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| New additions: President Hu Jintao (center) on Monday introduced Li Keqiang (second from left) and Xi Jinping (second from
right), who are seen as potential successors to the presidency. David Gray/Reuters |
China's new leadership takes the stage
On Monday, Chinese President Hu Jintao introduced Li Keqiang and Xi Jinping, two new members of the Communist Party's top policymaking body, and likely rivals for the top job.
from the October 23, 2007 edition
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Hu's repeated references to economic "development" rather than economic "growth" marks "a profound difference in concept" from previous policies designed purely to boost China's wealth creation, Zhu Zhixin, China's top economic policymaker, told reporters on the sidelines of the party congress.
"Now we emphasize not only economic growth … but the relationship between growth and the environment and a reasonable distribution of economic benefits," said Zhu, vice chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.
Repeated environmental disasters and a growing gap between rich and poor are among the problems Hu has pledged to tackle during his second term of office, distancing himself still further from the "growth at any cost" approach of his predecessor as party leader and president, Jiang Zemin.
The younger "fifth generation" of Chinese leaders, of whom Li and Xi are the most prominent standard-bearers, may be better suited for such tasks than their predecessors. While China's political class has hitherto been dominated by engineers, a new brand of up-and-coming leader has been schooled in a wider range of disciplines.
Li, for example, was trained as a lawyer, and a recent study of top officials in China's four largest cities, which generally blaze a trail for the rest of the country, found that fully three quarters of them had majored in economics, management, social sciences, law, or the humanities.
Whether that might make them more kindly disposed than their elders to a greater degree of democracy, or at least openness, in Chinese politics, is as yet unclear.
In his speech opening the congress last week, Hu harped repeatedly on the theme of "inner party democracy," and officials insisted that elections to the party's 200-strong Central Committee were a competitive, multicandidate affair.
However there were only 8 percent more candidates than places on the Central Committee when congress delegates voted Saturday, according to the official Xinhua news agency, which left little room for competition.
When it came to choosing a Standing Committee this week, politburo members clearly had virtually no choice: the list of its probable members had been circulating for days in advance of the congress.
"Including two candidates for the future succession is progress of sorts," says Prof. Li, the senior fellow at Brookings. "But they were not elected by any means. This party congress was very controlled, and it remains a black box of manipulation."
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