Guangxi following the next day. The blizzard of new posts sent a “subtle message”, according to a Global Times editorial, which hailed the new provincial leaders as offering the public a fresh start.

The Party secretary is the very top leader in a province. The prominence of this position differs from Western systems and is the key to ensuring that the Party rules the country’s political system.

[…] The population and economic scale of many provinces exceed those of middle-sized countries. As China is undergoing rapid development and social conflicts, the difficulties in managing a province can be much greater than managing a global power.

[…] Party secretaries should make efforts to improve communication with the public. We are looking forward to those who are outspoken and can interact with the public.

A new political style has been showcased by the Party’s top leadership. These new provincial leaders are expected to emulate it in solving local problems.

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Post tags: Bo Xilai, Chongqing, Communist Youth League, Fujian, Guangdong, Guangxi, hebei, Hu Chunhua, Hu Jintao, Inner Mongolia, jilin, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee, Shaanxi, Shanxi, tainted food, Tibet, Wang Yang, Wukan, Xi Jinping, Zhejiang
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I wrote, not long ago, about the odd political significance of an orgy involving some obscure, photo-loving Communist Party officials. At the risk of tarting up an event that speaks for itself, I argued that it was a problem for Chinese leaders because it made clear the gap between the Party’s artificial solemnity and the unadorned reality beneath. Since then, more has happened, and here is a brief inventory: in addition to the police chief and his secrets of the Usu sisterhood, there was the recent case of Lei Zhengfu, an official in Chongqing who was abruptly dismissed after a sex video showed him with a woman a third of his age who had been hired by a local real-estate developer to blackmail public officials into giving out hugely valuable tracts of land. (As outlandish as those details were, they were surpassed by the sheer physicality of the gentleman in question, a man whose astonishing ranine qualities inspired a wave of Chinese parodies online.)

But let’s not get sidetracked. Onward with the inventory: There was Wu Hong, who turned up in pictures the other day wearing his uniform from the Urban Administrative and Law Enforcement Bureau, alongside a young woman in a hotel room who was not wearing much of any uniform at all. There was the local Shanxi official, Li Junwen, caught juggling four wives and ten kids in the land of the one-child policy. (Perhaps the one-wife policy should have been made more explicit?) Admittedly, they start to blur: Can I interest you in the executive of the state-owned oil company in pictures with a female subordinate? Or, perhaps, the vice head of the Shandong Agricultural Department found to have signed a hand-written contract with his mistress, promising to divorce his wife by December 20th?

…

The most interesting thing about the list above? Everything on there comes from the past three weeks. Not one day more. Some have argued that the surge of sex-scandal news is a sign that the new Politburo is determined to expose and crack down on the phenomenon. (Indeed, the police chief and the hapless Lei, among others, are already on their way to punishment.) Others see it as the accretion of the power of the Web. I see it as a bit of both. But exposing the epic ineptitude of public servants is not the same as rooting it out as its spiritual source: a deep-rooted culture of impunity and entitlement that has grown without boundaries for three decades. That will be a far more difficult task.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: corruption, lei zhengfu, Li Junwen, Politburo, sex scandals, Wu Hong
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In a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee on Tuesday, senior officials agreed that there should be “no welcome banner, no red carpet, no floral arrangement or grand receptions for officials’ visits.”

“The spending on officials’ trips and inspections should be kept at the minimum necessary level,” according to a statement issued after the meeting.

[…] “There should be fewer traffic controls arranged for the leaders’ security of their trips to avoid unnecessary inconvenience to the public, and inspection tours as a mere formality should be strictly prohibited,” the statement said.

Political Bureau members are not allowed to attend all sorts of ribbon-cutting or cornerstone laying ceremonies, as well as celebrations and seminars, unless they get approval from the CPC Central Committee, according to the statement.

Officials’ visits abroad should only be arranged when needed in terms of foreign affairs with fewer accompanying members, and on most of the occasions, there is no need for a reception by overseas Chinese people, institutions and students at the airport.

[…] Official meetings should get shortened and be specific and to the point, with no empty and rigmarole talks.

[…] It also asked the senior officials to keep a frugal lifestyle and strictly comply to regulations on housing and vehicles.

NPR’s Louisa Lim noted an additional instruction: “State media has been told to restrain themselves from writing pointless stories about official events unless there is real news value — an order which, if actually followed, would produce some of the shortest newspapers ever seen.”

In an apparent attempt to restore a shaken image of virtue at the pinnacle of government, the new instructions urged top officials to lead by example. The official statement noted that “Political Bureau members should implement the dos before asking others to do so”. This theme was hammered home in commentaries from Xinhua and Global Times:

Since the new CPC helmsmen were elected about 20 days ago, they have conducted themselves in an exemplary way in improving the Party’s work style.

[…] During a recent visit to an exhibition on the ups and downs of China on the road of national revival, Xi highlighted the notion that “Empty talk can lead a country astray, while hard work sees nations prosper.”

Moreover, two members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, Li Keqiang and Wang Qishan, recently asked officials not to read their prepared reports at meetings to save time in order to speak about more concrete content.

These conducts showed the top CPC leaders’ resolve to root out the chronic and lingering problems of formalism and bureaucracy, which have been hampering flesh-and-blood bonds between the Party and the people.

Formalism and bureaucracy cannot be gotten rid of within a short time. The new requirements are good as they will help leaders turn rhetoric of into practice. But they will only have their full intended effect if fully implemented.

Peter Ford reported Wang and Li’s interruptions at Christian Science Monitor, along with a Beijing professor’s appreciative response to the refreshing change of pace.

Global Times’ editorial dwelt more on the challenges of implementation, but ended on an optimistic note:

The Central Committee used to issue regulations aimed at cutting reports on top leaders and reducing ostentatious behavior, the effects of which did not last long.

But today, public opinion has been transformed in China. If top leaders cannot deliver what they have promised, the public will not remain silent. The Political Bureau must have thought about this. We believe its determination to do something concrete is sincere.

