Zhu: Life in the old cadre yet

Zhu meets Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee. The two countries have vowed to fight terrorism

By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
Senior China Analyst

(CNN) -- There's life in the 73-year-old cadre yet. With less than 14 months left in his one-term premiership, Zhu Rongji is very much in the news.

He is playing peace broker in the India-Pakistani conflict during his on-going trip to New Delhi.

And rumor mills in Beijing have been buzzing with allegations the recently detained President of the China Construction Bank, Wang Xuebing, was once a Zhu protégé.

However, it is a series of intriguing statements the feisty leader made in internal meetings that has caught the attention of long-time Zhu watchers.

These remarks show while Zhu seems to be on the defensive in Beijing's perennial factional struggles, the premier wants to leave a legacy that is commensurate with his reputation as a master reformer.

And it is interesting that the State Council chief has been paying attention to political reform rather than his portfolio of economic liberalization.

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While talking recently to cadres dealing with personnel issues, Zhu suggested that the retirement age for ministers be lowered from 65 to 60.

The premier said this would enable the Chinese civil service to better dovetail with global norms.

"We must speed up the pace of rejuvenation," he said. "The older generation must make way for the young."

On another occasion, Zhu said China must elevate more female cadres to the top.

Even more significantly, the premier said while dwelling on officials' problematic relations with the masses that "cadres must be quick to respond to voices in society."

When his subordinates asked for a clarification of this vague instruction, Zhu would only say: "Go and listen to what the masses have to say -- and then you'll know what to do."

Calling it quits

Zhu's comments on rejuvenation can perhaps be best understood in the context of the much-reported reluctance on the part of several septuagenarian colleagues -- including President Jiang Zemin and National People's Congress (NPC) chief Li Peng -- to call it quits in the coming year.

While touring Europe last September, Zhu said at a press conference that he would definitely retire in early 2003, because he was "too old" to serve a second term.

Sacked China Construction Bank President Wang Xuebing is said to have been a Zhu protege

The premier's remarks, however, were not reported in the official media. Nor were they well received by Jiang and Li.

It is significant that when he was again asked by reporters late last year whether he would call it quits, Zhu only said this question would be determined by prevailing rules and regulations.

The premier was, of course, echoing the answer given last October by Jiang at the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum to a similar question about his retirement.

The trouble with Jiang's statement, however, is that there are no retirement rules for senior Communist party posts.

And the fact that Zhu had to copy the president's words said much about the leadership's difficulty in arriving at a consensus on such an apparently clear-cut matter as retirement ages.

Corruption

The premier's injunction that cadres address criticisms and demands from society has been followed up to some extent.

Last week, the government held an unprecedented public hearing on whether railway departments should raise the price of tickets during the coming Chinese New Year.

Loner: Zhu says he has no factions of think tanks within the party

Beijing has also penalized officials responsible for mishaps ranging from accidents in coal mines with atrocious safety standards to marathon explosions in fireworks factories.

However, according to a Beijing academic close to the Zhu camp, what the premier had in mind when he spoke about the need to be responsive to social grievances was corruption.

It is well-known that a number of big-time graft cases -- including the Xiamen smuggling scandal and several instances of monkey business in the army -- would not have been exposed had it not been for Zhu's personal intervention.

The academic said there was a link between Zhu's injunction on cadres' relations with the masses and the now-famous interview that Zhu Lin, the wife of NPC chief Li, had given to a couple of magazines late last year.

In the interview, Zhu Lin denied she had ever been involved in business activities.

Integrity

Beijing analysts said the premier's personal integrity had not been dented by assertions about his patronage of or friendship with senior banking and financial officials who had been investigated for alleged irregularities.

Apart from the Construction Bank's Wang and his associate Liang Xiaoting, an executive with the Hong Kong Branch of the Bank of China, disgraced cadres said to have been close to Zhu at one time or another have included the Head of the China Everbright Group, Zhu Xiaohua, and the former director of the State Administration on Foreign Exchange, Li Fuxiang.

However, the anti-Zhu innuendo may be indicative of his growing friction with the heads of a number of party factions.

His relationship with Jiang and Li have been frosty since the middle of last year.

Many of Zhu's supporters were unhappy about the fact that the premier, China's supposed economic czar, was kept away from the APEC meetings in Shanghai.

Zhu was frank about the number of his foes both in and out of the bureaucracy.

At the Sixth World Chinese Entrepreneurs Convention held in Nanjing last September, the premier surprised the audience when he made the off-the-cuff remark that he feared that his enemies would "get him after my retirement."

Successor

Whether Zhu can leave a reformist legacy may depend in large measure on whether he could push his protégés to senior positions at the pivotal Communist party congress next October.

At the highest level, he is lobbying for Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao to succeed himself.

Recently, however, Li -- the only cadre responsible for the June 4, 1989 crackdown who is still in power -- has in internal meetings raised doubts about Wen's "trustworthiness."

The 59-year-old Wen was in 1989 a close aide to disgraced party chief Zhao Ziyang.

Zhu also wants a big raise for State Councillor Wu Yi, the only woman to hold a senior post in the party and government.

Hence his recent remarks that there should be more female cadres at the top.

Like Zhu, however, Wu has become unpopular with regional officials for the pivotal role she played in China's accession to the World Trade Organization.

According to a Western diplomat, that Zhu is having difficulties on the personnel front can be seen from the near-desperate strategy he seems to have taken to dissociate himself from his protégés in the hope that their chances for promotion won't be affected by being known as members of the "Zhu Faction."

"Zhu has tried to distance himself from long-time associates including two rising stars: Vice-Minister of Finance Lou Jiwei and the Vice-Governor of the People's Bank of China, Guo Shuqing," the diplomat said.

In internal meetings, Zhu is understood to have said recently: "I don't have any faction; nor do I have any personal think tank."