The man who will be president
Chinese politicians, wary of open competition and conflict, have carefully built up a system for political succession. It's still early, but Edward Wong, Jonathan Ansfield, Li Bibo, and Benjamin Haas at The New York Times have profiled the career of China's next president, Xi Jinping [below]. The questions for students are about political recruitment and the qualities that are considered necessary for leadership.China Grooming Deft Politician as Next Leader
Following a secretive succession plan sketched out years ago, Mr. Hu has already begun preparing… [to hand] the baton to his presumed successor, a former provincial leader named Xi Jinping, now China’s vice president. While Mr. Xi is expected to formally take the reins next year in China, the world’s second-largest economy and fastest-modernizing military power, he remains a cipher to most people, even in China…
[H]is rise has been built on a combination of political acumen, family connections [His father, Xi Zhongxun, was one of the more liberal party leaders and was purged several times under Mao. He was a mastermind in the early 1980s of China’s first special economic zone in Shenzhen. Behind closed party doors, he supported the liberal-leaning leader Hu Yaobang, who was dismissed in 1987, and condemned the military crackdown on the Tiananmen Square protesters in 1989.] and ideological dexterity…
There is little in his record to suggest that he intends to steer China in a sharply different direction. But… he may have broader support within the party than Mr. Hu, which could give him more leeway to experiment with new ideas… Mr. Xi also has deeper military ties than his two predecessors…
For much of his career, Mr. Xi, 57, presided over booming areas on the east coast that have been at the forefront of China’s experimentation with market authoritarianism, which has included attracting foreign investment, putting party cells in private companies and expanding government support for model entrepreneurs…
Mr. Xi’s political skills paid their greatest dividend last October, when he was appointed vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, a move that means he will almost certainly succeed Mr. Hu as party secretary in late 2012 and as president in 2013…
The younger Mr. Xi… had to fend for himself during the upheaval of the Cultural Revolution. At age 15, he was sent to labor among peasants in the yellow hills of Shaanxi Province…
Since joining the inner sanctum in Beijing, Mr. Xi has reinforced his longstanding posture as a team player. As president of the Central Party School, Mr. Xi recently made a priority of teaching political morality based on Marxist-Leninist and Maoist ideals, a resurgent trend in the bureaucracy…
See also: Articles about Xi Jinping
Teaching Comparative blog entries are indexed.
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Labels: China, leadership, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 5:48 AM
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