Speculation abounds over the likely top appointments in the Chinese Communist Party, as senior leaders lobby for their favorites behind closed doors.
China's rumor mill has shifted into overdrive during the past few days at the party congress, a once-every-five-years event to reshuffle top posts and approve policy directions, at which the normally secretive party becomes even more tightlipped.
Internet sites, overseas media, diplomats as well as China's own chattering classes -- lower-level officials and academics -- have spun out endless permutations on who will make the cut and who won't.
"There are always wild rumors during the party congress political season, but they seem even wilder this time around," said Joseph Fewsmith, a Chinese politics expert at Boston University.
Rumor has long been the currency of truth in China where party politics are intentionally opaque, all media are state controlled, and the Internet is fiercely policed. But in a China now wired by instant messaging, Internet chat sites and mobile phones, secrets sometime leak out and the gossip flies fast.
Reports in Chinese media yesterday provided no hints.
The official newspaper the People's Daily ran a front-page story about President Hu Jintao's (胡錦濤) policy of "scientific development," which calls for helping the poorest Chinese and spending more on health care and education.
"Development is the top priority for the party and to ensure that the country thrives," delegate Chen Yuan, governor of the China Development Bank, was quoted as saying.
The outcome of the leadership tussle will be known today or tomorrow when the congress and related meetings end.
With Hu and three or four other leaders all but certain to stay on in the party's inner sanctum, the Politburo Standing Committee, the speculation has focused on four or five positions -- and whether Hu has the political capital to pack it with his allies.
Will it be Li Keqiang (
One overseas-based Web site, boxun.com, claimed to have the answer. It ran a list last week of what it said was the new leadership lineup.
The sources: a list from a prison printing shop in a gritty provincial capital that claimed to have printed up ballot lists for the conclave, and an identical list found at a party members' hotel by a chambermaid, whom the reporter identified as "my woman."
All through the past week in their brief encounters with the media, presumed top contenders parried questions about their pending promotions as unfounded speculation.
On Friday, Hu and other top leaders remained hidden, with official coverage limited to stories of rank-and-file delegates praising the Chinese president's opening speech to the congress that laid out his vision of more balanced economic growth and increased help for the needy.
The 2,200-plus representatives were preparing to vote today on a list of candidates for the roughly 350 members and alternates for the party's Central Committee, which will then choose the Politburo, largely on the advice of Hu and other influential leaders.
To prevent ordinary delegates from leaking proceedings, congress materials advised them not to use the Internet in their hotels, Hong Kong's Ming Pao newspaper said.
The government has taken thousands of Web sites off-line ahead of the congress.
MONEY MATTERS: Xi was to highlight projects such as a new high-speed railway between Belgrade and Budapest, as Serbia is entirely open to Chinese trade and investment Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic yesterday said that “Taiwan is China” as he made a speech welcoming Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) to Belgrade, state broadcaster Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) said. “We have a clear and simple position regarding Chinese territorial integrity,” he told a crowd outside the government offices while Xi applauded him. “Yes, Taiwan is China.” Xi landed in Belgrade on Tuesday night on the second leg of his European tour, and was greeted by Vucic and most government ministers. Xi had just completed a two-day trip to France, where he held talks with French President Emmanuel Macron as the
With the midday sun blazing, an experimental orange and white F-16 fighter jet launched with a familiar roar that is a hallmark of US airpower, but the aerial combat that followed was unlike any other: This F-16 was controlled by artificial intelligence (AI), not a human pilot, and riding in the front seat was US Secretary of the Air Force Frank Kendall. AI marks one of the biggest advances in military aviation since the introduction of stealth in the early 1990s, and the US Air Force has aggressively leaned in. Even though the technology is not fully developed, the service is planning
INTERNATIONAL PROBE: Australian and US authorities were helping coordinate the investigation of the case, which follows the 2015 murder of Australian surfers in Mexico Three bodies were found in Mexico’s Baja California state, the FBI said on Friday, days after two Australians and an American went missing during a surfing trip in an area hit by cartel violence. Authorities used a pulley system to hoist what appeared to be lifeless bodies covered in mud from a shaft on a cliff high above the Pacific. “We confirm there were three individuals found deceased in Santo Tomas, Baja California,” a statement from the FBI’s office in San Diego, California, said without providing the identities of the victims. Australian brothers Jake and Callum Robinson and their American friend Jack Carter
CUSTOMS DUTIES: France’s cognac industry was closely watching the talks, fearing that an anti-dumping investigation opened by China is retaliation for trade tensions French President Emmanuel Macron yesterday hosted Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) at one of his beloved childhood haunts in the Pyrenees, seeking to press a message to Beijing not to support Russia’s war against Ukraine and to accept fairer trade. The first day of Xi’s state visit to France, his first to Europe since 2019, saw respectful, but sometimes robust exchanges between the two men during a succession of talks on Monday. Macron, joined initially by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, urged Xi not to allow the export of any technology that could be used by Russia in its invasion