Asian Business had a commentary article subtitled “The torch has smoothly passed to a man less inclined to favor the iron fist”
“Brutal struggles have always been part and parcel of transferring power from one Chinese Communist Party leadership to the next. So what was truly remarkable about the Sept. 19 news that President Hu Jintao had replaced Jiang Zemin as head of the military and formally emerged as paramount leader was what did not happen. Contrary to rumors in Beijing, there appear to have been no behind-the-scenes clashes between hard-liners and reformers, and no purges of Jiang loyalists. Instead, it was the most peaceful leadership transition in modern Chinese history.
……
The anticlimactic announcement underscores the broad consensus in Beijing on how China’s economy and government should be run. After 25 years of reform, all the top leaders, including Jiang and Hu, basically agree that the economy should continue to integrate with the outside world and open to the private sector. Fifteen years after the Tiananmen Square bloodbath, the Communist Party is as committed as ever to maintaining its monopoly on power and keeping a lid on dissent. Leaders are still determined to expand China’s military — but show little eagerness for truly serious confrontation with the U.S. or Taiwan. Indeed, compared with little more than a decade ago, when distinct rival factions of aging ideologues and reformers maneuvered inside the leadership compound of Zhongnanhai, it’s hard to discern any major ideological divides among the nine top leaders that make up the Politburo’s Standing Committee.”