[…] But the adoption of these policies may meet trouble as they are implemented nationwide.

It is hoped that the supervision over the process can also guide public opinion. It is a new test for the self-discipline of the ruling party, as well as an opportunity to improve internal supervisory mechanisms within the Party.

If it succeeds, it will significantly transform the political atmosphere of the country. It is a fresh new start.

Reactions abroad were also mixed. The Brookings Institution’s Cheng Li told The Financial Times that “the no-nonsense attitude, and some of the noes, will really resonate with the Chinese public. This is really a major step to change government behaviour.” But others have expressed greater reservations about the new instructions’ likely effectiveness. From Brian Fung at The Atlantic:

Polishing the party’s image might give Beijing a marginal increase in control. But it’s too early to say whether making officials behave more simply will actually lead to true public accountability, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Adam Segal told me in a phone interview.

“In some ways, you could say it dampens any impetus for reform, because the party can say, ‘We can reform ourselves. We can rein ourselves in — we don’t need any change,’” said Segal. “There is a long tradition of Chinese leaders trying to show how ascetic and connected to the people they are.”

At China Real Time Report, Russell Leigh Moses argued that Xi’s “fresh start” may struggle to break from the status quo:

[…] Tuesday’s announcement [represents] a departure from the usual style in China, whereby new leaders take it slow at first, easing into the existing political template and emphasizing continuity. Xi and his colleagues have not been shy about looking at the landscape and deciding that a few shocks wouldn’t be such a bad start.

That’s the good news for those trying to make change in China. Anyone who thought the new leadership under Xi Jinping was in place simply to mark time until the next Party Congress is already in error.

The bad news is Xi and his like-minded colleagues in the Party are going to run into some major obstacles. That’s because the sort of reforms they’re talking about are a direct challenge to the way political business has been conducted for the past 10 years under the leadership of former Party chief Hu Jintao.

[…] It’s good that Xi sees the cracks that separate many in the Party from the great masses, and that he doesn’t want those fissures to suddenly become a fault line. But preventing the existing tremors from becoming something larger isn’t going to be easy—if only because Xi and his new colleagues have to start to shake up not only a system, but also a legacy.

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Post tags: banquets, Li Keqiang, official conduct, official trips overseas, Politburo, state media, Wang Qishan, Xi Jinping
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Sun, 49, was elected as a member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee after the 18th CPC National Congress last week. Born in Shandong Province, he served as Minister of [agri]Culture for three years before being transferred to Northeast China in 2009 as secretary of the CPC Jilin Provincial Committee.

Zhang Dejiang, vice premier and former member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, covered Bo’s position from March as secretary of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee, after Bo’s wife Bogu Kailai was found to have been involved in the murder of British citizen Neil Heywood.

[…] According to media reports, Zhang had been trying to differ from Bo’s tenure by redirecting Chongqing’s economic and social development in a low-profile manner. Bo’s red song campaign was also discontinued. Zhang urged Party officials to draw lessons from the Bo scandal, take better care of their spouses, children and staff and ensure they are held to the highest standards.

With the transition to a new generation of leadership still underway, Sun’s assignment will prepare and test him for an anticipated key role in the next. From Brian Spegele at The Wall Street Journal:

The appointment of Mr. Sun, a former agriculture minister and party chief of northeast Jilin province, is an early indication that rising party leaders will be given reins of some of the country’s most important—and most problematic—areas, analysts say. In Chongqing, for example, Mr. Sun will face deeply vested business interests, continuing concerns over organized crime and still-strong support for the ousted Mr. Bo.

The appointment—and a number of others that are expected to follow in the coming days and weeks—points to a major shuffling at the top ranks of China’s ruling party following last week’s Communist Party Congress, where Xi Jinping succeeded President Hu Jintao as party chief. That shuffle will provide important insight into a generation of rising cadres—known as the sixth generation, following the Xi-led fifth generation—who are expected to lead the party when Mr. Xi and other newly appointed leaders likely retire a decade from now.

The outlook of the new generation could be significantly different from the previous. Unlike Mr. Xi’s generation, which came of age during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, Mr. Sun and his contemporaries grew up during the period of relative openness following economic reforms launched by Deng Xiaoping in 1978.

Cheng Li’s biographical entry on Sun at The Brookings Institution highlights his PhD, a year spent studying in the U.K., and a “humble” family background, another difference between him and princelings like Bo and Xi.

[…] There have been different explanations for the quick rise of Sun Zhengcai and his relationships with senior leaders. Some believe that Sun has been Jia Qinglin’s protégé, as he advanced his career largely in Beijing, where Jia served as mayor and party secretary from 1996 through 2002. It also has been speculated that Sun is a protégé of Wen Jiabao, who played a direct role in Sun’s promotion to minister of agriculture and then party secretary of Jilin Province. Both explanations, however, may be correct.

Modest background is shared by Hu Chunhua, or “Little Hu”. Both men have just received seats on the “outer” Politburo, are relatively young at 49, and are strongly tipped for future leadership. From Cheng Li at Brookings:

Hu Chunhua established his patron-mentor relationship with Hu Jintao in Tibet when the latter served as party secretary there (1988–1992). Hu Chunhua has been widely regarded as “a carbon copy of Hu Jintao” [to whom he is not related]. Both come from humble family backgrounds, both were student leaders in their college years, both advanced their political careers primarily through the CCYL, both worked in arduous work environments such as Tibet, both served as provincial party secretaries at a relatively young age, and both have low-profile personalities. Hu Chunhua’s parents were farmers in a poor village and he has six siblings. Hu got married in Tibet and the couple have one daughter.

Hu the Younger’s current role is as Party secretary for Inner Mongolia: see ‘Little Hu and the Mining of the Grasslands‘ on CDT. He is now widely expected to take over as Guangdong Party head, though it was rumoured last month that he was also a contender for the Chongqing position. Both he and Sun may then rise to the Politburo Standing Committee in 2017, when five of the seven current members are due to retire. Last week, Bloomberg traced their likely trajectories.

