Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) is maneuvering to promote one of his closest allies to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) inner sanctum, two independent sources said, in a bid to retain clout and preserve his legacy after retiring as party chief.
Hu Chunhua (胡春華), party boss of the northern region of Inner Mongolia, is a rising political star of the party’s next generation of senior leaders. He is seen as a reformer and a close ally of Hu Jintao, although the two are not related.
Under China’s constitution, the president, 69, has to stand down early next year in a once-in-a-decade leadership transition.
“Hu Jintao regards Hu Chunhua highly and is determined to promote him,” a source with ties to the leadership said.
He wants “Little Hu,” as the younger man is popularly known in China, to be either catapulted straight into the party’s supreme decisionmaking body — the Politburo Standing Committee — or at least promoted to the prestigious post of party chief in Shanghai, China’s fast-growing financial capital.
“It’s a political tradition in China to ensure that unfinished work and wishes will be carried out,” a Chinese political analyst said, referring to the practice of retiring leaders promoting allies to ensure their influence remains.
“After leaving the [political] stage, the retiring leader hopes that the show will go on,” added the analyst, who asked not to be identified, citing the sensitivity of discussing elite politics.
It will also help ensure there is no political retribution carried out against Hu Jintao or his family by other factions who will remain in power once he is gone, the analyst said.
Hu Jintao is widely expected to hand the top job in the party to Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平) and look to promote other allies to important roles. He has been pushing to shrink the standing committee to seven from the current nine members to retain influence. Sources have said membership could be increased to 11.
A new leadership line-up, including the new standing committee, is expected to be announced at a party congress, to be held in October at the earliest. The new lineup will formally take over the reins of power in March next year.
“Hu Chunhua is a dark horse,” a second source with ties to the top leadership told foreign media, referring to his chances of joining the standing committee.
What happens to Hu Chunhua will hinge on horse-trading between Hu Jintao and other senior figures, including former Chinese president Jiang Zemin (江澤民), in the run-up to the leadership change at the party’s 18th congress later this year, the sources said.
These and other potential promotions are at the heart of the CCP’s secretive deliberations ahead of the congress. There are signs the deliberations have moved to the seaside resort of Beidaihe, a traditional summer retreat 250km from Beijing.
“This is to solicit opinions, but it won’t reach any final decisions on the new collective leadership. It’s too early for that,” said a source, who also spoke on condition of anonymity because of potential repercussions for discussing elite politics.
If elevated, Hu Chunhua, 49, would be the youngest member of the standing committee and as an ally of an outgoing president would be seen as someone destined for bigger things, possibly the party leadership.
He gained some international exposure earlier this year, when he accompanied Xi on a trip to the US, along with a smattering of other provincial leaders.
Hu Jintao became a member of the Politburo Standing Committee in 1992 and he became China’s leader a decade later.
If Hu Chunhua does not make it, he is the front-runner to become party boss of Shanghai and a member of the party’s elite Politburo, a bigger grouping of top leaders, sources said.
Shanghai, alongside major cities Beijing, Tianjin and Chongqing, enjoy a higher political status, giving their party bosses greater clout.
The politburo has 24 members after the ousting of Bo Xilai (薄熙來), the charismatic, but controversial, party secretary of the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing. He fell from power after his police chief sought asylum at a nearby US consulate and his wife was named as a suspect in the murder of British businessman Neil Heywood. She stood trial this week.
Other candidates in the running to succeed Yu Zhengsheng (俞正聲) as Shanghai party secretary are Chinese Commerce Minister Chen Deming (陳德銘), incumbent mayor Han Zheng (韓正), who survived a corruption scandal that ensnared his former boss, and the party’s top researcher Wang Huning (王滬寧), the sources said.
Yu is also a candidate to be promoted to the standing committee, the sources said.
Hu Chunhua could also become party boss of Beijing, replacing Guo Jinlong (郭金龍). Sources said Guo could lose his job after a bungled rescue response following floods in which 79 died.
After graduating from the elite Peking University, Hu Chunhua cut his teeth in the Communist Youth League — Hu Jintao’s power base. Almost immediately, he was posted to Tibet.
Hu Jintao was Tibet party boss for four years until 1992 and like the president, Hu Chunhua has made a name for himself serving in difficult locations.
In total, he spent 23 years in Tibet, overlapping for some of that period with Hu Jintao.
“Little Hu” was named the Youth League’s chief in 2006. He served as governor and eventually party boss of the northern province of Hebei before moving to Inner Mongolia in 2009.
“What is special about Hu Chunhua is that he volunteered to go to Tibet after graduating from Peking University with top honors,” said Kou Chien-wen (寇健文), an expert on the Youth League and director of the East Asian Institute of Taiwan’s National Chengchi University.
“He speaks fluent Tibetan, which is rare among Han Chinese cadres in Tibet,” Kou said. “It’s difficult to tell whether he is liberal or conservative, but he is very close to Hu Jintao.”
Hu Chunhua won plaudits from the Chinese government, diplomats and analysts say, after successfully dealing with rare protests by ethnic Mongols last year in Inner Mongolia, who took to the streets angered by the destruction of traditional grazing land by coal miners and a lack of respect for their culture.
“In the development process, it is necessary that safeguarding the interests of the masses must be the fundamental starting point,” Hu told some of the students who had organized the demonstrations, a rare and brave move by a senior leader.
“If people’s interests are not protected properly, then development cannot be sustainable,” Hu said, the official Inner Mongolia Daily quoted him as saying.
However, he has also shown a tougher side, locking up China’s most famous Mongol dissident, Hada, shortly after his release in 2010 from a 15-year jail term for separatism.
Hada’s wife and son are also believed to be in prison.
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