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| English: President Hu Jintao of China visiting the White House. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/NJ25Ad02.html
SINOGRAPH US race shames China's leadership change
The opacity of China's upcoming leadership shuffle is in stark contrast to the United States' presidential race. The lack of substance in rumors over potential winners and losers of the Communist Party congress proves that for Beijing to achieve world influence it will need to stop hiding truths from its own people.
- Francesco Sisci (Oct 24, '12)
The opacity of China's upcoming leadership shuffle is in stark contrast to the United States' presidential race. The lack of substance in rumors over potential winners and losers of the Communist Party congress proves that for Beijing to achieve world influence it will need to stop hiding truths from its own people.
- Francesco Sisci (Oct 24, '12)
BEIJING - It should be the best-guarded secret in China, and perhaps because of this it is the most talked about story in the country at the moment: who will be named to sit at the top of China's political pyramid during the next party congress due to open on November 8?
Many events are described as historic but few deserve this definition as much as the forthcoming congress. This will set the tone not only for the next 10 years, due to be lead by the duo of Xi Jinping (next president), Li Keqiang (next prime minister), but also for following two decades, as decisions will most likely be made also about who will lead the country in the decade after 2022.
Reportedly, top decision makers are discussing the possibility of Hu Chunhua, born in 1963, entering the standing committee. He may or may not get the post, but the fact that negotiations of this kind are taking place shows that the congress is considering very long-term options for the country which will be about men but also about policies.
Moreover, rumors are swirling over the extent that leaders of Jiang Zemin's generation are involved in this process, and how much upcoming president Xi is part of it. In any case, notwithstanding anybody else's involvement, present President Hu Jintao remains objectively central in this activity.
This is basically all that can be said with certainty about this huge event.
In America, the grand superpower, there is open competition for its top position, with long electoral campaigns throughout the country that are followed by media all over the world and fiery debates broadcast live worldwide.
In China, superpower number two there are some some remarkable and less-heard features to leadership changes and furtive action to name top leaders. This involves members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo engaging in secret deals and shifty horse-trading in the dark corridors and stealthy passages of its modern forbidden city, Zhongnanhai (the Chinese leaders' residence).
This difference appears to paint China in a bad light.
America, through its open electoral campaign, projects global influence. The whole world can watch and admire the open, democratic political process. The global audience is split in rooting for this or that candidate, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney - but everybody is rooting for America. President Obama, for instance, was and is a total global phenomenon; it is politics but also modern entertainment involving someone who is more than a rock star or a movie actor.
Conversely, nobody in the world knows what is going on in China. Observers can't help but wonder how this country functions and how it will ever project power and influence when its most important process, the choice of its leaders, remains totally hidden.
Here the growing swirl of contradictory rumors helps only to confirm the first impression: how can a country that wants to have more influence hide its most important element, its top politics, from its own people and the world? By totally hiding it, as it does, China undercuts its aims: who in the world will be rooting for China when nobody knows even who is about to rule the country?
On this backdrop, all kinds of name-dropping in Beijing gossip and conjecture from Hong Kong remain just that. In 2002, at the 16th Party Congress, reporters were taken by surprise by two last-minute changes: Jiang Zemin remained chairman of the Military Commission yet not part of the Politburo, and the Standing Committee was expanded from seven people to nine.
Both former Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu, purged in 2006 for graft, and former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai, purged this year, were Politburo members full of information. Yet neither of them expected to be toppled and arrested. If even insiders don't really know what is going on in Zhongnanhai, how can we, total outsiders, hope to shed any light on the possibly devious machinations of China's top politicians? This congress is more important than the 16th, and it comes after the largest political scandal since fall of Lin Biao in 1971. It could then be full of surprises.
Moreover, just following the names could be deceptive. Many observers try to interpret the success or failure of a leader by charting how his support group is faring: with Jiang there was the Shanghai gang, with Hu Jintao now there are his Youth League buddies. However, this can be misleading. There are no clear and open divides in affiliation; most people straddle many loyalties as it helps their careers, and total loyalty to only one man is a very risky proposition. At this crucial moment it is not always clear how each of them will side.
Betrayals, changing sides, and shifting positions are the hallmark of politics all over the world, and China is not immune to this. But in China, this occurs under wraps, and we may think that according to the charts X should be loyal to Y, but maybe X has cut a deal with Z. This is true all the time, and it could be even truer now, as the Bo Xilai affair shook Chinese politics to its core. Many of Bo's former supporters must have run for their lives, and thus may have cut new deals with the winners. Therefore, a simple head count according to assumed, charted loyalty in the next Politburo could be incorrect.
Having said that, there are some elements to which we could pay attention to a have a better indication of the direction China might take in the future. The first element is whether the Standing Committee of the Politburo will shrink to seven people or remain at nine. Although many leaks point to seven, nine could still be an option, and it could have different significance depending on the composition of the group.
The questions are: Will there be a woman? Will there be a representative of the next generation of leaders, the one that will rise to power in 2022? Will there be a military representative? The military was moved out of the Standing Committee in 2002 and got its own "standing committee" in the Central Military Commission, which has almost equal stature to the party organization. Isn't it time to bring the rifle closer under the party? Or are there other plans? Is Hu going to stay on as chairman of the Military Commission? Even the meaning of him staying or going could change according to the overall political chemistry.
