Has Qiao lost the power struggle?

The 15th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) ended sooner than expected after revealing an unexpected result. In his third dispatch on the Congress, our Asia correspondent Harvey Stockwin reports on why China-watchers did not have to wait until the first plenum of the new CCP central committee to learn about one major change in China's leadership line-up.

HONG KONG (JP): As the 15th CCP Congress opened on Sept. 12, it was noticeable that CCP Secretary-General Jiang Zemin walked into the Great Hall Of The People together with third-ranking leader Qiao Shi, while second-ranked Li Peng walked behind.

For those watching the profoundly protocol-conscious world of CCP politics, the questions immediately arose -- had Qiao gained from the assumed power struggle? Was a Jiang-Qiao alliance in the making? Was this a sign of the new collective leadership at work? Or was this merely a gesture to an opponent?

The answer was not long in coming -- although, in line with the intensely secretive nature of Chinese politics at the highest level, we will probably never know what precisely that Jiang gesture to Qiao actually meant.

As the congress concluded Thursday in Beijing, two top leaders, Qiao Shi and Liu Huaqing, were "retired" from the politburo even before the new politburo had been chosen.

The last day of the one-week Congress (it had been expected to last ten days) saw the election of the new CCP Central Committee (CCPCC), and the routine unanimous adoption of CCP Secretary- General Jiang Zemin's lengthy political report, delivered on the first day of the Congress.

A substantial number of members of the 14th CCPCC lost their seats. Two sons of respected elderly cadres, who had been expected to enter the CCPCC on their father's coattails so to speak, also failed to win. Even the son of former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping, Deng Pufang, was only made an alternate member of the CCPCC. This seems odd, given that, as a result of a change to the party constitution passed by the Congress, "Deng Xiaoping Theory" was added to Marxist Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought as the ideological lodestars of the CCP.

But the big surprise was the failure of the third and sixth ranking members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo (PSC) to even win a seat on the CCPCC. The new politburo, and its PSC, will be chosen by the new CCPCC at its first plenum held immediately after the Congress.

The sixth ranking member was the PLA representative, 82-year- old Gen. Liu Huaqing. Given his age, Liu was expected to leave the PSC. But the general, who had reportedly opposed his own departure, was not even retained among the 193 full members of the new CCPCC. The PLA representative in the new PSC is likely to be Gen. Zhang Wannian, who ranks as the Chinese equivalent of a chief of general staff.

But the big surprise at the closing of the Congress was that the third ranking member of the outgoing PSC, the chairman of the National People's Congress (NPC) Qiao Shi, was also not retained on the new CCPCC. Immediately the intriguing question arises -- was Qiao purged or merely pushed?

Either way, Qiao's ouster is, as earlier anticipated by the Jakarta Post, almost certainly a big boost for outgoing Prime Minister Li Peng and his alliance with President Jiang Zemin. As I reported earlier, Li retires as premier next March , and is now confidently expected to step into Qiao's shoes as NPC chairman.

It is faintly possible that Qiao, whose age is variously reported as 72 or 74, and who does not appear to enjoy robust health, wanted to retire. The last two NPC chairmen also had, like Qiao, only one five year term in that job.

According to some reports, Qiao was considered for the top job of CCP Secretary-General in 1989, ahead of Jiang Zemin, but declined to take it. This has led some to conclude that Qiao lacks ambition and drive. But Qiao would scarcely have risen to the third-ranking position in the leadership if he lacked these qualities.

Yet it is still most unlikely that Qiao construed "retiring" in terms of losing all his party positions, even his CCPCC membership. This point was indirectly rubbed home by the return of former party chairman Hua Guofeng to the 15th CCPCC. Hua was, of course, Mao's designated successor, and had the same three jobs in charge of state, party and military as those now held by Jiang Zemin. Deng quickly pushed Hua aside in the four years following Mao's death but Hua has retained his central committee membership to this day. Qiao, for some unexplained reason, has been denied that privilege.

Qiao has long been thought to be an opponent of Li Peng, and probably of Jiang Zemin, too. Qiao let it be known that he abstained when the PSC voted to impose martial law in Beijing in 1989. With his background in the Chinese security and intelligence apparatus, Qiao has long been seen by China-watchers as likely to be a dark horse in the post-Deng succession struggle.

Just possibly Qiao's undoing may have been that any succession struggle was delayed until Deng's belated death last February, whereas Hua Guofeng had little time to consolidate his power before Mao actually died. Jiang Zemin and Li Peng, by contrast, have been able to quietly strengthen their alliance for seven years.

Above all, there has been the clear evidence of deep divisions within the top leadership over personnel changes in the run-up to the Congress, with the failure to agree on CCP personnel either at Beidaihe in July or in the Politburo earlier this month. Were Qiao happy to depart, such disharmony could have been avoided.

TV pictures from Beijing as the 15th Congress closed probably told the whole story. The once dour Li was smiling more than ever, while Qiao looked glum. They looked like men who had just won, and lost, a power struggle.