November 8, 2012
What are your views of China's power transition? Send us your thoughts and experiences.
Hong Kong (CNN) -- When Xi Jinping, 59, and his
"Fifth Generation" of leaders assume power, it will mark a first for
China's post-1949 generation and those who spent their formative years
during the Cultural Revolution.
In a series of steps, Xi,
the current vice president since 2008, is expected to be named general
secretary of the Communist Party during its 18th Congress, which opens
Thursday, and then president next March, succeeding incumbent Hu Jintao.
As with all Chinese
leaders, details of Xi's life are tightly controlled by the government,
creating a gap that biographies -- some written under pseudonyms, given
the political sensitivities -- have sought to fill. China watchers
meanwhile try to discern how he would lead.
"Chinese leaders don't
rise to the top telegraphing what changes they'll do," said Bruce J.
Dickson, a political science professor at George Washington University's
Elliott School of International Affairs. "They rise to the top showing
how loyal they are to the incumbent. What they'll do when they rise to
the top -- that's the big question."
Xi was born in 1953, the
son of the second marriage of Xi Zhongxun, a revolutionary hero whom
then-paramount leader Mao Zedong would appoint minister of propaganda
and education.
Xi Zhongxun would later
become vice premier under Zhou Enlai and secretary general of the State
Council, China's highest administrative body, before being purged in
1962.
Until then, Xi Jinping
had grown up a "princeling" in the enclave of power, Zhongnanhai, with
other children of China's first generation of leaders. One childhood
peer was Bo Xilai, son of Bo Yibo, the first finance minister who was
also purged during the Cultural Revolution. Life was comfortable and far
removed from the mass starvation during Mao's disastrous "Great Leap
Forward" campaign (1958-1962), which was designed to transform the
nation into an industrial society.
However, a few years
later, Xi -- his father by then deposed -- would be among 30 million
"sent-down youth," forced to leave cities for the countryside and
mountains under another of Mao's policies. From 1969-1975, or most of
the Cultural Revolution, Xi was an agricultural laborer in Liangjiahe,
Shaanxi, his ancestral province.
"That generation went
through a lot of difficulties," said Cheng Li, director of research at
the John L. Thornton Center at the Brookings Institution. "Idealism and
pragmatism in a very unique way combined in this generation."
The experience had a
positive influence on Xi's view of China and the world, according to Guo
Yanjun, chairman of CNHK Media, the publisher of "China's Future: A
Biography of Xi Jinping." "Even after he became a leader, he helped
farmers," Guo said. His favorite story was of the Tsinghua
University-bound Xi in 1975 being accompanied by villagers who walked 60
li (30 km) to send him off at a train station.
Mao died in 1976, and
Xi's father was subsequently rehabilitated and became party secretary of
Guangdong, where he oversaw China's first special economic zones near
Hong Kong -- reforms that would define then paramount leader Deng
Xiaoping's economic legacy.
The elder Xi's
connections proved critical. After graduating from Tsinghua with a
chemical engineering degree in 1979, Xi Jinping became the personal
secretary to his father's former comrade-in-arms, Geng Biao, and became
an active military servicemember. As vice premier, a member of the
Communist Party's Politburo Standing Committee and secretary general of
the Central Military Commission, Geng "dominated the Party, government
and the army," according to "China's Future," affording Xi a rare
vantage point.
Such military ties --
familial and professional -- give him what neither Hu nor his
predecessor Jiang Zemin had, said Chi Wang, president of the U.S.-China
Policy Foundation.
"The military takes him as one of the family members."
It was around this
period that Xi was married to his first wife, Ke Lingling, the daughter
of Ke Hua, China's ambassador to Great Britain and a former underling of
Xi Zhongxun, according to "China's Future."
Idealism and pragmatism in a very unique way combined in this generation
Cheng Li, Brookings Institution
Cheng Li, Brookings Institution
Not much is known about
the marriage except that it ended in divorce within a few years. (In
1987, Xi would marry his current wife, Peng Liyuan, a popular folk
singer for the People's Liberation Army.)
In 1982, when his father
entered the ruling Politburo and the Secretariat, Xi became county
deputy secretary in Zhengding, Hebei province, his first experience in
rural politics.
In this role, he took
his first trip to the United States -- as part of an agricultural
delegation in 1985 to Hebei's "sister state" of Iowa -- and brought back
knowledge of farming technology as well as tourism.