If the two do assume top leadership posts 10 years from now, their advancement within the party’s top echelons may follow the path of Hu Jintao, whose grooming began when he was named to the Politburo’s Standing Committee at age 49 in 1992, said Bo Zhiyue, senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asia Institute who has written a research paper on Hu Chunhua and Sun.

By contrast, Xi Jinping, who was named Communist Party general secretary […], and Li Keqiang, who is forecast to take over from Premier Wen Jiabao in March, were elevated into the Politburo Standing Committee in 2007 without serving in the broader Politburo. Communist Party leaders may have decided the next generation will need more time to prepare, Bo said.

“I think this time around they are doing a better job of bringing younger people into the Politburo so they can start this grooming process,” Bo said in a phone interview. “In the case of Hu Jintao it was 10 years, but in the case of Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang it was only five years. In Chinese politics five years seems a little bit rushed.”

Nothing about future leadership transitions can be taken for granted, however, as the current Party secretary in Guangdong and Sun’s predecessor in Chongqing might attest.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, Bo Xilai, CCP 6th generation, Chongqing, Cultural Revolution, gu kailai, Hu Chunhua, Hu Jintao, Inner Mongolia, jilin, leadership transition, Neil Heywood, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee, princelings, Sun Zhengcai, Tibet, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping, zhang dejiang
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Since directives are sometimes communicated orally to journalists and editors, who then leak them online, the wording published here may not be exact. The original publication date is noted after the directives; the date given may indicate when the directive was leaked, rather than when it was issued. CDT does its utmost to verify dates and wording, but also takes precautions to protect the source.

Central Propaganda Department: As the Politburo undertakes its first collective study session of the implementation of the spirit of the 18th Party Congress, all media will use Xinhua wire copy and report the meeting prominently. Headlines must not be changed. (November 18, 2012)

中宣部：中央政治局就深入学习贯彻党的十八大精神进行第一次集体学习，各媒体用新华社通稿，作突出报道，标题不得改动。

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Post tags: 18th party congress, censorship, central propaganda department, Directives from the Ministry of Truth, media censorship, Ministry of Truth, Politburo, propaganda, Xinhua
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Xi Jinping was elected general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee at the first plenary session of the 18th CPC Central Committee on Thursday morning.

Other members of the newly elected Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the 18th CPC Central Committee are Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, and Zhang Gaoli.

Xinhua’s announcements unexpectedly preceded the standing committee’s live unveiling at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, at which Xi began his address by apologising for the delay. From Malcolm Moore at The Telegraph:

Welcoming his six “comrades” onto the stage, Mr Xi said China’s new leaders would battle to improve people’s lives and not to lose touch with the population. China’s new leaders faced “severe” challenges, he admitted, including a difficult fight against rampant corruption.

“Ours is a political party that serves the people wholeheartedly. We have every reason to be proud,” he said. “Proud but not complacent. We will never rest on our laurels.”

“Our responsibility is weightier than Mount Tai,” China’s incoming leader added, referring to the giant mountain in China’s Shandong province. “The journey ahead is long and arduous.”

For more of Xi’s speech, see Xinhua’s translation at Global Times.

Bloomberg has posted a ‘Who’s Who’ guide to all the new top leaders, while a Reuters infographic shows their place in China’s broader power structure. Notably absent from the list were Wang Yang and Li Yuanchao, whose inclusion might have signalled a more reformist inclination. Jeremy Page discussed Wang and Li’s prospects prior to the announcement at The Wall Street Journal:

Mr. Li, who studied briefly at Harvard’s Kennedy School in 2002, has overseen pilots schemes to enhance democracy within the party. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Mr. Li told U.S. diplomats in 2007 that China could hold competitive elections for the Politburo and its Standing Committee in 20 to 30 years.

Mr. Wang has eased restrictions on nongovernmental organizations and he won plaudits last year for reaching a negotiated settlement, rather than using force, when a village in Guangdong rebelled against party rule over a land grab by local officials.

Mr. Li is thought to stand more of a chance than Mr. Wang, but if neither make it, it would be seen as a blow to those inside and outside China hoping that the party will expand even limited experiments to encourage greater democracy within its own ranks.

“If neither Li or Wang enter the Standing Committee, that would really show Hu’s weakness,” said a Chinese academic with close party contacts [….]

Xi was also named chairman of the Central Military Commission, ending speculation over whether Hu Jintao would hold on to the post for up to two more years, as his predecessors have done. The Financial Times’ Richard McGregor, author of The Party: The Secret World of China’s Communist Rulers, summed up the combined implications:

@xhnews Terrible result for HJT. Shunted out unceremoniously and fails to get his allies promoted. Ignominious end fo rhim.

— Richard McGregor (@mcgregorrichard) November 15, 2012

McClatchy’s Tom Lasseter elaborated on the perceived factional divide within the new standing committee:

More than ideological lines, the committee introduced on Thursday seemed to be drawn along factional ties – specifically, an apparent victory for those close to former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin over the outgoing president and party secretary, Hu Jintao. The 86-year-old Jiang was last year rumored to have died or fallen into a vegetative state, but he recently made a series of public appearances that some speculated were a signal that he is still in the political game.

Xi Jinping himself was thought to be Jiang’s pick, versus Li Keqiang, who is closely affiliated with the same Communist Youth League that formed a power base for 69-year-old Hu.

Of the seven on the list, only Li and Liu Yunshan, a 65-year-old who’d been heading the party’s propaganda department, are viewed as being strongly allied with Hu.

Jiang was seen as having supported Xi and the other four committee members named on Thursday: 66-year-old Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, 67-year-old Shanghai party chief Yu Zhengsheng, 66-year-old Tianjin party chief Zhang Gaoli and 64-year-old Vice Premier Wang Qishan.

