Hu Jintao and China’s New Leaders

November 16th 2002 (FriedlNet.com) - China has successfully completed its first orderly transition of power since the republic’s founding more than 50 years ago, with the 16th Communist Party National Congressclosing at the Great Hall of the People yesterday in Beijing. Yesterday the new list of members on the country’s second-highest authority, the Central Committee , was presented and this morning the world was able to bear witness to a restructuring of China’s most powerful decision-making body, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee , with new leader Hu Jintao at its head.

On Thursday, the new list of 356 Central Committee members - chosen by the 2,114 delegates of the National Congress - revealed that current leader Jiang Zemin, along with five other party elders (Li Peng, Premier Zhu Rongji, Li Ruihuan, Wei Jianxing, and Li Lanqing), would not be included. Of the 356 members, 180 are new faces, reflecting the Party’s shift towards a younger generation. Not only an age shift has taken place: of the members of the new Central Committee, virtually all have college degrees; and even a few entrepreneurs were chosen to become members, including Zhang Ruimin, the chairman of Haier, and Ma Fucai of Petrochina. The new trend is symptomatic of China’s efforts to fine-tune country guidance so as to reap national gains from adhering to market principles which foster national growth and enhance the well-being of the people.

As expected, Hu Jintao, 59, will step in the footsteps of Jiang Zemin as chief of the Communist Party and become the nation’s most influential man. He is the only current member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau stay on. The Politburo Standing Committee was expanded this time around to include 9 members instead of the former 7. The members are: Hu Jintao , Wu Bangguo , Wen Jiabao , Jia Qinglin , Zeng Qinghong , Huang Ju , Wu Guanzheng , Li Changchun , and Luo Gan .

Of these, Zeng Qinghong is considered to be the most influential, perhaps even surpassing the might of Hu Jintao in the initial phase of the new government. The former boss of the Organisation Department is Jiang Zemin’s protégé, having pulled a lot of strings from behind the scenes during Mr. Jiang’s 13-year odyssey of political leadership. Mr. Zeng, 62, graduated from the Automatic Control Department of the Beijing Institute of Technology as has since worked as an engineer and member of various state commissions in the past, gradually working his way up the ranks. He will be the first secretary in the new Secretariat of the Central Committee of the CPC , giving him administrative responsibility for nearly all party affairs, including personnel, organization, propaganda and discipline.

In the years to come, however, the figure to be in the limelight is Hu Jintao. Now the country’s leading man, Mr. Hu became the youngest member of the CPC Central Committee in 1982, at age 39. He graduated from the Water Conservancy Engineering Department of famed Tsinghua University, where he majored in hydropower stations. The engineer quickly worked his way up the ranks of the Party echelons, at 44 becoming the youngest provincial boss as secretary of the Guizhou Provincial Committee. Mr. Hu was elected as member of the 13th to 15th CPC Central Committees and elected as member of the omnipotent Political Bureau of the 14th and 15th CPC Central Committees.

Of the other members, Jia Qinglin is a former Beijing party boss, Huang Ju is former Shanghai party secretary, Wu Guanzheng is Sandong Party secretary, Li Changchun is Guangdong Party secretary, and Luo Gan is state councilor and protégé of the last parliamentary head Li Peng.

Despite restructuring, Jiang Zemin’s influence will continue to be felt even in the future despite his public retreat. Friday morning, he was re-elected chairman of the Central Military Commission of the CPC, with Hu Jintao and Guo Boxiong and Cao Gangchuan elected as vice chairmen.

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