Chinese Vice President Xi Jinping (習近平), who is set to take over the helm of the Chinese government this autumn, might look like a low-profile leader with little to make him stand out, but a China watcher in Taiwan said on Wednesday that Xi has “transcended” his predecessors, such as former Chinese presidents Jiang Zemin (江澤民) and Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) in seven respects.
First, Xi knows Taiwan better than former Chinese leaders Mao Zedong (毛澤東), Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), Jiang or Hu because he served as the No. 1 man in China’s Fujian Province, which lies across the Taiwan Strait directly opposite Taiwan, and he has made friends with numerous Taiwanese businesspeople, Tamkang University international affairs professor Lin Chong-pin (林中斌) said.
Xi’s knowledge of Taiwan and his proposed policy toward Taiwan, such as “winning Taiwanese hearts and using economics to push for unification,” has become official in Beijing, said Lin, who has served as a deputy chairman at the Mainland Affairs Council and deputy minister at the Ministry of National Defense.
Photo: AFP
Moreover, Lin added, Xi does not rule out the possibility of dialogue with the opposition Democratic Progressive Party, indicating that once in control, he will be more flexible and forward--looking than China’s previous leaders, which means that breakthroughs in cross-strait relations are more likely.
Xi’s second “transcendence” of previous Chinese leaders is his understanding of the US, where he stayed in 1985, said Lin, who writes for the Chinese-language United Daily News and shared his views during an interview with UFO Radio on Wednesday.
Xi loves Hollywood movies that distinguish between good and evil and is generally not anti-US, Lin said.
He said that under Xi’s leadership, China would manage its ties with the US well, while steadily pushing its grand strategy of “dominating East Asia without having to go to war.”
Third, Xi will take less time to assume full control over the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) than either Jiang or Hu because he has a 28-year relationship with the PLA from the time he served as a secretary of former Chinese minister of national defense Geng Biao .
Fourth, Lin said, Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun (習仲勛), was a patriarch well respected within the Chinese Communist Party who left a legacy as a reformist and a fighter for justice.
Xi himself shed his reputation of being a “princeling” while working at a rural re-education camp when his father lost favor with Mao, accumulating a unique experience that is even more valuable than any gleaned by Communist Youth Corps members, Lin said.
Based on his family background and personal experience, Lin said, Xi was likely to launch political reforms, as well as campaigns to -uproot corruption once he has gained a firm grip on power.
The fifth advantage Xi enjoys over his predecessors is his educational background, Lin said, adding that Xi has two doctorates — in chemical engineering and in political science.
As the first Chinese top leader to hold a doctorate since the People’s Republic of China was established in 1949 and the first with a non-technology degree since China’s reforms of 1979, Xi will be in a better position to make decisions, not just on science and technology, but also in the field of the humanities, Lin said.
Xi’s sixth advantage over Mao, Deng, Jiang and Hu is that he has a “bright and beautiful” wife — Peng Liyuan (彭麗媛), a PLA major general and a singer whose appearance in the international arena will outshine all her previous-generation counterparts and who is likely to add luster to Xi, Lin said.
Xi’s seventh advantage that will likely help him achieve more than previous Chinese leaders lies in his sympathy with religion, Lin said, quoting a WikiLeaks report that Xi has been close to Buddhist mystics, qigong practitioners and supernatural power researchers, while his wife is a devout Buddhist.
Lin said that once in power, Xi would likely be able to defuse the time bombs of the Tibetan and Xinjiang Uighur issues, owing to his deep empathy with religions.
Lin said Xi’s “seven transcendences” over the four previous Chinese leaders would play a significant role in the 10 years in which he is to lead China to vie with the US for a leading role in the world.
A Red Cross Society rescuer on Friday recalled the scene of a train crash in Hualien County, saying he could not believe what he saw: scattered body parts and the sounds of people crying in a crumpled train carriage. “It was a living hell,” said Lin Chi-feng (林啟豐), who led an 11-member rescue team that was among the first to arrive at the scene at 11:03am on Friday, carrying rescue and demolition gear. The fatal incident occurred at 9:28am when Taroko Express No. 408 crashed inside the Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) after slamming into a crane truck near the tunnel’s entrance. The truck had
A survey of young Taiwanese showed that only 36.5 percent of men and 19.6 percent of women believe marriage is important, a trend that academics say is key to the nation’s low birthrate. Yang Wen-shan (楊文山), an adjunct research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Sociology, yesterday announced the 12th round of results from a longitudinal survey of attitudes among young Taiwanese toward markers of adulthood. While few of the respondents, who were aged 28 to 32 when surveyed in 2017, found marriage to be important, 95.8 percent believed that being responsible for oneself should take precedence, data showed. Economic independence came in
SHRINKING FEMALE POPULATION: Last year, 107.74 boys were born for every 100 girls in Taiwan, which is a greater gender imbalance than in Japan and South Korea The Ministry of the Interior recorded 9,601 births in January, the first time the nation has produced fewer than 10,000 newborns in a single month, while different indicators showed that Taiwan might also be facing a population with increasingly fewer births, women and marriages. It comes after the ministry reported a record low 165,249 births last year, which was lower than the 173,156 deaths recorded last year. The nation experienced negative population growth for the first time last year, ministry data found. The number of births in January also dropped from a year earlier, when there were 12,510 births. In February, there were
The Hualien District Prosecutors’ Office has listed six people as suspects in a judicial investigation into a fatal train crash on Friday last week. Fifty people were killed and more than 200 were injured when the Taroko Express No. 408 train slammed into a crane truck that had slid onto the tracks near the entrance of Cingshuei Tunnel (清水隧道) in Hualien’s Sioulin Township (秀林). The office also summoned six officials at the Taiwan Railways Administration’s (TRA) Hualien Engineering Section for questioning about alleged illegal business operations and unsafe work conditions by Yi Hsiang Industry Co and Tung Hsin Construction Co, the two