TR EMERITUS

By Peh Shing Huei from Straits Times

Chinese President Hu Jintao’s protege, Mr Hu Chunhua, has emerged as the front-runner in the race to be the country’s future top leader after a reshuffle of provincial chiefs yesterday.

The changes also included a new woman provincial party secretary, the first in more than two decades. Ms Sun Chunlan, 59, was catapulted from her position as a top unionist to Fujian party boss.

But it was the appointment of 46-year-old Mr Hu as the new chief of the Inner Mongolia region which carried greater political significance, noted analysts of Chinese elite politics.

‘He is now on the fast-track to being China’s sixth-generation leader,’ said Dr Bo Zhiyue, of the East Asian Institute in Singapore. The two Hus are not related.

Going by the current trend of national leaders serving two terms of five years each, Mr Hu and the ’sixth generation’ politicians are slated to take over as national leaders in 2022.

President Hu, 66, is widely believed to be stepping down in 2012 and is likely to be succeeded by Vice-President Xi Jinping, 56, leader of the ‘fifth generation’.

The younger Hu, or ‘Little Hu’, is now in early pole position to ascend to the top position of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) thereafter.

His Inner Mongolia appointment means he is the fastest in his cohort – those in their 40s – to be made a provincial chief.

Only Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai, also 46, has matched his speedy rise, after being promoted to the role of party boss of north-eastern Jilin province yesterday.

But Mr Hu, who was the governor of northern Hebei province, is widely regarded as the one with a stronger political pedigree, having been the leader of the key Communist Youth League, the power base of President Hu.

The Chinese studies graduate from Peking University has also spent 23 years working in Tibet, a tough posting which earned him respect from the Chinese Communist Party rank-and-file. By comparison, Mr Sun, an agriculture PhD-holder, spent his entire political career in Beijing.

Both Mr Hu and Mr Sun were among five young leaders profiled by a state-run magazine in April this year – a sign that the quintet had been earmarked for higher office. But only two were promoted to provincial chiefs yesterday, indicating that they have surged ahead of the pack.

The others appointed were above 50 years old, such as Ms Sun, new Henan boss Lu Zhangong and new Liaoning chief Wang Min.

Analysts believe there is a good chance that the boyish-looking Mr Hu will even make the leap to the elite 25-man Politburo in 2012, when the CCP holds its 18th Party Congress.

It would resemble the arrangement which Mr Hu Jintao went through, parachuting into the decision-making Politburo Standing Committee in 1992, a good decade before he took over the reins from Mr Jiang Zemin.

But analyst Wang Zhengxu from the University of Nottingham’s China Policy Institute warned that ‘Little Hu’ has an Achilles heel which his political rivals may exploit.

‘His biggest weakness is that he has been working in poor places, including now Inner Mongolia. He lacks the experience of operating in the rich coastal provinces, which are important as China becomes a greater economic power,’ he observed. – ST

Republished from Straits Times on 1 December 2009

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