Hu Takes Full Power in China as He Gains Control of
Military
By JOSEPH KAHN
Published: September 20, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/09/20/international/asia/20china.html?th
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BEIJING, Sept. 19 - China's president, Hu Jintao, replaced Jiang Zemin
as the country's military chief and de facto top leader on Sunday, state
media announced, completing the first orderly transfer of power in the
history of China's Communist Party.
Mr. Hu, who became Communist Party chief in 2002 and president in 2003,
now commands the state, the military and the ruling party. He will set
both foreign and domestic policy in the world's most populous country,
which now has the world's seventh-largest economy and is rapidly
emerging as a great power.
The transition is a significant victory for Mr. Hu, a relatively unknown
product of the Communist Party machine. He has solidified control of
China's most powerful posts at a younger age - he is 61 - than any
Chinese leader since Mao Zedong, and is now likely to be able govern
relatively unimpeded by powerful elders.
Mr. Jiang's resignation, which surprised many party officials who
expected the tenacious elder leader to cling to power for several more
years, came after tensions between Mr. Jiang and Mr. Hu began to affect
policy making in the one-party state, some officials and political
analysts said.
Mr. Jiang, 78, may be suffering from health problems, several people
informed about leadership debates said. But he appeared robust in recent
public appearances and was widely described as determined to keep his
job - and even expand his authority - until he submitted a letter of
resignation this month.
The leadership transition was announced Sunday in a terse dispatch by
the New China News Agency, followed by a 45-minute broadcast on China
Central Television. Mr. Jiang and Mr. Hu appeared side by side, smiling,
shaking hands and praising each other profusely in front of applauding
members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, which formally
accepted Mr. Jiang's resignation and Mr. Hu's promotion at the
conclusion of its four-day annual session.
Mr. Jiang's offer to retire, which was first reported by The New York
Times earlier this month, was given no advance publicity in state media.
China Central Television read the text of Mr. Jiang's resignation letter
on its evening broadcast, emphasizing that his resignation was
voluntary. The letter was dated Sept. 1.
"In consideration of the long-term development of the party's and
people's collective endeavors, I have always looked forward to fully
retiring from all leadership posts," Mr. Jiang wrote, according to an
official transcript of his letter. He said Mr. Hu "is fully qualified to
take up this position."
Even by the strict standards of secrecy within the party, the decision
about Mr. Jiang's fate was closely held. For a vast majority of the 70
million party members, not to mention the general public, there had been
no indication that he was planning to retire, and his abrupt departure
seems likely to increase the sense that the most important personnel
decisions are made without broad consultation. Since the Communists
defeated the Nationalists in a civil war and took control of China in
1949, the party has repeatedly failed to execute orderly successions.
All three of the men chosen by Mao Zedong to succeed him were purged
before they could consolidate power, two of them by Mao himself and the
third by Deng Xiaoping after Mao's death in 1976.
Deng also anointed and then cashiered two successors. In the aftermath
of the bloody crackdown on dissent in 1989, he elevated Mr. Jiang from
the middling rank of Shanghai party chief to China's highest posts.
The most recent transition looked similarly compromised when Mr. Jiang
maneuvered to keep control of the military in 2002. Party officials said
Mr. Hu had been slated to inherit full power at that time and that his
failure to control the military forced him to operate in Mr. Jiang's
shadow.
But Mr. Jiang's retirement suggests that the party now operates more
according to the consensus of its elite members rather than the whims of
its most senior leader.
Moreover, Mr. Jiang did not appear to have extracted any special
concessions as the price of his retirement. Notably, he failed to
arrange for Vice President Zeng Qinghong to be elevated to the Central
Military Commission. Party officials had said they expected Mr. Zeng, a
longtime protégé and ally of Mr. Jiang's, to become either a regular
member or a vice chairman of the commission.
On Sunday, Xu Caihou, a military officer in charge of propaganda work,
was promoted to replace Mr. Hu as a vice chairman of the commission. He
will serve with Cao Gangchuan, the defense minister, and Gen. Guo
Boxiong.
The number of regular members of the commission was expanded to seven
from four, adding representatives from the navy, air force and the unit
in charge of China's nuclear arsenal.
