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President Hu ready to consolidate his power

Last month, Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) made his first diplomatic visits since coming to power. The purpose of his travel was obvious -- he wished to enhance his international image and diplomatic experience, thereby strengthening his own status, and putting himself in a better position to replace former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民). From this perspective, his visits were half success and half failure.

In terms of Hu's success, he has now successfully replaced Jiang in his international role. His place as the head of China has already been recognized by the international community.

During Hu's visits, the world's leading powers were all very courteous to the diplomatic rookie. Russian President Vladimir Putin even invited Hu to his personal villa for a home banquet -- hospitality that Jiang never enjoyed. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi also said during his meeting with Hu that they will establish good relations because they are about the same age.

When US President George W. Bush met Hu in France this month, he praised his Chinese counterpart's leadership ability in handling the SARS outbreak. He especially appreciated the transparency of Hu's handling of SARS and officially invited him to visit Washington.

Hu was invited to the G8 summit this year and the G8 showed its collective support for him. Jiang must have felt bad about this. He had intentionally portrayed himself as an open leader of a leading power for years, so as to become a member of the leaders' summit. Now, Hu has easily achieved what Jiang failed to achieve in the past, while Jiang once again witnessed the fickleness of western diplomacy.

After winning the firm support of the world's leading powers, Hu has greatly consolidated his power inside the Chinese Communist Party. Although the party objects to western hegemony, a pro-West concept is hidden deep inside the party. For example, Jiang asked to remain at his post in the past with the excuse that he was irreplaceable in terms of China's diplomacy. Today, the world's leading powers have recognized Hu with one voice. This has invisibly strengthened the legitimacy of China's new leadership.

In terms of Hu's failures, not only has he repeatedly exposed his weakness of lacking diplomatic experience, but he has not obtained substantial diplomatic results this time. All the media see Hu as constrained and nervous at diplomatic occasions and believe he's not good at making initial contacts with other people. In particular, he could hardly fit in at the G8 summit. Thus, to become a graceful and magnanimous leader, he has a long way to go.

Viewing Hu's diplomatic results, one of the most important issues of his trip to Russia was the construction project of an oil pipeline from eastern Siberia to the oil city of Daqing in China's Heilongjiang Province. But Putin made no commitment to him on the project.

The Russian media also remained low key on this. Hu returned empty-handed.

Although the G8 leaders were especially courteous to Hu during the summit, they did not make any substantial moves to back him. This shows that although foreign leaders think highly of him, they still need an observation period before they decide whether they can help him with all their strength -- just like how they once treated former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev.

Although Hu's trips were considered half success and half failure, he demonstrated his ambition to take control of China's diplomacy in person. I therefore believe that he will take more aggressive actions in diplomacy.

Wang Dan was a student leader during the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrations in Beijing.

TRANSLATED BY EDDY CHANG
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