Next in line

 

 

CHINESE state media today announced the appointment of Xi Jinping, the country’s vice-president, to an important military post. His promotion cements Mr Xi’s status as the man who is expected to take over as China’s top leader in two years' time, when the current president, Hu Jintao, is due to step aside.

 

Coming at the end of a four-day plenary meeting of the Communist Party’s Central Committee in Beijing, the announcement designated Mr Xi as the vice-chairman of the party’s Central Military Commission. Mr Hu currently serves as the commission’s chairman, as well as being the general secretary of the Communist Party and the president of China to boot.

 

Mr Xi, a portly 57-year-old, has long been tipped as the leader-in-waiting. But things are seldom clear to outsiders in the opaque world of top-level Chinese politics, and the new appointment comes as a significant indicator that Mr Xi’s ascent is still on track. Mr Hu was himself appointed vice-chairman of the military commission two years before he completed his own rise to the top.

 

Mr Xi had previously served in high-level party and government positions in Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, and in the city of Shanghai. According to an official biographical note released on Monday by the official Xinhua news agency, Mr Xi saw active duty as a military officer from 1979 to 1982. The same biography emphasises his involvement with military and defence-industry committees during his rise through the ranks. It is not likely, however, that military affairs were ever the primary focus of his work. He has been groomed for even bigger things.

 

Like Mr Hu before him, Mr Xi has given few clues as to his political views. While all top-level leaders share a dedication to ensuring economic growth, social stability and the party’s firm grip on power, there are differences of opinion among them on a variety of policy issues. Chief among these are questions concerning the appropriate degree of government involvement in the economy; the degree to which even small amounts of political liberalisation should be tolerated; and the appropriate balance between the interests of China’s upper and lower classes, and its urban and rural citizens. Mr Xi has largely clung to the centre ground in these debates, so far as public pronouncements reveal them.

 

One thing that is known about Mr Xi is that he belongs to a class of officials known in China as “the princelings”: the children of former high-level leaders. His father, Xi Zhongxun, was a prominent revolutionary leader during the Communists’ rise to power in the 1930-40’s. Xi père later served as governor of Guangdong province and as vice-premier of China.

 

But Xi Jinping’s youth was not entirely privileged. His father, like many other senior officials in the 1960’s, was purged during the Revolution, and Xi Jinping spent was “sent down” in the Chinese countryside for several harsh years. He later returned to Beijing and attended Qinghua University, one of China’s most elite, and the alma mater of many other senior Chinese leaders. As a new member of the Central Military Commission, Mr Xi will continue to serve as the nation’s vice-president. 

 

http://www.economist.com/blogs/asiaview/2010/10/succession_china