But the longer-term picture for Hu’s legacy may be somewhat brighter. From Mark MacKinnon at The Globe and Mail:

A key caveat to Mr. Jiang’s apparent tour de force is the age of his allies who were promoted Thursday: all the new Standing Committee members – except Mr. Xi and Mr. Li – are 64 years or older, meaning all are slated to retire in 2017, clearing the field for Mr. Hu’s younger allies to rise to the Standing Committee ahead of the next major power transfer in 2022, when Mr. Xi and Mr. Li are due to step aside.

[…] The signals from the week-long Communist Party congress were decidedly mixed. Delegates ended the meeting with a solemn singing of the socialist anthem, The Internationale. Then they filed out of the Great Hall of the People, to a waiting fleet of chauffeured Audis.

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, CCP, Communist Youth League, Great Hall of the People, Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin, leadership transition, Li Keqiang, Li Yuanchao, Liu Yunshan, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee, Wang Qishan, Wang Yang, Xi Jinping, Yu Zhengsheng, zhang dejiang, Zhang Gaoli
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On Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, all delegations held meetings and carried out preliminary elections for candidates of members of the new Central Committee and of members of the new CCDI, as well as for candidates of alternate members of the CPC Central Committee.

The preliminary elections were competitive with elimination margins of more than eight percent.

The preliminary elections were conducted under the supervision of scrutineers in accordance with the election methods adopted at the congress. The results of the preliminary elections are valid, according to the presidium’s third meeting.

On Tuesday afternoon, the delegations will hold meetings to mull over the draft name-lists of candidates for members and alternate members of the new CPC Central Committee and the new CCDI.

A formal election will be held on Wednesday morning.

The South China Morning Post called the vote “another embarrassing blow to the Communist Party’s much touted internal democracy,” and observers commented that the preliminary results do little to reinforce the belief that the Communist Party is moving toward a more democratic process for choosing its leadership:

Hong Kong-based analyst Johnny Lau Yui-siu said the results laid bare the leadership’s reluctance to push for meaningful political reform.

“It basically disappoints everyone who still had hopes for the top-down approach to intra-party democracy,” he said.

He said the fact that Xinhua’s report yesterday did not mention the exact percentage of nominees eliminated showed the leadership did not have much to show off about.

“If we look at the 13th party congress 25 years ago, when the idea of electoral competition was first introduced with [5 per cent more candidates than seats on] the Central Committee, we’ll see the talk of intra-party democracy is nothing but deception,” Lau said.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, central committee, democracy, leadership transition, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee, reform
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The latest twist comes from The Wall Street Journal. Based “on interviews with current and former British officials and close friends of the murdered Briton”, Jeremy Page reports that Heywood had been providing MI6 with information on Bo for over a year before he died:

In meetings, the British consultant hinted about his connections to Bo Xilai—the onetime Communist Party highflier—but often he would refuse to hand over a business card. He spoke Mandarin, smoked heavily and worked part time for a dealer of Aston Martin cars, the British brand driven by James Bond. Some thought him a fantasist, others a fraud.

But his contrived aura of mystery appears to have been a double bluff: He had been knowingly providing information about the Bo family to Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, known as MI6, for more than a year when he was murdered in China last November, an investigation by The Wall Street Journal has found.

[…] Mr. Heywood was a potentially risky choice as an informant, not least because of the 007 license plate on his Jaguar. He was, on the other hand, an old-fashioned patriot with a taste for adventure. He was in the rare position of having regular contact with the family of a Politburo member as well as intimate knowledge of their private affairs, according to several of his closest friends. Ms. Gu was godmother to his daughter, Olivia, according to one close friend.

Next week, on the other hand, the UK’s Channel 4 is scheduled to air a documentary painting yet another picture of Heywood, as a “peripheral figure” caught between Bo Xilai and his political opponents:

Dispatches has made contact with a close personal friend of both Neil Heywood and his alleged killer, a first-hand witness to many of the events in the saga, whose testimony challenges everything we thought we knew about the story. Far from being in the Bo family’s inner circle, or the broker of six figure deals, this insider claims that Neil Heywood was a peripheral figure, who befriended the family’s son Guagua: an Old Harrovian giving succour to a new Harrovian, carrying out mundane and unprofitable tasks for the Chinese pupil at sea in an English public school. He reveals the details of Heywood’s first meeting with the family, and expose how, when Heywood’s luck ran out, his own businesses in Beijing failing, he twice approached the family, asking for millions of pounds, demands that, according to the insider, were reported to the police by the woman who would later be accused of murdering him. A dutiful wife, who forsook her own lucrative legal career to support the political ambitions of her husband, Gu Kailai had narrowly survived an attempt on her own life, details of which we can reveal for the first time.

The insider’s testimony maintains that Gu was then framed for killing Heywood. Her husband’s numerous political opponents foresaw how the death of an inconsequential English associate could disbar Bo from office, dismantling his deep-rooted support among China’s poor for whom he remains a champion, and, creating a global scandal.

Updated at 11:21 PST: The Hindu’s Ananth Krishnan has relayed a Foreign Ministry spokesperson’s comments on the Wall Street Journal report: 

Foreign Ministry spokesperson about Heywood being MI6 informer: “Chinese judicial authorities already made a ruling on.. Gu Kailai case”

— Ananth Krishnan (@ananthkrishnan) November 6, 2012

“We will handle Bo Xilai case acc to party discipline and national law”, MoFA said when asked when China was aware Heywood was MI6 informant

— Ananth Krishnan (@ananthkrishnan) November 6, 2012

© Samuel Wade for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Guagua, Bo Xilai, espionage, forensics, gu kailai, Neil Heywood, Politburo, spy, United Kingdom
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Which is why the dropping of the words “Mao Zedong thought” from two recent statements by the party’s elite Politburo ahead of a landmark congress, at which a new generation of leaders will take the top party posts, has attracted so much attention.

Also absent were normally standard references to Marxism-Leninism.

