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.