China's Communist Party selects new leadership body
Monday, 22 October 2007
BEIJING, OCT 21 (AP): President Hu Jintao boosted his political clout Sunday, getting China's Communist Party elite to endorse a signature policy program and approving the retirement of a powerful rival. How deftly Hu maneuvered eight days of high-level parleys will become clearer Monday when the party inaugurates a new leadership lineup with Hu in charge for a second five-year term. Hu has marshaled his political capital to try to promote a protege and potential successor but political analysts said he has had to strike compromises to do so.
Sunday's announcement that Vice President Zeng Qinghong, a skilled inside operator, is stepping down from the leadership likely upped the ante, perhaps forcing Hu to reserve leadership spots for rivals and constraining his decision-making. "Hu has made clear that he is in charge of a more rule-bound system, although he still has to share power," said Ding Xueliang, a politics analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Beijing.
Hu's ability to enforce unity will determine how the new leadership manages China's emergence as a world power without antagonizing the U.S. and other global powers and copes with a yawning rich-poor gap and a populace demanding more responsive government.
The conclusion of the weeklong party congress Sunday and Monday's announcement of a new leadership lineup marks the end of months of often divisive in-house bargaining over high-level posts that saw Hu purge Shanghai's party chief.
At the congress, the more than 2,200 delegates - national and provincial political and military elite - endorsed amending the party's charter to include Hu's pet policy program, the "scientific outlook on development." The program attempts to channel growth to better benefit rural areas, low-wage workers and migrants left out of the economic boom of recent years.
Sunday's announcement that Vice President Zeng Qinghong, a skilled inside operator, is stepping down from the leadership likely upped the ante, perhaps forcing Hu to reserve leadership spots for rivals and constraining his decision-making. "Hu has made clear that he is in charge of a more rule-bound system, although he still has to share power," said Ding Xueliang, a politics analyst with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Beijing.
Hu's ability to enforce unity will determine how the new leadership manages China's emergence as a world power without antagonizing the U.S. and other global powers and copes with a yawning rich-poor gap and a populace demanding more responsive government.
The conclusion of the weeklong party congress Sunday and Monday's announcement of a new leadership lineup marks the end of months of often divisive in-house bargaining over high-level posts that saw Hu purge Shanghai's party chief.
At the congress, the more than 2,200 delegates - national and provincial political and military elite - endorsed amending the party's charter to include Hu's pet policy program, the "scientific outlook on development." The program attempts to channel growth to better benefit rural areas, low-wage workers and migrants left out of the economic boom of recent years.