Mr. Hu, a poker-faced bureaucrat who served most of his career in inland
provinces and rarely if ever traveled outside China before he rose to
the most senior ranks in the late 1990's, has sent mixed signals about
how he intends to rule. He deftly handled the first big crisis of his
leadership in the spring of 2003, when China faced the SARS epidemic
that top health officials had initially covered up. Mr. Hu sacked two
senior officials and ordered a broad mobilization to combat the disease,
which was controlled within weeks.
He has sought to draw a contrast with Mr. Jiang's aristocratic image,
making trips to China's poorest areas and shunning some conspicuous
perks. He pledged to raise the incomes of workers and peasants and
redirect more state spending to areas left behind in China's long
economic boom.
"Use power for the people, show concern for the people and seek benefit
for the people," Mr. Hu said in remarks early in his term as party
chief. He has allowed state media to refer to him as a populist, though
his rise through the ranks has not depended on popular support.
Little is known about Mr. Hu personally beyond a few random facts
offered by the propaganda machine, including his enthusiasm for
Ping-Pong and what is described as a photographic memory. In official
settings, he is a much less colorful figure than Mr. Jiang, who crooned
"Love Me Tender" at an Asian diplomatic gathering and was fond of
quoting Jefferson and reciting the Gettysburg Address to visiting
Americans.
It seems highly unlikely that Mr. Hu is a closet liberal. Editors and
other journalists say he has tightened media controls. He has presided
over a crackdown on online discussion by jailing people who express
antigovernment views on the Internet.
"My general impression is that Hu is a Communist of the old mode," said
Alfred Chan, professor of politics at Huron College in Canada, who is
conducting a study of the new leadership. "His career has been totally
shaped by the Communist system. I think many expectations of him are
exaggerated because he works under the constraints of party discipline."
In a speech delivered last week, he referred to Western-style democracy
as a "blind alley" for China. He has a plan for political change, but it
mostly involves injecting some transparency and competitiveness within
the single-party system to make officials police themselves better.
In foreign affairs, Mr. Hu deferred largely to Mr. Jiang. Mr. Jiang
relished his role as a statesman and was proud of having built a
nonconfrontational, sometimes even cordial relationship with the United
States.
Mr. Hu is not expected to alter course substantially. But party
officials say that he has tended to emphasize relations with China's
neighbors and with Europe over ties with the United States and Japan.
He faces two major foreign policy tests that Mr. Jiang leaves
unresolved. One involves North Korea, China's longtime ally, which
American officials say is on the verge of becoming a full-scale nuclear
power. Chinese officials worry that if Pyongyang formally goes nuclear,
other Asian countries, notably Japan, could follow.
China is also deeply worried about how to deal with Taiwan under
President Chen Shui-bian, who many here believe intends to move the
island, which China claims as its sovereign territory, toward
independence.
Mr. Jiang steered China toward a tougher rhetorical and military posture
toward Taiwan, even as the Bush administration expanded military aid to
the island. Mr. Hu has not shown any signs of changing course, but some
analysts say he may experiment with a more flexible approach if he does
not have to worry about having his nationalist credentials
second-guessed by Mr. Jiang.
Mr. Hu and Mr. Jiang did not publicly spar. But there were signs that
their relationship had become strained. Mr. Jiang rejected a framework
for China's emergence as a great power that Mr. Hu supported. The policy
framework, known by the slogan "peaceful rise," was dismissed by Mr.
Jiang as too soft when China was threatening Taiwan with military force.
Mr. Hu and his prime minister, Wen Jiabao, have also had to battle
internally to curtail wasteful state spending and cool the overheated
economy. Some regional leaders are thought to have looked to Mr. Jiang
as a counterweight to Mr. Hu because they see the elder leader as a
champion of fast economic growth supported by heavy state investment.
"It may be that Hu will no longer have to worry that Jiang will contest
his decisions, and that could make decision-making smoother," said
Frederick Teiwes, an expert on elite politics at the University of
Sydney.
Some people who have visited Mr. Jiang or spoken with his relatives say
he has suffered health problems lately, offering one possible
explanation for his unexpected retirement.
But Mr. Jiang is also thought to have come under heavy pressure within
the party, and even within the military, to follow the example of Deng
and withdraw from public life before health problems force him to do so.
Mr. Hu also made a veiled call for Mr. Jiang to step aside when he
lavished praise on Mr. Deng's decision to retire early during ceremonies
to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the late leader's birth in
August.
Chris Buckley contributed reporting for this article.
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