|
|
  |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Storm of controversy over CCP jockeying
By Willy Wo-Lap Lam
HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- A particularly disturbing instance of factional intrigue flared up shortly before Chinese President Jiang Zemin left for the U.S. and Mexico last week. The intensifying infighting over political succession in the Communist party says much about rivalry among the cliques -- and the Machiavellian if not unconstitutional means that Jiang and his colleagues have employed to preserve their vested interests. While talking to representatives of the Chinese Community in Chicago, Jiang said: "One feels so light-hearted when one is without any official position." The 76-year-old patriarch was referring to the carefree days that he anticipated after retiring from the post of general secretary at the 16th Party Congress next month, and from the state presidency next March. What the president had not divulged was the hardball tactics he had used to ensure that members of the Jiang or the Shanghai Faction would take up three out of the seven slots of the new Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) that would be endorsed at the congress. Moments after Jiang's departure for the U.S., the official Xinhua news agency announced that two key Jiang cronies -- Shanghai and Beijing party secretaries, respectively Huang Ju and Jia Qinglin -- had been transferred from their regional jobs to the zhongyang (party and state headquarters). Replacing them as party chiefs of Shanghai and Beijing were the mayors of the cities, Chen Liangyu and Liu Qi respectively. UnusualLast Thursday, Beijing also announced the appointments of He Guoqiang and Liu Yunshan as, respectively, the directors of the Communist party's Organization Department and Propaganda Department. He is a former party secretary of the western metropolis of Chongqing and Liu a former Inner Mongolian cadre and vice propaganda chief. These personnel moves, which received scant coverage in the international media, have aroused a storm of controversy among cadres and intellectuals in Beijing. Firstly, it is highly unusual for party authorities to make high-level personnel changes so close to a party congress. According to Chinese University of Hong Kong Sinologist Wu Guoguang, it would be "more normal and reasonable" to make the appointments after the 2010 delegates to the 16th Congress have cast their votes for the new Central Committee, the party's ruling body. Moreover, added Wu, a former editor of the People's Daily, it was only earlier this year that Huang, 64, and Jia, 62, had been voted party secretaries of Shanghai and Beijing respectively by the two municipal party congresses. Beijing-based political commentator Tao Dongping has queried whether some of these maneuvers have violated the Communist party constitution. For example, the party charter stipulates that a regional party congress should be convened to pick the head of the party committee of a province or city. The appointments of Huang and Jia, however, were hastily announced by a senior cadre of the Organization Department shortly before Jiang left for Chicago. And since their promotions have not been approved by the party congresses of their respective cities, Chen and Liu should at most be designated acting party secretary of Shanghai and Beijing. Stacking the Politburo
According to a veteran party cadre, Jiang has choreographed the personnel movements in order to stack the new Politburo with more proteges. "In time-honored practice, the party bosses of Shanghai and Beijing are entitled to Politburo status," the cadre said. "Chen and Liu would not qualify for Politburo membership at the 16th Congress if they were to remain merely mayors of Shanghai and Beijing." Diplomatic sources in Beijing say Huang and Jia are now primed for promotion to the supreme, seven-man PSC. Huang is in a position to succeed the retiring Li Lanqing, 70, as Executive Vice Premier, while Jia could become Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC). The incumbent CPPCC chief, Li Ruihuan, 68, is in line to succeed the unpopular Li Peng, 74, as Chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC). According to a senior Western diplomat, Jiang's original intention was to replace Li Lanqing with another protege, Guangdong party secretary Li Changchun -- and to name Vice-Premier Wu Bangguo, a former Shanghai vice-party boss, as CPPCC chairman. "However, both [Premier] Zhu Rongji and Li Ruihuan have raised objections to Li Changchun and Wu entering the PSC," said the diplomat. "As a compromise, Jiang is pushing for the advancement of Huang and Jia, who were originally slated by the president to become NPC vice-chairmen to help rein in Li Ruihuan, a long-time Jiang rival." It is understood that Zhu has acquiesced in the rise of Huang and Jia despite the premier's reservations about their abilities. This is partly because in return, Jiang has indicated his approval for the elevation of two key Zhu associates: Wen Jiabao and Wu Yi. Vice-Premier Wen, Zhu's right-hand man for the past five years, will succeed him as premier, and State Councilor Wu will become a vice-premier. As Beijing commentator Tao has argued, however, factional affiliation, rather than ability, has now become the determinant of a cadre's political fortunes. Take the case of Huang, whose decade-long track record in Shanghai has been lackluster. Most Shanghai-based Western diplomats and businessmen have credited former mayor Xu Kuangdi -- a Zhu protégé who failed to get along with Huang and was edged out last year -- for the metropolis' dramatic development. And since Huang has never served in the central government, his possible elevation to the post of First Vice-Premier has aroused disquiet among cadres outside the Shanghai faction. Rising starsAnother beneficiary of the Byzantine happenings in Beijing has been Jiang's alter ego and chief strategist, former Organization Department Director Zeng Qinghong, who is due for PSC membership. It is Zeng who has with the president's blessings masterminded the recent spate of reshuffles, including naming crony He as his successor as the party's personnel supremo. Indeed, a number of recently anointed rising stars, including new Shanghai party secretary Chen, are deemed closer to Zeng than to Jiang. And how about Vice-President Hu Jintao, who is due to succeed Jiang as party general secretary and state president? Sources close to the Hu camp said the 59-year-old heir-apparent had obediently gone along with Jiang's recent appointments -- almost none of which are from the vice-president's own faction -- in order not to jeopardize his own advancement. This is despite the fact that Zeng, who will head the Shanghai Faction after Jiang's retirement, has now emerged as a most formidable challenger to Hu's power. The sources said Hu's only chance of survival would be to form a coalition with two other PSC members not from the Jiang or Shanghai Faction: Wen and Li Ruihuan. Given that at least in the coming year or so, much of the energy of China's new elite will be absorbed by factional strife, it is probable that even relatively liberal leaders such as Hu and Wen won't be ready for thorough-going steps in economic, and particularly, political reform. It is a truism of Chinese-style modernization that the bolder the liberalization measure, the more risk there is that the master reformer will be shot down by his political foes should his radical initiatives fail to measure up to expectations.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