With so many elements up in the air, if all of them were to be aired clearly the party congress would draw global attention, interest and even support. Possibly this could be greater than the show about the duelists sparring to be the next US president. But this is not the case, and, despite the huge curiosity surrounding it, the congress remains the preserve of compulsive readers of esoteric tea leaves, as this modest scribbler remains.
Many events are described as historic but few deserve this definition as much as the forthcoming congress. This will set the tone not only for the next 10 years, due to be lead by the duo of Xi Jinping (next president), Li Keqiang (next prime minister), but also for following two decades, as decisions will most likely be made also about who will lead the country in the decade after 2022.
Reportedly, top decision makers are discussing the possibility of Hu Chunhua, born in 1963, entering the standing committee. He may or may not get the post, but the fact that negotiations of this kind are taking place shows that the congress is considering very long-term options for the country which will be about men but also about policies.
Moreover, rumors are swirling over the extent that leaders of Jiang Zemin's generation are involved in this process, and how much upcoming president Xi is part of it. In any case, notwithstanding anybody else's involvement, present President Hu Jintao remains objectively central in this activity.
This is basically all that can be said with certainty about this huge event.
In America, the grand superpower, there is open competition for its top position, with long electoral campaigns throughout the country that are followed by media all over the world and fiery debates broadcast live worldwide.
In China, superpower number two there are some some remarkable and less-heard features to leadership changes and furtive action to name top leaders. This involves members of the Standing Committee of the Politburo engaging in secret deals and shifty horse-trading in the dark corridors and stealthy passages of its modern forbidden city, Zhongnanhai (the Chinese leaders' residence).
This difference appears to paint China in a bad light.
America, through its open electoral campaign, projects global influence. The whole world can watch and admire the open, democratic political process. The global audience is split in rooting for this or that candidate, Barack Obama or Mitt Romney - but everybody is rooting for America. President Obama, for instance, was and is a total global phenomenon; it is politics but also modern entertainment involving someone who is more than a rock star or a movie actor.
Conversely, nobody in the world knows what is going on in China. Observers can't help but wonder how this country functions and how it will ever project power and influence when its most important process, the choice of its leaders, remains totally hidden.
Here the growing swirl of contradictory rumors helps only to confirm the first impression: how can a country that wants to have more influence hide its most important element, its top politics, from its own people and the world? By totally hiding it, as it does, China undercuts its aims: who in the world will be rooting for China when nobody knows even who is about to rule the country?
On this backdrop, all kinds of name-dropping in Beijing gossip and conjecture from Hong Kong remain just that. In 2002, at the 16th Party Congress, reporters were taken by surprise by two last-minute changes: Jiang Zemin remained chairman of the Military Commission yet not part of the Politburo, and the Standing Committee was expanded from seven people to nine.
Both former Shanghai party chief Chen Liangyu, purged in 2006 for graft, and former Chongqing party chief Bo Xilai, purged this year, were Politburo members full of information. Yet neither of them expected to be toppled and arrested. If even insiders don't really know what is going on in Zhongnanhai, how can we, total outsiders, hope to shed any light on the possibly devious machinations of China's top politicians? This congress is more important than the 16th, and it comes after the largest political scandal since fall of Lin Biao in 1971. It could then be full of surprises.
Moreover, just following the names could be deceptive. Many observers try to interpret the success or failure of a leader by charting how his support group is faring: with Jiang there was the Shanghai gang, with Hu Jintao now there are his Youth League buddies. However, this can be misleading. There are no clear and open divides in affiliation; most people straddle many loyalties as it helps their careers, and total loyalty to only one man is a very risky proposition. At this crucial moment it is not always clear how each of them will side.
Betrayals, changing sides, and shifting positions are the hallmark of politics all over the world, and China is not immune to this. But in China, this occurs under wraps, and we may think that according to the charts X should be loyal to Y, but maybe X has cut a deal with Z. This is true all the time, and it could be even truer now, as the Bo Xilai affair shook Chinese politics to its core. Many of Bo's former supporters must have run for their lives, and thus may have cut new deals with the winners. Therefore, a simple head count according to assumed, charted loyalty in the next Politburo could be incorrect.
Having said that, there are some elements to which we could pay attention to a have a better indication of the direction China might take in the future. The first element is whether the Standing Committee of the Politburo will shrink to seven people or remain at nine. Although many leaks point to seven, nine could still be an option, and it could have different significance depending on the composition of the group.
The questions are: Will there be a woman? Will there be a representative of the next generation of leaders, the one that will rise to power in 2022? Will there be a military representative? The military was moved out of the Standing Committee in 2002 and got its own "standing committee" in the Central Military Commission, which has almost equal stature to the party organization. Isn't it time to bring the rifle closer under the party? Or are there other plans? Is Hu going to stay on as chairman of the Military Commission? Even the meaning of him staying or going could change according to the overall political chemistry.
With so many elements up in the air, if all of them were to be aired clearly the party congress would draw global attention, interest and even support. Possibly this could be greater than the show about the duelists sparring to be the next US president. But this is not the case, and, despite the huge curiosity surrounding it, the congress remains the preserve of compulsive readers of esoteric tea leaves, as this modest scribbler remains.
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