China's orderly shift in leaders is getting messy

For more than a year, China has been preparing for a change of leadership, a shift to a younger "Fourth Generation" of leaders that would mark the first orderly, institutionalized succession by any communist country.

It would mean, in China, an evolution from rule by a small cadre of family groups and cult personalities to something akin to regular rotation in office, and a clear, procedural pathway for future changes and reforms.

But now there are indications that top leader Jiang Zemin may be having second thoughts. Reading China's political tea leaves is never easy. But several events and a steady drumbeat of rumors indicate the transition may be moving away from the assumed script.

For the first time in memory, the elite party cadre are not taking their annual secret conference/holiday by the sea in August. It has been fast-forwarded to this week.

And, in an unprecedented front page editorial this month in the People's Liberation Army Daily, Mr. Jiang was five times lauded as the "core" of China's leadership.

The question is starting to flow thick and fast in the Middle Kingdom capital: Will Jiang really step down?

Until now the generally accepted transition script was that Jiang will hand over his posts to Vice President Hu Jintao. In Party lore, Mr. Hu was chosen by late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping to succeed Jiang, whose remarkable staying power dates to 1989.

Jiang and his peers, including hardliner Li Peng and Premier Zhu Rongji, come from a "Third Generation" of leaders. These elders have delivered economic dynamism on the mainland, but also carry the taint of the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre – and a decade of denying any responsibility for it.

How smoothly the shift goes bears greatly on a central issue in top circles here, insiders say: the ongoing legitimacy of the Chinese Communist Party. At a basic level, a smooth transition will free Beijing from an inward-gazing power struggle that has consumed China for more than a year, and made many official decisions seem temporary in a country that prizes stability.

"China has for too long been a government of men rather than a government of laws. The regular, periodic, peaceful replacement of elites would contribute to ... constitutional-legal norms in Chinese politics," argues Richard Baum, a China expert at UCLA. "Hu Jintao and others of the 'Fourth Generation' are untainted by Tiananmen... which might ... enable them to take more decisive action...."

But in numerous venues – speeches, conferences, editorials, state visits, and personal meetings – Jiang has not appeared ready to leave. On the contrary, his recent contribution to Chinese Marxist thought, a theory known as "Three Represents," has been so lionized that some analysts feel he is being sold as indispensable to the running of the country. This media push may also be a prelude to an announcement that China's global situation is so delicate that Jiang is needed as a firm and experienced hand.

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