http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/HD20Ad02.html
W, meet Mr President Secretary General
By Todd Crowell

HUA HIN, Thailand - Actually, they call him Comrade Hu Jintao. China is, after all, a communist country. It just doesn't like to advertise the fact. Everyone else in the English-speaking world refers to Hu as the president of China, and in that capacity he is visiting the president of the United States, George W Bush, in Washington this week.

In fact, it is only fairly recently that China's Mr Big has been known by the title "president". Mao Zedong was famously known as "Chairman Mao", chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, I imagine, although it is customary now to refer to the CCP leader as its secretary general.

The next most important figure in post-1949 China, Deng Xiaoping, never had an official government title higher than vice premier, which came nowhere near conveying his power and influence. Journalists had to invent such terms as "Paramount Leader" or "Patriarch", titles nowhere mentioned in China's constitution, to describe him.

China has had a president since the communists came to power in 1949. But for most of those years the post was a powerless sinecure for aging party elders. In essence it still is powerless. Hu's real authority derives from the two other positions he holds: secretary general of the CCP and chairman of the party's Central Military Commission, ie commander-in-chief.

Hu's immediate predecessor, Jiang Zemin, was the first Chinese leader to garner to himself all three positions as head of state, head of party and head of the army. Jiang was a globetrotter. He loved the pomp and ceremony of being a head of state. He thrived on trooping the line, listening to 21-gun salutes.

Jiang even paid a state visit to Iceland, of all places. Pity Iceland doesn't have an army, so there were no soldiers to inspect.

I don't know if Hu has these same personal proclivities, but he obviously puts value in such gestures as due the titular leader of a rising Chinese state. Americans and Chinese argued strenuously over the modalities of Hu's visit to Washington. The Chinese wanted the full monty - state dinner, red carpet, 21-gun salute. The Bush administration balked at the state dinner but was willing to grant the red carpet and salute.

Ever since China emerged from its self-imposed isolation in the 1980s, China's leaders have found it politic to use the government title rather than those that emphasize where their power really lies. That's especially true now that China's president is popping up everywhere.

Mao Zedong never left China in his entire life except for one visit to Moscow. Hu has been in perpetual motion. In two months last year he visited Canada, Mexico, New York (to address the United Nations), London, Madrid, Pyongyang, Hanoi, Seoul and Busan. He has addressed Australia's parliament, Vietnam's National Assembly and South Korea's National Assembly (where he got a standing ovation).

Deng is best known for his economic reforms and opening of China, but he actually put a lot of thought into political reform. Nothing as far-reaching as democracy, of course. But he wanted to inculcate at least a sense of term limits and something of a normal secession.

Deng didn't want old party octogenarians and even nonagenarians clinging to power to their death beds, blocking the way for younger blood. He knew what he was talking about: Deng didn't surrender his last real power post, chairman of the party's Central Military Commission, until a couple years before his death at 94.

He was not as successful in arranging for an orderly succession as he was in opening China to the world. His first choice as party leader, Hu Yaobang, was removed from the post in 1987 as favoring faster political changes than the elders were willing to consider. His replacement, Zhao Ziyang, was ousted in 1989 for supporting the student demonstrators in Tiananmen Square.

Third time lucky. Deng plucked Jiang Zemin out of Shanghai, where Jiang had managed to keep the Tiananmen infection from spreading, and made him party leader. This time his decision stuck. Jiang served as China's leader for more than a decade, surrendering his last post, chairman of the military commission, in 2004.

It is perhaps too soon to be speculating about Hu's successor (though plenty of people do). Before becoming president, Hu served a spell as vice president. If the presidency was an empty suit in years past, one can imagine how inconsequential the office of vice president was. Yet this was the immediate stepping stone for Hu.

So is there a pattern forming? Does one now advance naturally from being vice president to the top job? Certainly the current incumbent, Zeng Qinghong, is no cipher. He was considered a rival to Hu, and there are some China-watchers who still think he is a rival, though the two seem to cooperate well.

But at 63, Zeng is a couple of years older than Hu. If in the normal course of events Hu stays in power for a decade or so, Zeng will probably be too old to succeed him. Of course, this does not preclude moving Zeng out after a few years and moving an anointed successor into that position. We have to wait to see how the wheel turns.

Todd Crowell is an Asia Times Online correspondent based in Thailand.

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