AP Photo
Posted on 03/15/2003 6:34:41 AM PST by SlickWillard
Hu Jintao Becomes China's New President
By CHRISTOPHER BODEEN, Associated Press Writer
BEIJING - After years of preparation and months of maneuvering, China finally made Hu Jintao its president on Saturday, handing power to a new generation of leaders expected to continue liberal economic policies while maintaining tight Communist Party political control.
AP Photo |
Jiang Zemin, 76, stepped into the political twilight with a grin to his successor — and wide expectations that he would still wield significant influence over a government coping with a growing role in international affairs and increasing turmoil over economic reforms at home.
Hu, 60, anointed long ago by the late Deng Xiaoping, now controls both party and government, the two most prominent posts in China. His election by the rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress, marks the crescendo of the first orderly power transfer in communist China's 54-year history.
"These leaders will work hard to help improve lives for ordinary Chinese, especially farmers and people in state businesses," said Yang Lanzhi, a delegate from Hunan, a province in China's south-central interior.
Legislative delegates reappointed Jiang chairman of the government commission that leads China's 2.5-million-member military. He already chairs an identical party commission, and there was no indication when he might give up those posts. Jiang had been party chief since 1989 and president since 1993.
Hu claimed the head-of-state title four months after succeeding Jiang as party chairman, the most powerful position in the land. He still faces challenges from rivals on the party's decision-making Politburo Standing Committee, some of them Jiang proteges. It could be years before he consolidates control.
Delegates voted exactly as expected in a process that seemed more committed to spectacle than democracy. The vote for Hu was overwhelming: 2,937 to 4. When the results were read, Hu rose, smiled, bowed to delegates and shook hands with a beaming Jiang.
Hu received congratulations almost immediately from Kim Jong Il, leader of North Korea (news - web sites), whose Stalinist dictatorship is one of China's last fellow governments in the dwindling coterie of communist states.
"I would like to express the belief that the bilateral friendship that was forged in blood would grow stronger and develop thanks to the common efforts exerted by both sides and wholeheartedly wish you great success," Kim said in a statement carried by his government's Korean Central News Agency.
Though the presidency has few official powers in China, Hu's elevation to it and the prestige it brings on the world stage reinforces his status as the country's new paramount leader. But no wholesale policy shifts appeared to be on the agenda, and the emphasis was on continuity.
"It doesn't matter who holds the top leadership post," said Zhang Tinghao, a delegate from the northern province of Shaanxi. "They will all wholeheartedly represent the people and work for their interest."
China's new leaders take charge of an increasingly restive society of 1.3 billion people that is struggling to cope with unemployment, rural poverty and other strains brought on by economic reforms and competition through entry into the World Trade Organization (news - web sites).
Despite those transformations, China's communist political system remains a closed, secretive apparatus that harshly punishes any moves it sees as threatening its monopoly on power.
One longtime back-room operative, Zeng Qinghong, Jiang's former closest aide and chief political strategist, was named vice president. The country's second-ranking party man, Wu Bangguo, replaces Li Peng as head of the legislature.
One top-level position remains unresolved. On Sunday, a new premier will be selected to replace Zhu Rongji. Vice Premier Wen Jiabao, another top party official, is considered the likely candidate to run government operations and oversee the economy.
Hu, a hydrological engineer by training, spent the first decades of his career working in some of China's poorest and most remote areas. He oversaw crackdowns on dissent as party chief of Tibet, then was picked in the early 1990s by then-supreme leader Deng as the top contender to succeed Jiang.
Most recently, he held top party management posts that handled promotions and other sensitive business.
Most Chinese came to know him only after he appeared on television to urge calm amid furious anti-U.S. protests in China following the NATO (news - web sites) bombing the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade in 1999.
Delegates and average Chinese alike expressed optimism Saturday that the new leaders could breathe new life into government — and help alleviate economic apprehensions.
"I hope Hu Jintao will help make us more prosperous — not just some of us, but the whole country and all of the people," said Beijing construction worker Wang Zhibin, 45.
In Taiwan, the island's top policy maker for China relations greeted the news cautiously. Tsai Ing-wen, chairwoman of the Cabinet-level Mainland Affairs Council, said she didn't expect Beijing's new leaders to push for an immediate breakthrough with Taiwan, which China claims as part of its territory.
"The new leadership needs to keep a stable environment internally, so the likelihood of major changes in the short-term is rather small," Tsai said.
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| Sat Mar 15, 2:36 AM ET |
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New Chinese President Hu Jintao, right, is congratulated by outgoing President Jiang Zemin (news - web sites) after Hu was named as his successor during a session of the National People's Congress in Beijing on Saturday March 15, 2003. (AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko) |
Things are going to get worse, too, before they get better. The “third generation” of Communist Chinese leaders is getting ready to leave the stage, and a “fourth generation” is waiting in the wings. This “fourth generation” — people like Jiang Zemin’s 58-year-old heir-apparent, Hu Jintao — came of age at or just before the beginning of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76). The years after university graduation, when a person’s outlook is broadened by work experience and foreign travel, were all lost to them in those eleven years of madness. They are ignorant, insular and narrow-minded. They lost their Marxist ideology in the follies of the late Mao period and filled the vacuum with rabid nationalism. They have internalized all the stuff about “western imperialism” and “national humiliation”, without the softening experience of actually dealing with foreigners in their formative years, as older leaders did (with Americans during WW2, or with Russians in the early Maoist years). Jiang Zemin, Zhu Rongji and even the robotic Li Peng are cosmopolitan sophisticates compared with what we’ll be facing ten years from now.*
* There was a good analysis of this upcoming “fourth generation” in The China Quarterly for March 2000: “Jiang Zemin’s successors: The Rise of the Fourth Generation of Leaders in the PRC” by Li Cheng.
Night Thoughts
John Derbyshire
March 10, 2003
http://www.nationalreview.com/derbyshire/derbyshire031003.asp
China's Communist dictators care about one thing only: staying in power. To stay in power, they have to keep the economy moving forward. To do that, they have to maintain, and if possible increase, their exports to the U.S. The communist regime is entirely dependent on our willingness to buy Chinese goods. If we embargoed Chinese goods, many American firms would go out of business. The prices of many things would rise, though other third-world suppliers would soon fill the gaps. The effect on China, however, would be a thousand times more dramatic. Their economy would collapse.
Memo to Hu Jintao: If the U.S. loses a city to some terrorist group, via a weapon that would not have been made if you had helped us shut down the Kim Jong-il regime, or via a weapon you sold, or helped someone develop — if that happens, pal, it will be around 100 years before any American ever again buys any object stamped MADE IN CHINA.
China is still run by a guy who died 5 years ago.
And this isn't a transfer of power. Nor was it the first orderly transfer.
Answer: one.
Hu, 60, anointed long ago by the late Deng Xiaoping...
I haven't been looking at his stuff recently, thanks for posting them.
Gertz: China sold Iraq dual use chemicals
Despite French denials, U.S. intelligence and defense officials have confirmed that Iraq purchased from China a chemical used in making fuel for long-range missiles, with help from brokers in France and Syria.
No. Hu is the president of China.
That's what I'm sayin'! What is the name of the President of China!
....The country's second-ranking party man, Wu Bangguo, replaces Li Peng as head of the legislature.....
This is an important change. Li Peng is I believe, an old hard liner. He has been supersceded. That is good and positive news.
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