Chinese President Hu Jintao (
Hu's long-awaited rise to the chairmanship of the party's powerful Central Military Commission culminates a leadership transition that began in November 2002 when he replaced Jiang as party head.
Hu, 61, replaced Jiang as president in March 2003.
He has now solidified his position as the core of the fourth generation of communist leadership following the revolutionary Mao Zedong (
Hu's appointment was confirmed on the final day of a high-level meeting of the party's Central Committee, which was also due to approve a wide-ranging policy document aimed at consolidating party power through the democratization of its secretive inner workings.
Sources had said before the announcement that there was much pressure within the central committee for Jiang to retire, following in the footsteps of Deng who quit as chairman of the military commission in 1989 in favor of Jiang.
There was also speculation that he was in poor health, stricken with prostate cancer.
As well as Hu's promotion, General Xu Caihou (
The commission itself was expanded from four to seven members.
While Jiang still holds the chairmanship of the state military commission, his removal from that post is expected to be a formality when the National People's Congress (NPC), or parliament, meets for its annual session next year.
Jiang's resignation is expected to help Hu to make his mark on politics and to push through his pet reforms -- bringing greater transparency and democracy to the ruling party and stifling corruption in the party and government.
Such reforms, however, are expected to be carried out only if they work to consolidate the party's stranglehold over China's one-party political system.
Last week, in a major speech marking the 50th anniversary of the NPC, Hu ruled out the implementation of Western-style democratic reforms, saying it would lead the country into a "blind alley."
"All the political systems introduced into old China ... failed to change their nature as representative of the interests of imperialism, feudalism and bureaucrat-capitalism, and the Chinese people remained in the miserable position as the oppressed, the enslaved and the exploited," he said.
Premier Wen Jiabao will also expect to see his powers to control the country's booming economy strengthened, since Jiang's resignation will likely streamline the chain of command at the highest levels.
Although Hu and Wen are seen as representing a new generation of leaders, there is little doubt that ensuring the Communist Party's one-party rule remains the priority of all top party leaders.
"Enhancing the party's ruling capacity is a major issue of strategic importance to the fate of both the building of socialism and the Chinese nation," Xinhua said last week at the opening of the meeting.
Paul Harris, a political scientist at Hong Kong's Lingnan University, cautioned that it was still too early to say that the transition was over.
"The assumption is that Jiang Zemin is out nominally, he has given up his title, but all along he has been trying to be like Deng Xiaoping and he wants to be active from behind the scenes," he said.
Jiang's ability to rule behind the scenes would be strengthened by a cabal of senior party and government leaders whom he promoted during his 15 years in power, including Vice President Zeng Qinghong (
Taiwan has arranged for about 8 million barrels of crude oil, or about one-third of its monthly needs, to be shipped from the Red Sea this month to bypass the Strait of Hormuz and ease domestic supply pressures, CPC Corp, Taiwan (CPC, 台灣中油) said yesterday. The state-run oil company has worked with Middle Eastern suppliers to secure routes other than the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 20 percent of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas typically passes, CPC chairman Fang Jeng-zen (方振仁) said at a meeting of the legislature’s Economics Committee in Taipei. Suppliers in Saudi Arabia have indicated they
A global survey showed that 60 percent of Taiwanese had attained higher education, second only to Canada, the Ministry of the Interior said. Taiwan easily surpassed the global average of 43 percent and ranked ahead of major economies, including Japan, South Korea and the US, data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) for 2024 showed. Taiwan has a high literacy rate, data released by the ministry showed. As of the end of last year, Taiwan had 20.617 million people aged 15 or older, accounting for 88.5 percent of the total population, with a literacy rate of 99.4 percent, the data
CCP ‘PAWN’? Beijing could use the KMT chairwoman’s visit to signal to the world that many people in Taiwan support the ‘one China’ principle, an academic said Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Chairwoman Cheng Li-wun (鄭麗文) yesterday arrived in China for a “peace” mission and potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), while a Taiwanese minister detailed the number of Chinese warships currently deployed around the nation. Cheng is visiting at a time of increased Chinese military pressure on Taiwan, as the opposition-dominated Legislative Yuan stalls a government plan for US$40 billion in extra defense spending. Speaking to reporters before going to the airport, Cheng said she was going on a “historic journey for peace,” but added that some people felt uneasy about her trip. “If you truly love Taiwan,
NEW LOW: The council in 2024 based predictions on a pessimistic estimate for the nation’s total fertility rate of 0.84, but last year that rate was 0.69, 17 percent lower An expected National Development Council (NDC) report expects the nation’s population to drop below 12 million by 2065, with the old-age dependency ratio to top 100 percent sooner than 2070, sources said yesterday. The council is slated to release its latest population projections in August, using an ultra-low fertility model, the sources said. The previous report projected that Taiwan’s population would fall to 14.37 million by 2070, but based on a new estimate of the total fertility rate (TFR) — the average number of children born to a woman over her lifetime — the population is expected to reach 12 million by
RSS