The omission in the latest such statement by the powerful decision-making body, a Monday announcement that the congress next month would discuss amending the party’s constitution, has seen by some as sending a signal about its intent on reform. One of the constitution’s key platforms is Mao thought.

“It’s very significant,” Zheng Yongnian, the director of the East Asian Institute at the National University of Singapore, said of the removal of a reference to Mao Zedong Thought and the implications of that for the direction leaders were taking.

The South China Morning Post has more on Monday’s gathering of the Politburo, a meeting attended by current president Hu Jintao, and explores the extent to which the CCP may play down Mao’s philosophy in the 18th Party Congress:

“Bo’s red campaign and his popularity for the endeavour might have triggered fear among some reform-minded leaders that Maoism might still be popular among those left in the cold in Deng Xiaoping’s capitalistic economic reform,” said Zhang Ming, a political scientist at Renmin University.

The details about the party congress report comes on the heels of a commentary last week by the party’s main policy journal, Seeking Truth, calling for economic, political, cultural and social reform.

But Hong Kong-based political commentator Johnny Lau Yui-siu said party leaders would not jettison Mao’s philosophy.

“The Communist Party stresses much on inheritance of traditions,” Lau said. “If it is allowed to take out Mao’s thoughts just because there are some doubts, then one day, people may call for taking out the ideas of Deng and Jiang.”

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Post tags: 18th party congress, CCP, Hu Jintao, leadership transition, Mao Zedong, Mao Zedong Thought, party ideology, Politburo
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“The meeting stressed the importance of making a draft amendment to the CPC (Communist Party of China) Constitution that conforms to the needs of the CPC’s theoretic innovation, practice and development and will also promote the CPC’s work and strengthen its construction,” Xinhua said, citing a statement from the meeting of the politburo.

The party “constitution” is less a legal document and more an organizational guide and compilation of the ideological justifications that China’s Communists have accumulated – and often quietly shelved – in their evolution from a party of Mao Zedong and mass revolution to one of mass markets and dynamic growth.

Cheng Li, an expert in Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution think-tank in Washington, told Reuters the amendments could include new language on the rule of law and intra-party democracy.

While vague about its contents, Xinhua reported that president Hu Jintao presided over a Monday meeting of the Communist Party’s Politburo and heard comments about the amendment as well as a discussion on the draft report that will be made to the congress by the 17th Central Committee. BBC News has more on the draft report:

Regional and local papers like the Beijing Times and Guangzhou’s Southern Metropolis Daily also carry the Xinhua report, while highlighting in their headlines that some “important theories” set out in the report will be written into the party constitution.

Hong Kong’s South China Morning Post says: “While highlighting several guiding tenets of party doctrines by President Hu Jintao, Jiang Zemin and Deng Xiaoping, one key term missing from the Xinhua report was ‘Mao Zedong thought’, an absence that led some China watchers to wonder whether the party might be moving to play down the philosophy of its late patriarch in the 18th national party congress.”

The Global Times’ bilingual editorial says: “The 18th National Congress of CPC is being held to showcase China’s potential and problems to the entire Party and the people, as well as conduct a frank discussion with the world.”

“The world has a lot of questions for China and the Chinese people also have issues with the domestic situation. The 18th National Congress needs to reply to all these questions.”

See also additional CDT coverage of the 18th Party Congress and China’s upcoming leadership transition.

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Post tags: 18th party congress, constitution, Hu Jintao, Politburo, state media, XInhua News
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Hu has overseen rapid growth in Inner Mongolia while dealing with ethnic Mongol unrest without resorting to the heavy-handed violence often turned on protesters in China. He spent two decades in Tibet, where he came under the wing of Hu Jintao.

His next role is likely to be very different .

Sources close to the leadership have told Reuters that Hu, 49, is frontrunner to be appointed party chief in the sprawling southwestern city of Chongqing. There has also been speculation he could be sent instead to Shanghai.

If he goes to Chongqing, he would have to deal with the legacy of the man at the centre of China’s biggest political scandal in decades.

Meanwhile, as the guessing game continues over who will make up the next lineup of CCP leaders, The South China Morning Post reports that Wang Huning, a trusted adviser to both Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao, may become the vice-premier in charge of political affairs:

It is expected Wang, 57, will be elevated to the 25-seat Politburo after the Communist Party’s 18th national congress, which opens on November 8.

The twin promotions would give the country’s top diplomat greater authority, something seen as lacking as China’s global influence grows.

Neither Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, a career diplomat who previously served as ambassador to the US, nor State Councillor Dai Bingguo, the government’s foreign policy mastermind, currently sit on the Politburo.

“The adjustment to let a vice-premier lead diplomatic affairs has been boosted by the apparent need to overhaul the country’s foreign policy and its policymaking apparatus,” said a source familiar with the discussion.

“The fact that Chinese leaders appear to be taking more interest in foreign affairs, especially their growing keenness to get international media exposure, also means the leadership will attach an ever greater importance to foreign policy structure.”

See also previous CDT coverage of the 18th Party Congress and the CCP 5th Generation.

© Scott Greene for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, CCP 5th generation, CCP 6th generation, Chongqing, Hu Chunhua, Hu Jintao, Inner Mongolia, Jiang Zemin, Politburo, Shanghai, Wang Huning
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Walking the Plank, by Crazy Crab for CDT:

Read more about Hexie Farm’s CDT series, including a Q&A with the anonymous cartoonist, and see all cartoons so far in the series.

[CDT owns the copyright for all cartoons in the Hexie Farm CDT series. Please do not reproduce without receiving prior permission from CDT.]

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Bo Xilai, hexie farm, Politburo, political struggle
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On July 9, 2008, Rao Wenwei, the young secretary of the Politics and Law Committee in Wushan County, Chongqing was sequestered in a hotel by local authorities. He was detained a week later, then formally arrested on August 15 under suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power and the overthrow of the socialist system and conspiring to overthrow the authority of the people’s democracy” [zh]. Convicted in November of that year for bribery and inciting subversion, Rao is currently serving a 12-year prison sentence and faces an additional three years without political rights.

