Monday, October 21, 2002

BEIJING -- A bid by President Jiang Zemin to deviate from long-standing succession plans and remain in all his government and Communist Party posts appears to have failed in the face of widespread opposition in the Chinese leadership, according to Chinese and Western sources.

As part of a compromise, however, the 76-year-old leader, and possibly other allies from what is known as China's "third generation," will continue to exert influence over the direction of this massive country following the crucial 16th Party Congress scheduled to begin Nov. 8, the sources said.

Jiang, who travels to the United States this week, is expected at the congress to step down as the party's general secretary, a position he has held for 13 years. Next March, during the annual session of the National People's Congress, he is expected to step down from the presidency. Vice President Hu Jintao, who made his first visit to the United States earlier this year, will then occupy both posts, the sources said.

A Western diplomat characterized the upcoming transition as "muddle through plus." Younger blood will rise to positions of importance throughout China's government, military, financial and foreign policy systems, he and other sources said. However, these sources also predicted that aging officials, such as Jiang, will continue to help set the general direction and resist any dramatic political change.

If these expectations are borne out, the 16th Party Congress will be less of a wholesale handoff from one generation to the next than many Western and Chinese observers had predicted. Some Chinese sources now say the political transition is likely to be drawn out even to the next party congress, scheduled for 2007.

The compromise described by these sources underscores the concerns of China's leaders about the ability of the 65 million-member Communist Party to maintain control as China evolves away from its revolutionary foundations.

Hands on the Rudder

While not part of Mao Zedong's original guerrilla leadership or among his close lieutenants, Jiang's generation still has some roots in the revolutionary period. Jiang, for instance, joined the party before Communist China was founded in 1949. But the upcoming leaders are another generation removed from those times. That seems like a weakness to China's older leaders, Chinese sources said, because it could embolden local officials to ignore Beijing's orders and experiment with political liberalization, or prompt intellectuals to lobby for faster democratization.

In the view of some Chinese officials, the slow transition seems to guarantee stability at the center of Chinese power. But others said a gradual handoff could lead to policy paralysis or timidity.

"Jiang believes strongly that he needs to keep his hand on the rudder," said a Chinese newspaper editor with access to party documents and relatives among the political elite. "As long as he leaves some room for the younger generation, a lot of us think it's not a bad idea."

The challenge, the editor said, is to devise a plan that would not derail the leadership transition while at the same time ensuring a place for older leaders at the center of power.

Chinese divide their Communist leaders into generations. Mao represented the first. His generals and political commissars, such as the late Deng Xiaoping, represented the second. Many of them studied in Europe before World War II. Jiang and Li Peng, architect of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989, constitute the third. Many of them were trained by the Soviets in the 1950s.

Vice President Hu, 59, who came to political maturity during the Cultural Revolution and has never lived abroad, leads the fourth generation and is expected to take Jiang's place as party general secretary and president. Real political change is expected only with the fifth generation, many of them graduates from U.S. and European universities. They should accede to powerful positions by the next congress in 2007.

Chinese Communist Party congresses, described by one Western ambassador as "the world's biggest human resources management problem," are generally held every five years, usually in September or October. About 2,000 to 3,000 senior party representatives from China's 32 provinces and major cities, the military, government ministries and major state-owned enterprises gather in Beijing under tight security.

The congresses have three goals: picking China's leadership by selecting a new Central Committee; issuing a political report that summarizes the party's direction for the next five years; and revising the party's constitution.

The all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee is not announced until immediately after the congress, when the winners walk out single file from behind a dragon screen on the stage of the Great Hall of the People, just off Tiananmen Square.

Chinese journalists were informed in the spring that this congress would be held in September. But the event was delayed until November because of wrangling among the older leaders, especially Jiang, who wanted to find a way to remain influential.

The announcement of the congress's date was accompanied by an editorial in the People's Daily, the Communist Party mouthpiece, saying that the congress would "sum up" the party's work for the past 13 years, or since Jiang took office after the Tiananmen Square crackdown in 1989.

Other party publications subsequently published glowing reports of the past 13 years. This was taken as a sign that the party was preparing a grand send-off for Jiang and that his influence would soon evaporate. However, in interviews, party officials stressed that such an interpretation was incorrect.

A Place in History

Party members said it is still unclear exactly what combination of maneuvers Jiang will use to preserve his influence in Chinese politics. Discerning what goes on inside the oxblood walls of Zhongnanhai, the party headquarters in central Beijing, is often impossible. China's booming economy and rapidly changing social system have not been accompanied by parallel changes in its political life, which remains secretive and closed.

The decisions may still be in play. The seven-member Politburo continues to meet. The most recent gathering occurred Oct. 14, Chinese sources in Beijing and Shanghai said. But a number of sources said they believe Jiang will be able to achieve at least one of his three goals. Those objectives include: retaining his position as chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission for at least a year; having his name enshrined in the party constitution, thereby placing him on an almost equal footing with Mao and Deng; and stacking the Standing Committee with his proteges.

The Central Military Commission remains one of the most powerful bodies in China, although China's military, the People's Liberation Army, is more professional and less political than in the past. Nonetheless, from that pulpit Jiang would still be able to weigh in on critical foreign policy issues such as Taiwan policy and relations with the United States.

Since the spring, the People's Liberation Army Daily has trumpeted the army's loyalty to the party and especially to Jiang on an almost daily basis, noticeably more so than the party organ, the People's Daily. This has led analysts to conclude that the army leadership backs Jiang's effort to hold on to the military commission.

