Succession looms at Beijing meeting

China's Communist Party today opens the last full meeting of its Central Committee ahead of a congress next year expected to usher in a new generation of leaders.

China-watchers are looking to the three-day gathering for clues to the future leadership line-up.

President Jiang Zemin (江澤民) is expected to use the closed-door session to galvanize support for an ideological line he hopes will elevate him to the political pantheon alongside Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).

"The background maneuvering on everything is going to be [focused on] the party congress coming up next year and setting the stage for that," one Beijing-based Western diplomat said.

Jiang and four other members of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee are set to retire at next year's meeting and analysts said Jiang, also general secretary of the party, would be jockeying to fill those spots with his supporters.

"Jiang has to come up big at this plenum, or else he will look weak," said Joseph Fewsmith, a professor of international relations and a China specialist at Boston University.

One of Jiang's top priorities will be to secure full membership in the Politburo for his protege Zeng Qinghong (曾慶紅), who heads the party's influential organization department.

It is a task he failed at last year.

Jiang, National People's Congress Chairman Li Peng (李鵬) and Premier Zhu Rongji (朱鎔基) are set to give up their party posts next year and government posts in 2003.

Jiang's expected successor is Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), now state vice president, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission and No. 5 in the party hierarchy.

But analysts said Jiang was trying to line up Zeng, a close adviser who came to Beijing with him from Shanghai in 1989, to succeed or possibly rival Hu, who was anointed as Jiang's successor by Deng. By securing political allies in the Politburo Standing Committee, Jiang will ensure he remains influential after his retirement, they said.

Most analysts think Jiang will retain the chairmanship of the powerful Central Military Commission after relinquishing his other posts, like Deng before him.

Analysts said Jiang would also lobby hard at the plenum for support for his "Three Represents" theory and a July 1 speech in which he urged the party to admit capitalists into its ranks.

Jiang's theory holds that the party represents the interests of advanced productive forces, advanced culture and a wide sector of the population.

His embrace of capitalists has infuriated the conservative old guard, who believe Jiang has betrayed the party of workers and peasants.