Earlier in 2008, Bo Xilai, the infamous former party secretary of Chongqing, ordered an investigation into a series of 52 essays published overseas decrying the Chinese Communist Party and Bo in particular. Authorship was traced to Rao. Writing under the pen name Mao.2W (毛.2W), Rao’s essays made their way onto the website of the Epoch Times under the title “A Short Critique of the Communist Party—‘Reactionary’ Notes from a Chinese Man” (短评共产党——一个中国男人的“反动”手记). Zhang Qi, an old colleague of Rao’s, told Radio Free Asia that Bo gave instructions to the investigative team to “deal harshly” with the author [zh] and to charge him with bribery, claiming “officials of your rank can’t say you haven’t accepted hundreds of thousands [of RMB].”

Rao’s case remained hidden until this summer, when Bo’s removal from office and detention brought to light a multitude of claims of wrongful arrest and conviction in this southwestern metropolis. Bo’s anti-corruption campaign ran on the “presumption of guilt,” Zou Zhiyong, whose father-in-law is currently serving a life sentence, told Reuters. Zou, Rao’s family and many others intend to seek redress for these convictions after the leadership transition at this October’s National People’s Congress.

Rao is recognized by the Independent Chinese PEN Center as a writer in prison (he is number 140 on their list). “We will offer assistance to his family in finding a lawyer and will support his appeal,” says Assistant Secretary-General Zhang Yu [zh]. The organization will raise his case at the PEN International Congress, which begins September 9.

CDT’s Little Bluegill has translated essays 13 through 15. The entire series is available from CDT Chinese: read essays 1-9, 10-20, 21-31, 32-44, 45-52 and epilogue.

Essay 13

What should the Communist Party give back to the people?

The Party furthers its own interests in the name of the nation and demands a permanent, invincible position. Yet this in itself violates the laws of history and the very theories held by the Communist Party’s forefathers!

Just how many of the rights and interests of those living in China today have been confiscated by the Party? Just who is the greatest usurper of the state, the greatest bearer of calamity and misfortune to the Chinese people? The most frightening aspect of the Party is the “big stick” it so tightly grasps in its hands—the military. This is the only “talisman” that the Party has, over the past few decades, so willingly unleashed on the people of China. To take back their rights, the people must grab this weapon out of the Party’s hands. In actuality, this “talisman” belongs to the people and to the nation; it should not belong to this faction or that party. The military should only serve the interests of the nation, protecting the country as its own family. It should never aim its guns at its own people!

The true portrait of the Communist Party of the last few decades is one of flip-flopping and destruction of order. The system is seemingly devoid of moral standards. The “boss” always calls the shots. There is a system [the law] but it’s never used. The Party’s shamelessness knows no bounds!

There are three rights that the Party has taken away from the people and must return:

Number One: Freedom of speech and freedom of religion, without the constitutional regulation which enables the restrictions on freedom of the press, assembly and belief imposed by various government departments. For example, if I wanted to establish a “People’s Free System Party,” would that be possible?

Number Two: The right to elect one’s own leaders, instead of leaders being appointed by the Communist Party.

Number Three: The military belongs to the nation and to the people. Its duties are simply to remain loyal to and fight for the interests of the nation. The military must never participate in any domestic conflict between political factions or in politics of any kind. It must never aim its guns at its own people. With the exception of disaster relief, the military must never participate in national or local affairs! The military’s deployment should be controlled by an organization of democratically elected officials. Significant military decisions should be made by the nation as a whole.

The Communist Party must also remove the language it has so shamelessly written into the “constitution” that demands generation after generation support the leadership of the Communist Party (the so-called Four Cardinal Principles). Restore the purity of the constitution! The constitution is the highest law of the land. The people have no responsibility to uphold the leadership of the “Communist Party.” To take a step back: if you do well at leading the country, then the people will naturally support you. But if you’re no good, the people have the right to cast you out. Why must you be enshrined in the “constitution?” Is it because you believe that if you are squeezed in there, you will be able to exist forever?

There are two important “stolen” powers that the Party clenches in its fist: the so-called right to cadre appointment and the so-called right to absolute control of the military. The Party clearly understands that without these two powers, it is finished. Yet it must relinquish them.

If the Party is just, then it must relinquish these powers which do not belong to them!

If the Party strives for permanence, then it must relinquish these powers which do not belong to them!

If the Party truly wants to realize its own goals, then it must relinquish these powers which do not belong to them!

But will they? What is the answer?

The Communist Party continues with its lies. From its objectives to “letting some people people get rich first,” from the “Three Represents” to harmonious society and the Scientific Development Concept; which of these is based on serving the people? Which of these ideas has served or is capable of serving the people? In which does the Communist Party even believe? Let us take, for example, the ideology of “wholehearted and enthusiastic” [service to the people]. This in itself is biggest lie in the world. Is it possible for one person or one party to wholeheartedly, completely and unselfishly serve the interests of another? If one does not serve his own interests, how can he proceed to serve others? By the deceitful nature of this phrase, we can recognize just how horribly we have been swindled, we can finally understand what it means to say one thing and do another! Take, also, the example of the policy by which only “some people get rich first.” Why should these privileged people be allowed to get rich first? Why should they enjoy more “privilege” than others? Will those who get rich first actively initiate the trickle-down of wealth? If not, how else is this supposed to work? In reality, the disparity in wealth between different people and locales confirms the deceit of this policy.

Take, also, the example of the “Three Represents” [Jiang Zemin’s theory that the Party represents China economically, culturally and politically]. If the Communist Party is a political entity, can it then represent economic production? It just doesn’t make sense. But, fine, let us ignore for a moment that it doesn’t make sense. What happens if the Party is unable to represent the country’s economic production? Does it really represent it now? The answer is no. One can see that the “Three Represents” is craven nonsense!

