Beijing – Three years after becoming China’s top leader, Hu Jintao has solidified his grip on power and intimidated critics inside and outside the Communist Party with the help of the man once seen as his most potent rival.
Hu, China’s president and Communist Party chief, and Zeng Qinghong, vice president and the man in charge of the party’s organizational affairs, have tackled delicate domestic and foreign policy issues as a team, governing as hard-liners with a deft political touch, former Chinese officials and scholars with leadership connections said.
Their bond is a surprise because Zeng was the longtime right-hand man of the previous No.1 leader, Jiang Zemin.
A skillful back-room political operator considered to have strong military ties, Zeng was long viewed as the only person capable of challenging Hu for power.
Instead, Zeng and Hu joined forces last year to push Jiang to retire and to give up his position as leader of China’s military, party insiders said.
That cleared the way for Hu to become military chief and weakened the formidable political network Jiang had constructed in his 13 years at the helm.
Their alliance has shored up the Communist Party as it faces enormous stresses, including social unrest and a struggle to curtail corruption.
They have quieted talk of serious factional splits and paved the way for Hu to impose his orthodox stamp on Chinese politics.
Cooperation between the men may be temporary, some knowledgeable about the party said, but the consensus among those who follow leadership affairs is that the two have decided they have more to gain by working together than by pursuing rival agendas.
On paper, Hu, 62, has enormous authority on his own. He was anointed the future leader by Deng Xiaoping in 1992 at the age of 49.
He then had a decade to cultivate allies before his formal accession in 2002.
But he was never a part of Jiang’s Shanghai-linked faction that held sway over China since the mid-1990s. He now presides over the Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s top governing body, that was expanded to include nine men, at least five of whom owed their promotions mainly to Jiang.
Hu also lacks deep ties in the military and the government bureaucracy, having risen through the party ranks in China’s western region.
He had virtually no public persona before assuming the top titles, and since then has presented a cardboard, dogmatic face to the world, generating little enthusiasm among the Chinese people.
Zeng, 66, owes his rise mainly to Jiang. The elder leader valued Zeng’s military ties and the skill Zeng displayed during the political battles Jiang faced until late in his reign.
