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| Staffers work at the press center for China's 17th party Congress, which opens Oct. 15. The event may hold clues about possible
successors to President Hu Jintao. Greg Baker/AP |
Succession a top issue at China congress
President Hu Jintao is almost certain to be elected to a second five-year term. All eyes will be on which younger leaders – and possible successors – get top posts.
from the October 11, 2007 edition
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Populists and elitists
Hu leads the "populists," he says, who rally around the president's rhetoric of "building a harmonious society" and his stress on closing the growing wealth gap between rich and poor, boosting social spending, paying closer attention to peasants, and generally salving the wounds that wild capitalism has inflicted on Chinese society.
Li Keqiang, currently the party boss of Liaoning, an industrial province in northeastern China and a longtime acolyte of Hu's in the Communist Youth League, is the likely new entrant to the Standing Committee associated with this group.
Alongside the "populists" are the "elitists," says Professor Li, identified with former President Jiang Zemin's brand of breakneck economic growth and foreign investment that has favored China's prosperous coastal regions. Their coming man is Xi Jinping, currently head of the party in Shanghai and also tipped to make it into the Standing Committee next week.
Factional politics within the Communist Party are not new, but "today it is no longer a zero-sum vicious power struggle," says Li. Rather, he believes, the two groups recognize each other's strengths and that they need each other.
In each of the top six national leadership bodies such as the presidency and the Central Military Commission, he points out, the top two positions are shared between members of the two power groups. "I don't think either faction will win outright," he predicts.
This delicate balance marks "a change from dictatorship to democracy. This is the starting point for inner party democracy" believes Li Datong, the former editor, as the party builds on its efforts to reflect Chinese society more broadly through the inclusion of capitalist entrepreneurs.
"The foundation for legitimacy has changed," he argues. "It used to be the previous leader's nomination, and now only votes can change anything."
So far, the party has taken only the most hesitant steps in this direction. Next week, for example, the 2,217 delegates will be presented 230 candidates for the 200 Central Committee posts, allowing them a small measure of choice in selecting the people who will elect the Standing Committee.
Even Li Datong's optimism is hedged. The opportunity to choose China's leaders, he notes, will still be limited to members of the Communist Party.
"The bottom line is that the Communist Party's governing authority, and single party rule, must not be endangered," he says. "The goal of inner party democracy is to keep Communist Party rule intact."
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