The largest disaster caused by the decades of Communist Party rule is the people’s total loss of their natural harmonious way of thinking. Instead, the people now unquestionably pursue their own selfish interests. The terrible truth is that they lack a sense of law and order. They pursue their own interests to the detriment of others; they lie; they lack morals and principles. They place no trust in each other. Instead, greed and jealousy abound. As this vicious cycle continues, human conscience dies out, and as a result, the people will hurt themselves, destroying this ancient civilization!

The most destructive part of the decades of Communist Party rule has been the destruction of social institutions. The Party smashed them into oblivion, only to then smash those they put in their place. Those which, against the odds, were left untouched cannot be practiced either openly or in secret.* What prevents society from providing equal opportunity for everyone? Why is the legal system unjust? Why is development uneven? Why is this unfair, that unfair?

Why is it that the greatest skill of Communist Party officials is toadying and currying the favor of those in power? Because to live under the system of the Communist Party, you must do this. If you don’t, you will have no opportunity, you will not develop. But if you do, you inevitably will be without a conscience, without humanity, without dignity. Can you keep your integrity as you shamelessly flatter your superiors? As you falsely agree with this and agree with that, can you still retain your conscience? And yet, if you were to not flatter your superiors, would you garner the attention of the Party authorities? If you failed to endorse the Party, if you didn’t agree with the Party, would you still have any chance for advancement? This paradox defines the lives of Chinese people today. And it is a choice that must be made. If you do not make your choice, you will grow old in hardship! I dare say with absolute certainty that many Communist Party members lead split lives, and both of these lives are rife with hardship. They live between farce and reality, switching their conscience on and off at a moment’s notice.

Since this life is so painful, what else are you waiting for?

Can it be that life truly could not go on without the Party? That the country would fall into chaos?

No, no!

Let me make my choice. I choose to restore our nation to greatness through order and democracy!

Communist Party: Give me back my freedom and my democracy!

A Brief Critique of the Communist Party’s “Three Mosts” (Essay 14)

The most rotten institution of the Communist Party is the cadre system. In actuality, it’s a classic centralized system of concentrated money and power. It is the most rotten because the entirety of corruption and evil in China since the beginning of Communist Party rule all stems from the “cadre” system.

The Communist Party relies most on the institution of “propaganda.” In actuality, this institution does nothing but work to fool the public, numb the masses and keep freedom under lock and key. This propaganda is the very reason why the people are so ignorant, apathetic and immoral. The Party deprives the people of their rights by propagating this culture of reliance.

The Communist Party’s most detestable institution is “Party leaders’ absolute control of the military.” In truth, this institution usurps the people’s rights through intimidation and repression. One uses the word “detestable” because it is the Party that controls which way the guns point. It does not matter whether you are a good person or an enemy of the state. Who would dare disobey “his” Party?

Establishing a “harmonious society” is of course a positive goal for governing the country. But if you wish to grow “harmony” on top of the “current system,” then you are wishing for the impossible. The flower of “harmony” cannot bloom on the tree of the Party’s evils!

I assert: Without changing the current system, China will never know harmony!

 

 

The Evil Nature of the Communist Party’s Cadre System (Essay 15)

The “management of cadres” is one of the fundamental principles of the Party. Former Organizational Department Head Zhang Quanjing has said, “If the Party did not manage its cadres, it would give up its right to lead.” The essence of this statement is that the Communist Party depends on its control over cadres to exercise its right to lead—and this is precisely where the evil lies. “Cadres” are actually “officials.” I never understood why the Party insists on calling them “cadres.” However, after much thought, I realized that this is just another deceitful invention of the Communist Party. In all, cadres probably number in the hundreds of thousands. But no matter how you look at it, the number of “official positions” shrinks as one moves up in the system. At the same time, the Party must rely on “offering posts” to maintain its right to lead and to realize its position of power. In that case, the party secretary and the Standing Committee represent the very top, and from there it goes down through the secretaries of each level of government. This system is unable to solve a fundamental problem: many want to move up, but only a few can. Because of this, those who wish to move up all work in their own self-interest, and those in higher positions all work to protect their seats. The authority to decide who moves up or down always remains one level higher than the last, straight up to the Central Politburo. Top officials will surely never relinquish their authority over the management of cadres, so a cadre then has no choice but to scheme his way up the ladder, making an utter mess in the process!

This system, in which all decisions are top-down, is necessarily profuse with evil. At the highest levels, the Party plays some “democratic” charades, but everyone knows that decisions over who is above whom will forever remain firmly in the grasp of the very few.

As a result, the numbers of officials and special interest groups continue to grow. Their selfish in-fighting intensifies. The evilest part of this system is that it takes a person’s humanity and turns it into boundless evil. There’s no need for me to list them one by one. Just tune in to any Party-sanctioned media outlet and ask yourself: which of these evil phenomena are not caused by the “cadre system”?!

* Rao refers to three epochs in China’s recent history. In the early communist period, intellectuals were rooted out and persecuted in the Anti-Rightist Campaign; the Great Leap Forward, intended to industrialize the country and institute collectivism, caused millions of people to starve to death. The country had a short reprieve from upheaval before the Cultural Revolution tore families apart and nearly destroyed tradition. Despite the openness of post-Mao China, many social institutions are still tightly controlled, from family size to religious belief. Back to essay.

© Anne.Henochowicz for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: beat black, Bo Xilai, bribery, cadres, CCP, Chongqing, constitution, Epoch Times, essays, harmonious society, Jiang Zemin, leadership transition, military, official corruption, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee, Politics and Law Committee, propaganda, Rao Wenwei, rule of law, Three Represents, Zhang Qi, Zhang Quanjing, Zou Zhiyong
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The personnel changes may be part of political jockeying ahead of the party’s 18th Congress, where China’s leaders will pick a new generation to rule the world’s most-populous nation for the next decade. The appointments mean that Ling may not secure a spot on the party’s Politburo at the congress, said Joseph Fewsmith, director of the Center for the Study of Asia at Boston University.