This trip had a great
impact on Xi, who stayed with a family in Muscatine, said Pin Ho,
chairman of Mirror Books, which published a separate "Biography of Xi
Jinping" this year.
"Vocally, he's a
nationalist. Psychologically, he greatly hopes to keep good relations
with the West, especially the U.S.," Ho said, noting that Xi's daughter,
Xi Mingze, studies there -- at Harvard -- under a pseudonym.
In a major policy speech
in Washington in February Xi called for increasing strategic trust and
reducing suspicions while respecting each other's core interests, such
as the "one-China policy" that opposes Taiwan and Tibetan independence.
In an indirect reference to the Obama administration's "rebalancing" strategy
toward Asia, Xi said, "We hope the United States will respect the
interests and concerns of China and other countries in the region."
Nonetheless, Xi got high
marks for his desire to engage with the United States, and his trip
included meetings with President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden,
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta.
Also not overlooked was the fact Xi chose to make a nostalgic stop in
Iowa, in addition to Los Angeles, during his five-day U.S. tour.
"From my conversations
with people in the United States, the reigning understanding is, 'This
is a guy we can work with,'" said David Lampton, director of the China
Studies Program at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International
Studies.
Wang of the U.S.-China
Policy Foundation echoed the sentiments, calling Xi "relaxed, very at
ease to talk with people" and a departure from Communist leaders who
tend to be "very cautious" when talking.
Meanwhile, "Xi's
leadership experience [after Zhengding] in running Fujian, Zhejiang, and
Shanghai, three economically-advanced regions, has prepared him well
for pursuing policies to promote the development of the private sector,
foreign investment and trade, and the liberalization of China's
financial system," wrote Cheng Li of Brookings for the Washington Quarterly in its winter 2012 edition.
The run-up to Xi's ascension as China's next leader has nonetheless been bumpy.
In September, his nearly
two-week "disappearance" -- and canceled meetings with Clinton and
other foreign officials -- fueled speculation over his health and
factional infighting.
This is a guy we can work with
David Lampton, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
David Lampton, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
In an interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, former Hong Kong Chief Executive Tung Chee-hwa said Xi had suffered a back injury while swimming.
Even so, the Chinese
media's "default mode" of not speaking about its leaders, coupled with
the lack of a constitutional basis for the regime's transfer of power,
left people wondering, "What's the Plan B if something were to happen?"
Lampton said.
Also of note were two reports released by Xinhua on September 28 within three minutes of each other: the Congress' November 8 opening date -- after much speculation it would fall in October -- and the expulsion of Bo Xilai from the Communist Party. Bo now faces criminal prosecution in the wake of a scandal that saw his wife convicted of murder.
Given the turbulent
lead-up to the Communist Party Congress, Lampton says he, like other
China watchers, will be trying to glean clues as to China's political
direction. He says a longer-than-expected Congress could hint at an
inability to reach decisions. Also important will be the make-up of the
Politburo Standing Committee, what happens to the key portfolios -- and
crucially, whether Hu will relinquish his chairmanship of the Central
Military Commission to Xi.
"Having two centers --
the predecessor heading the military and the new leader
second-in-command -- is not a healthy signal to the world," Lampton
said.
The flipside of having a
more collective leadership as opposed to a dominant leader like Mao or
Deng is that the "system has been set up to prevent a strong leader,"
Dickson of George Washington University said. All the more reason that
the charismatic Bo, who had been tipped for the Standing Committee and
is said to have led a ruthless anti-crime campaign in Chongqing, drew
some concern before his downfall.
The clean reputation of
Xi -- who had become Shanghai's leader after his predecessor, Chen
Liangyu, was dismissed over a social security fund scandal -- took a hit
in June when Bloomberg reported on the wealth of his extended family.
Although no assets were
traced to Xi, his wife or daughter, Bloomberg found that his extended
family had business interests in minerals, real estate and mobile-phone
equipment, with assets in the hundreds of millions.
Last month the New York Times
gave a similar treatment to Premier Wen Jiabao, reporting on the
staggering wealth of his relatives -- a review that found assets of at
least $2.7 billion.
Xi and the new leaders
will have to demonstrate to the public how serious they are in fighting
widespread corruption, Lampton said, or face "huge problems."
CNN's Shao Tian contributed to this report.
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