Jiang no longer pary chief, but continues to pull the strings in China: Analysts

Jiang no longer pary chief, but continues to pull the strings in China: Analysts

Robert J. Saiget, Agence France-Presse, Beijing

He no longer heads the ruling Communist party and his time as president is almost up, but analysts say Jiang Zemin will continue to pull the strings in China for years to come.

Although Jiang formally handed over the Communist Party leadership to Vice President Hu Jintao on Friday and is set to relinquish the presidency to Hu next March, he will remain extremely powerful.

The most compelling evidence of Jiang's power was his re- election as chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), said Wu Guoguang, a former leading Chinese official.

The post has only been previously held by the two other generational leaders of Chinese communism: revolutionary Mao Zedong and paramount reformer Deng Xiaoping.

"This position makes Jiang the commander-in-chief of the world's largest standing army, so of course it gives him tremendous political power," said Wu, now a political scientist at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

"Even if he had stepped down from CC chairmanship he would have continued to wield a lot of political clout just because of all the guys he appointed to top spots."

Of the nine members of the party's elite Politburo Standing Committee unveiled on Friday, at least seven of them are known to be loyal to and politically indebted to Jiang.

"This shows Jiang Zemin is still China's real ruler," said Ho Pin, a U.S.-based China watcher who accurately predicted the makeup of the new leadership the week before the Congress.

"In the new Politburo Standing Committee lineup, most of the people are Jiang's men."

These include Zeng Qinghong, a close confident of Jiang's and now seen as a political rival to new party boss Hu, and longtime political allies Wu Bangguo, Jia Qingling and Huang Ju.

Hu, who is not seen as politically indebted to or dependent on Jiang, is the most prominent member the "non-Jiang" part of the leadership, despite working with Jiang at the pinnacle of Chinese politics for the last 10 years.

"Hu is in a pretty difficult position," said Chinese University's Wu. "He must try to work with Jiang, while also maintaining good relations with all of the other Jiang proteges."

Despite Jiang's continued role at the CMC, many China watchers and Western diplomats believe he could relinquish the post when he steps down as president next March or after the present leadership stabilizes over the next couple of years.

"Still we don't know, his re-election could be a technical arrangement linked to his retirement from the presidency next spring, or he could hang on for several years," Wu said.

At any rate, Jiang's re-election to the CMC is similar to the retirement of the late Deng Xiaoping, who stood down from his party posts in 1987 and served as CMC chairman until 1989.

During that period, Deng engineered the ousting of two Communist Party bosses, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, while also using his clout to call in the military to crush the 1989 Tiananmen protests.

"No one knows if Jiang is seeking the exact arrangement that Deng Xiaoping had, but to follow Deng's example is a convenient arrangement and Jiang can say there is a model," said Ding Xueliang, a political scientist at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology.

However, few people in China believe Jiang has the stature of Deng.

"In Chinese political culture, seniority and age mean a lot. You must respect experience, but this is not the same thing as saying that Jiang Zemin has achieved the equal status of Deng Xiaoping," Ding said.