BEIJING -- China's magnificent seven, the fifth and latest generation
of Communist Party leaders to helm the world's most populous nation,
strode into the limelight Thursday morning to end a week of public
ceremony in Beijing - and many months of backroom bargaining.
The leader of the gang is Xi Jinping, 59, who has a celebrity
singer wife and a daughter studying at Harvard. He took over from Hu
Jintao as general secretary of the 82-million-strong Chinese Communist
Party.
This once-a-decade leadership transition, picking a new
party chief and the other members of the party's Politburo standing
committee, the apex of power in China, represents only the second
orderly succession in the People's Republic of China's often-troubled
history.
There was no surprise in Xi's appointment, as
he had long been picked to succeed Hu as party chief and president; nor
in the appearance of Li Keqiang, 57, likely to succeed Wen Jiabao as
premier when the less-important transition of government leaders takes
place in March. Less expected was Xi's promotion, also announced
Thursday, to head of the party's military commission, overseeing the
People's Liberation Army. Hu Jintao could have held on to that post for
two years, as his predecessor had.
Both Xi and Li, who already sit
on the standing committee, are considered capable administrators but
only cautious reformers at best. After months of speculation, the
political drama Thursday focused on the identity, likely portfolios and
reformist credentials of the other five men in the seven-member lineup, a
reduction of two from Hu's nine-strong standing committee.
Calls
for political reform, long-stalled under Hu Jintao, have grown louder in
recent months. "China is now at a political crossroads and cannot
afford to hold back," the financial magazine Caixin argued in an editorial Wednesday. "China is facing grim economic times, and reform is therefore a race against time."
Disappointment
was in store for anyone hoping that more reform-minded candidates, such
as Guangdong party boss Wang Yang, might appear. "This is a standing
committee based on control, a stable, intra-elite deal, and I don't see
any social message or the voice of the non-state sector," said Kerry
Brown, a Chinese politics expert at the University of Sydney. With power
bolstered by his elevated army position, "this whole show now hinges on
Xi," said Brown, who expects no major policy changes for at least two
years.
There won't be any swift or significant shifts, agreed Wang
Wenzhang, a politics expert at Peking University, who also regretted
the lack of younger, reform-minded leaders, but expressed confidence Xi
and Li are bold enough to embrace reform. "We must wait several months
or years, because the contradictions of various interest groups must be
resolved," he said. "The easy reforms have already been done. The
remainder are more difficult and need time."
In theory, the
standing committee is chosen by the party's central committee elected
Wednesday, which also chooses the wider Politburo. In reality, the top
slots are decided by outgoing and former leaders in factional
horse-trading behind the scenes. "This is highly managed, by a long
process of consultation within elite groups," Brown said.
Xi did
at least provide a presentational change, when he spoke Thursday after
the new leaders walked onto a red stage inside Beijing's Great Hall of
the People. More confident and relaxed than the very stiff Hu Jintao, Xi
introduced his colleagues, stressed their heavy responsibility, praised
the Chinese people and admitted serious problems, such as corruption
within the party.
If the Xi Jinping-Li Keqiang regime chooses to
open up the notoriously closed world of Chinese politics, it offered no
immediate breakthroughs, as the party entertained no questions from the
hundreds of watching Chinese and foreign reporters.
The new
leadership must work through consensus, unlike the reigns of Mao Zedong
and Deng Xiaoping. They face huge challenges, as China's long-booming
economy slows, state-owned enterprises dominate at the expense of
private firms, and social unrest spikes at land grabs, official
corruption, income inequality and environmental worries.
On
foreign policy, where Beijing's more assertive stance on territorial
issues worries the United States and China's neighbors, don't expect any
rapid changes, said Shen Dingli, an international relations expert at
Shanghai's Fudan University. "China's fundamental interest is to sustain
the party's power, which mainly comes from economic growth," bolstered
by trade with the USA and others, he said. "We'll use our power to get
the best outcome. The USA is a superpower; we are not. But the U.S. must
still be sensible in doing business with China. There's no need to be
confrontational, but you have to treat us fairly."
Human
rights lawyer Li Baiguang was hopeful that Xi Jinping will improve
China's weak rule of law, in a country where the party controls the
courts. Xi once sent police to detain Li at home, said Li, when the
lawyer was pursuing sensitive rights cases in Zhejiang province, where
Xi served as party boss from 2003 to 2007. But Xi also pushed some
positive legal change there, Li said. "Xi won't bring democracy to
China, but he could build the rule of law which may restrict the party's
power," he said.
On China's fast-growing microblog
sites, users dodged censors to post comments and pictures online. "The
seven leaders came out so slowly, I hope reform won't be that slow,"
lawyer Tao Jingzhou wrote on Sina Weibo. Some appeared to mock the whole
process, posting pictures of seven animals such as turtles and pandas,
while others tried to analyze the new lineup through their zodiac signs,
ages and hometowns.
Despite extensive, flattering coverage of the
leadership transition in the state-run media, many Chinese feel removed
from the process of change and doubtful that citizens will be allowed
to participate anytime soon. "I have no interest in the 18th party
congress, so I won't watch the announcement, because I'll see the list
everywhere in the newspapers and on TV channels this evening," Zhang
Chunxin, 61, said while setting out for her daily walk with friends in a
Beijing park. "As a retired woman, I don't expect much from our
leaders. A stable country is enough."
Housewife Zhou
Xiaojing planned to watch live coverage in the hope of a gender
breakthrough at the pinnacle of Chinese power. "I wish a woman could get
onto the Politburo standing committee. I don't know why there are so
few female top officials," said Zhou, 35.
"I don't think we could
choose our own leaders directly in the near future. If that happens,
I'd spend more time getting to know the background of politicians," she
said.
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