|
China's next leader to be its Gorbachev?
Forget the general election that wasn't - the biggest political event of this autumn is about to take place. The 17th congress of the Chinese Communist party starts tomorrow in Beijing. Every important figure in communist China, ranging from city mayors to the chief executives of state-owned enterprises, will gather and politick for the next five days - and then choose a President of China to succeed Hu Jintao in 2012.The character and aims of China's next President are important enough in themselves: having powered past Britain, by the end of this year, China will have overtaken Germany to become the third largest economy in the world after the USA and Japan. It is already the world's second military power, biggest exporter and owner of the largest foreign exchange reserves. But as every member of this week's congress knows, their choice has an additional and particular resonance. They are choosing the fifth generation of Communist party leaders after the 1949 revolution. These are no longer leaders legitimised by revolution or who have the same sense of communist mission. They are managers and administrators who want to make the system work. In the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev's readiness to question communism was intertwined with his membership of the Soviet Union's fifth generation of leaders. He did not champion perestroika and glasnost alone; much of the nomenklatura had decided that the Soviet economic and social model was dysfunctional, corrupt and endemically inefficient and had to change. Will one of Hu Jintao's two 'Lis', as the frontrunners to succeed him, Li Keqiang and Li Yuanchao, are popularly known, feel the same way as they walk out in front of the cameras in the Great Hall of the People on Friday? Will one prove to be China's Gorbachev? Posted by: Pappy 2007-10-15 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=202531 |