China's next leader is earmarked

The man expected to be China’s next leader became the only top politician re-elected to the Communist Party’s inner sanctum today, the most solid sign yet of Hu Jintao’s ascent to the acme of Asia’s largest, fastest-growing country.

As China’s National Party Congress ended in Beijing, party delegates also approved President Jiang Zemin’s Three Represents theory, adding once-unthinkable capitalist ideology to their party charter as they work to keep pace with economic reforms and the introduction of the market economy.

The official Xinhua News Agency said Jiang’s name was not on the list of those re-elected, indicating his expected retirement from a formal party role.

Five of his colleagues also were not re-elected, Xinhua said in what appears to be the first orderly transfer of power since the communists took China in 1949.

Xinhua specifically identified Hu as “the only member” of the previous party congress’ Standing Committee to be re-elected. The Standing Committee of the party’s Politburo is the inner circle of party leadership – and, by extension, the leadership of China.

“Each time at the national congress, we produce a tremendous new group of leaders. This shows that the Communist Party of China still retains enormous potential,” said Wang Xiaofeng, a delegate and the governor of Hainan, an island province off the southern coast.

The leaders are expected to be formally introduced tomorrow at the Great Hall of the People, the main gathering place of China’s Communists.

Hu is expected to become general secretary, though the details of exactly when he will be elected by his peers remained unclear today.

Jiang, 76, general secretary of the Communist Party since he replaced Zhao Ziyang in a 1989 purge after the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, will remain president until March.

But the party position is the wellspring of his power, and his departure from it makes his retirement as president certain.

Jiang, closing the week long meeting, proclaimed it “a congress of unity, a congress of victory and a congress of progress.”

“All this,” he said, “will immensely encourage the whole party and Chinese people of all ethnic groups to keep pace with the times, blaze new trails in a pioneering spirit and continue confidently to propel the great cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics forward.”

The moves, which launch a younger generation of leaders to shepherd China through a period of dizzying economic change, come at the end of the congress, the once-in-five-years meeting of the party that has ruled China since its insurgents took the mainland in 1949.

Hu, 59, was designated as Jiang’s heir apparent by the late senior leader Deng Xiaoping. His ascent has been widely expected, though little is known about him. He has taken on a higher profile in recent months and travelled to the United States in the spring, a signal that he was being readied.

Delegates to the party’s 16th National Congress also amended its constitution to formally endorse Jiang’s invitation for entrepreneurs to join – an effort to keep the party in control of a fast-changing China.

It was a move that would have been unthinkable to many of Mao Zedong’s old- guard communists, who once vigorously persecuted and imprisoned capitalists.

Jiang’s principle is known by the ungainly title of the Three Represents, language aimed at showing that the party is concerned about all levels of society.

But it is also code for the once-unthinkable idea of allowing capitalist entrepreneurs to join a party whose very identity is based on class struggle - the overthrow of the capitalist system. It has the added benefit of co-opting business leaders in China and claiming their power as the party’s own.

“It will do much to advance the great new undertaking of party-building,” Jiang said.

The resolution lauded the Three Represents theory as an important step to bring about an “advanced socialist culture” in China.

“It can help mobilise the whole party to seize tightly the first two decades of the 21st century, which are a period of important strategic opportunities, focus on reform, opening up and the socialist modernisation drive,” it said.

The resolution, distributed after the closing ceremony, called implementation of the theory “the foundation for building our party, the cornerstone for its governance and the source of its strength.” In a nod to the party’s desire to cast itself as progressive, it also said the theory would help China “keep pace with the times.”

China’s rulers say they want to convey a sense of calm and thoughtfulness at the top so money from abroad continues pouring in, raising living standards and keeping people happy – or at least unwilling to oppose party rule.

While Jiang is said to be preparing to give up his formal posts, he is also believed to have shepherded proteges onto the party’s next ruling body and into other high posts in order to retain influence over a new government.

Though the list of Central Committee members was not immediately available, it will hold clues as to which of China’s senior leaders have come out ahead and which are being shown the door.