Come November, Chinese sources said, the party constitution will be modified to include the "Three Represents," a theoretical modification of Marxist doctrine that seeks to turn what was once a revolutionary party of workers and peasants into the party representing China's enormous bureaucracy, the rich and middle class.

Jiang wants his name attached to the doctrine, much like Mao's name is attached to Mao Zedong Thought and Deng's to Deng Xiaoping Theory. With his name enshrined in the party's constitution, Jiang would be granted a virtual monopoly on interpreting the new doctrine.

But since August, the state-run media have generally dropped Jiang's name when referring to the Three Represents, a sign of opposition. One compromise has been the phrase, "the Three Represents raised by Jiang Zemin." That would get Jiang's name into the party constitution but in a way subordinate to those of Mao and Deng.

Jiang has also lobbied to elevate proteges to the Standing Committee. Top among them is Zeng Qinghong, the party's personnel chief who was identified in a Western diplomatic report as the official Jiang has turned to in major political struggles since 1989.

Zeng, 63, is the son of revolutionaries, and has been described by Chinese officials as skilled at using connections inherited from his parents, and ruthless in protecting Jiang. An American official said Zeng has proved trustworthy at several sensitive moments in U.S.-Chinese history.

Zeng is also disliked by many Chinese bureaucrats because he does not respect party discipline and turf, often choosing to go directly to Jiang or grab policy portfolios that belong to others.

Asian diplomatic sources said they believe Zeng will get a seat on the Standing Committee. They cited his appearance, with Hu and Wen Jiabao, another Standing Committee hopeful and prospective premier, at the recent 30th anniversary of Sino-Japanese ties on Sept. 28 in Beijing.

"Zeng is behaving like a next generation leader," said an Asian diplomat, describing him as "talkative and cheerful" in a series of meetings he has recently attended. "If he is having trouble, then he's an amazing actor."

A dark-horse candidate also backed by Jiang is Li Lanqing, a colorless bureaucrat who is currently on the Standing Committee and has responsibility for leading the crackdown on the Falun Gong spiritual movement, a campaign championed by Jiang.

Several sources said Jiang hopes to persuade the Politburo to allow Li another term on the committee even though his age, 70, would violate the unwritten rule against people over 70 winning another term. Two other Jiang allies with shots at the Standing Committee are Li Changchun, governor of Guangdong province, and Wu Bangguo, a vice premier and a Jiang ally from his days as the mayor and party boss of Shanghai.

Jiang has apparently lost an attempt to exclude a rival, 68-year-old Li Ruihuan, from another term on the Standing Committee, the sources said. Li, the best public speaker on the Politburo, who is considered more interested than Jiang in political reform, is set to take over the legislature, replacing Li Peng.

Li Peng's protege, Luo Gan, the polyglot party security chief, is also tapped for a Standing Committee seat, sources said, guaranteeing Li Peng a continued say in the workings of the party.

Unexpected Opposition

Jiang's intentions have puzzled outsiders for some time. He gave a speech July 1, 2001, to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party in which he called, for the first time, for private businessmen to be allowed into the party. He also expounded on the Three Represents. At that time, Chinese and Western sources said, Jiang was prepared to step down completely, sensing that his proposals about businessmen and the Three Represents would face little opposition.

But he was surprised by the ferocity of the criticism. In late July, Jiang ordered the closure of a small but influential leftist journal, called Pursuit of Truth, which had lobbied loudly against allowing entrepreneurs into the party.

"The criticism prompted calls among some of his advisers for Jiang to stay on to make sure the Three Represents was carried out," a party source said.

By the beginning of this year, provincial leaders, the military and top ministry officials were also encouraging Jiang to stay put -- but for different reasons. These officials expressed alarm that since Hu was named vice president in 1998, he has moved rapidly to place allies in high-ranking positions in Beijing and provincial governments. Once Hu took over, Jiang's proteges feared, they would lose access to power, perks and protection from corruption probes.

Hu's main claim to fame is that he has not committed any blunders serious enough to derail his rise to the top -- not a small feat in a country that has seen three leaders-in-waiting implode over the last three decades.

Trained as a hydrologist at the prestigious Qinghua University, Hu is a mystery to Chinese and foreigners alike. "Even when you talk to him as a very close friend, he responds to you as if you are a stranger," said a Chinese official who knows him.

The Propaganda Ministry cranked up an unprecedented campaign lauding Jiang's achievements and identifying him with the Three Represents. Chinese-language periodicals in Hong Kong ran articles, planted by Beijing, calling on Jiang to stay.

Party sources pointed to the annual summer conference in Beidaihe as a turning point for Jiang's plan. There, party elders argued that his attempt to remain as general secretary could open splits within the party, and wondered whether it would affect stability, sources said.

Among those who opposed his gambit to remain in power, they said, was Premier Zhu Rongji. Since the end of the seaside gathering, they noted, Zhu's flagging political stock has appeared to rise considerably. China's officials have in recent days re-floated two of Zhu's pet policy ideas, opening China's closed stock markets to limited foreign investment and increasing foreign purchases of flagging state-owned ventures.

During a trip to Europe, Zhu took an oblique stab at Jiang, saying last month in France that, "At 70, you can do and say whatever you like -- and not overstep the boundaries." Two years ago, during a similar sojourn, Zhu incurred Jiang's wrath when he stated that anyone over 70 should retire.

Jiang's bid to stay, others said, was not simple hubris. It also was a calculated negotiating position designed to ensure enduring influence. "He staked out an impossible position so he could appear to be making concessions when he agreed to step down," said a party source. "In exchange for that, Jiang wants a place in the party constitution and his allies on the Politburo. He looks like he's going to succeed."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A57145-2002Oct20.html