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China unveils likely successors to top posts
2007-10-22
Chinese President Hu Jintao stands before singing the national anthem during the opening ceremony of the 17th Party Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing October 15, 2007. |
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China's ruling Communist Party unveiled on Monday a new leadership line-up, including two men likely to eventually succeed President Hu Jintao and government head Premier Wen Jiabao. Xi Jinping, who has been chief of Shanghai, and Li Keqiang, who has headed the northeast province of Liaoning, were promoted to the new nine-member Politburo Standing Committee -- the innermost ring of power in this top-down state. While Xi, 54, and Li, 52, have not been openly designated to replace Hu and Wen five years hence, their relative youth and status leave little doubt they are favored to eventually assume the apex of power. "Comrades Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang are two quite young comrades," was all the carefully-spoken Hu said of them when presenting them before hundreds of reporters and flashing cameras. Their promotions mark Hu's growing grip on power as he sheds the residual influence of his predecessor, Jiang Zemin. But the next five years will test the Party's power to engineer an untroubled succession in an era when no one leader commands absolute loyalty, said analysts. "Hu's power has emerged greatly consolidated," said Li Datong, a former editor at a Party paper. "I think either Xi or Li would be acceptable to Hu, but anyone now in the central leadership will be beholden to Hu above anyone else. He has his own line-up now; Jiang's out of the picture." The nine men in dark suits, white shirts and red ties emerged after a closely controlled vote by the 204-member Party Central Committee, installed at the end of its five-yearly Congress on Sunday. Xi filed into the chamber at the Great Hall of the People directly ahead of Li, but there was no clear indication of which man was favored for which top job. "Xi came out ranked first, so that suggests that he has a bigger chance of becoming Party general secretary, but there are a lot of factors that can change in five years," said Zhang Zuhua, a former official. State media have stressed that Hu expects the new leadership to work together and avoid damaging rivalry. "There must be a politically resolute, staunchly unified and energetic and promising collective central leadership," the People's Daily -- official voice of the Party -- urged on Monday. Hu stays as Party boss -- as well as President and head of the Central Military Commission -- for five more years, while Wen will continuing managing the government and its ministries. The Standing Committee retained parliament chief Wu Bangguo and two leaders installed under the previous Party chief, Jiang Zemin -- Li Changchun, who has been propaganda boss, and Jia Qinglin, head of the advisory council attached to the parliament. The line-up also includes He Guoqiang, set to take control of Party organisation and fighting corruption, and Zhou Yongkang, whose background in policing puts him in line to replace Luo Gan, the previous domestic security boss. It was already known that three members of the outgoing Standing Committee would step down, among them Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, a powerful figure installed by Hu's predecessor Jiang Zemin. The death of Vice-Premier Huang Ju in June left a fourth vacancy. BALANCING INTERESTS Analysts said the mixture of promotions -- some close to Hu, others not so -- reflected his bid to balance regions and interests and also limits on his power to dictate outcomes. Li Keqiang worked under Hu in the Communist Youth League before postings in Henan, a poor and unruly rural province in central China, and Liaoning, a rustbelt province striving to attract investment and emerge as a modern manufacturing hub. Before taking over as party boss of Shanghai earlier this year, Xi Jinping steered two of the country's fastest-growing provinces, Fujian and Zhejiang. His father was a senior official close to the late reformer Hu Yaobang, who was a patron -- but no relation -- of Hu Jintao in the 1980s. "Some have said that Xi was Jiang's pawn, but I see no evidence of that," said Zhang, the former official. "Xi worked his way up from the grassroots, not in Beijing, and the connection to Hu Yaobang would also count with Hu Jintao." But the retention of Jia was a reminder the new leadership was not Hu's to pick and choose at will. Jia has long been dogged by claims he let corruption run rampant in coastal Fujian province in the 1990s. At 67, Jia was young enough to escape an informal retirement rule forcing out leaders born before 1940 -- a demand that apparently claimed Zeng. The rule pressing leaders who reach 68 to step down meant only Xi and Li were likely to remain in the Standing Committee after the Congress in 2012, said Zhang. (Additional reporting by Lindsay Beck and Benjamin Kang Lim)
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