“I think it was a swap, a Hu ally for a Hu ally, but not an equal swap,” Fewsmith, who focuses on China’s elite politics, said in an e-mail. “Ling was a very viable candidate for the Politburo, Li is not.”

The Australian also looks at the significance of the swap  and at the potential makeup of the incoming Politburo Standing Committee [PBSC]:

Only one other member of the PBSC, Li Keqiang – who is slated to replace Wen Jiabao as premier – will remain, with the seven other members retiring.

“The new guy has good relations with Hu Jintao and also has ties with the new incoming leader,” Bill Bishop, author of The Sinocism China Newsletter, told AFP. “He will be an extremely influential person in Beijing. The party general secretary needs someone like this who is competent and can be trusted. More importantly, this is really an indication that things are on track and that the next party congress is reasonably imminent.”

As the change in Ling Jihua’s position was announced, the South China Morning Post ran an exclusive report confirming rumors that Ling’s son, Ling Gu, had been the driver who was killed in a mysterious crash of a Ferrari in the middle of the night in Beijing in March. At the time of the crash, all news about it was blacked out, leading netizens to speculate over the identity of the driver. According to the SCMP report, Lin was killed, while his two female companions, one Uyghur and one Tibetan, were injured. From the New York Times blog:

The car was a black Ferrrari, and Ling Gu, the son, was said to be driving. Two young women with him in the car — “one naked, one semi-naked,” the story said — were seriously injured. The story said one woman was a Uighur, the other a Tibetan.

After the crash, The Morning Post said, citing an unnamed mainland official, “an elaborate scheme was painstakingly stitched together to hide the real identity of the tragic young man in the crash. The name that eventually appeared on the death certificate of the driver was a fake.”

“People will ask how Ling Gu could have afforded a 5 million yuan luxury sports car in the first place,” the paper said, judging the Ferrari to be worth $788,000. “And it will only confirm the public belief that the children of senior officials have rich and decadent lifestyles beyond the wildest dreams of the people.”

Immediately following the crash, a number of related terms were blocked from Sina Weibo search, including:

• Prince Ling (令公子): son of Ling Jihua
• Little Ling (小令): son of Ling Jihua
• high-speed + car sex (高速+车震)
• car crash + car sex (车祸+车震)

Read more about the upcoming Party Congress via CDT.

© Sophie Beach for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | One comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: 18th party congress, CCP Leadership Transition, Ling Jihua, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee
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 As holidaymakers crowded beaches at the Chinese seaside resort of Beidaihe, a heightened security presence was the only sign that China’s most senior leaders had gathered for their annual talks.

[...]Analysts say the secretive, month-long discussions are especially important this summer as Communist party chiefs prepare to pass the baton to a new generation of leaders in the autumn.

They are also dealing with the fall-out from one of the worst scandals to hit the party in decades — the downfall of Bo Xilai, an ambitious but divisive politician whose wife confessed in court to murdering a British businessman.

Beidaihe residents told AFP this week security was unusually tight, with roads closed and police performing spot-checks on people entering the town by car or rail.

One topic that is surely in attention at the coastal retreat is the upcoming leadership transition, where Hu Jintao will step down as the country’s paramount leader, and the 18th Politburo Standing Committee will be elected. An article in South China Morning Post claims that while the transition will likely be “orderly and peaceful”, the man on-deck for Hu’s position in the party lineup will have a variety of obstacles ahead of him:

But Xi [Jinping, Hu's forecasted successor]‘s leadership will be far from smooth, not only because the mainland’s development is at a critical turning point and the party’s legitimacy is facing mounting challenges due to the rampant official corruption and the rising gap between rich and poor.

Xi will also have to grapple with a new kind of politics in which the decision-making process will be increasingly complicated by various factions within the top leadership.

A case in point is that after Xi takes over, he will face a situation unique in the history of the party in which two of his retired predecessors are still alive and healthy and can wield considerable influence through their residual power and their supporters within the leadership. Ironically, this should be seen as a major progression from the large part of the party’s history in which the abnormal leadership succession had proved to be the single biggest source of instability.

In an article for Foreign Policy, Isaac Stone Fish looks back five years to the 17th National Congress, when the 9 men at the center of the CCP assembled in an order reflecting the hierarchy of power, announcing to the world the official roster of the 17th Politburo Standing Committee. Then, speculating at what the lineup might look like this time around, he provides details about some lesser-known potential members of the Standing Committee:

If tradition holds, another group of men will again stroll across the stage in October during the 18th National Congress, this time led by Xi Jinping, the man widely expected to replace Hu Jintao, followed by Li Keqiang, whom party watchers expect will replace Wen Jiabao as premier. The next seven spots (or five or six; Hu Jintao is reportedly pushing for a smaller Standing Committee so that he maintains more influence after he steps down) are likely open and fiercely contested by roughly a dozen powerful men — and one woman. Wang Yang, party secretary of Guangdong, China’s most popular province and the subject of a profile in Foreign Policy’s latest issue is one contender. The outside world knows little about Wang and the other personalities or their standings in the party elite. “The deals are so complicated,” says Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese elite politics at the Brookings Institution. “We don’t know the facts involved. We know one hundredth of what [the party elite] knows.” With those caveats in mind, here are five people besides Xi and Li whose smiling, stage-managed faces we might see on that red stage in October.

Also see prior CDT coverage of China’s upcoming leadership transition, the challenges facing the party as it prepares for that transition, CCP gatherings at Beidaihe, and those who might be among the 5th generation of CCP leaders.

© josh rudolph for China Digital Times (CDT), 2012. | Permalink | No comment | Add to del.icio.us
Post tags: Beidaihe, CCP 5th generation, Hu Jintao, leadership transition, Li Keqiang, Politburo, Politburo Standing Committee, Wen Jiabao, Xi Jinping
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