With no rivals, Hu’s super boss

Chinese premier all set to install his favourite men in key posts

BEIJING: Chinese President Hu Jintao is set to oust political rivals, promote allies to key posts and emerge politically stronger from a Communist Party conclave.

Hu’s rival-turned-ally, Vice-President Zeng Qinghong, is poised to retire, presenting a boon to Hu, who is seeking to consolidate power at the 17th Party Congress ending Sunday.

Another rival, Chen Liangyu, was sacked as Shanghai Party boss last year and faces trial for corruption. You Xigui, director of the Party’s powerful Bodyguards Bureau and a holdover from the era of Hu’s predecessor, Jiang Zemin, will retire after he was left out of the running for a seat in the Party’s elite 200-odd member Central Committee.

Several Hu allies who cut their teeth in the Communist Youth League, Hu’s power base, are tipped for higher office, and one-third of provincial leaders rose through the Youth League. Li Keqiang, Party boss of the northeastern province of Liaoning, is the front-runner to the top echelon of power, the Party’s nine-seat Politburo Standing Committee.

Another Hu ally, Liu Yandong, minister of the Party’s United Front Work Department responsible for winning over non-Communists, is a shoo-in to become the only female member of the Politburo, ranked one notch below the Standing Committee.

Li Yuanchao, party boss of wealthy Jiangsu province in the east coast, and Wang Yang, who runs the southwestern metropolis of Chongqing, are candidates to join the decision-making 20-odd member Politburo. All have Youth League backgrounds.

“Hu is now a super-patron who can dispense favours and insert people in key party, government and military positions,” said Alfred Chan, a political scientist at Canada’s Huron College. “Rejuvenation is urgent. The designation of a successor or successors for 2012 is more an institutional requirement than Hu’s alleged desire to pick an ally to perpetuate his legacy.”

The final line-ups of the politburo and the Standing Committee will be made public at a post-Congress meeting on Monday.
The new inner core is likely to include Shanghai Party boss Xi Jinping and younger faces who do not necessarily owe their allegiance to Hu. His political doctrine, ‘’scientific development’’, advocating sustainable growth, will be enshrined in the Party constitution during the Congress.

In another sign of Hu’s growing clout, he offered to enter into negotiations with Taiwan to reach a peace agreement, in an overture to the self-ruled island which China claims as its own. “He had enough authority to break new ground despite pressures from conservatives in the party,” said Lin Chong-Pin, a veteran China watcher.

Hu’s control of the 2.3-million-strong People’s Liberation Army has grown. Media hailed Jiang as “the core” of his generation of leaders, an unofficial but important title that Hu is expected to inherit. But Hu lacks the revolutionary credentials of Mao or Deng and needs to accommodate the military, “princelings’’ or the children of the country’s political elite and provincial leaders.