Recently, China political observers have been entertaining a new thought – that the heir apparent to Hu Jintao might not be Xi Jinping after all. While such rumors are rampant and ongoing due to the lack of openness of the political culture in China, there are at least three different schools of thoughts to support these speculations.
The first school of thought is based on the Shanghai World Expo this year. On the 30 April, Shanghai World Expo was officially launched at the World Expo Cultural Centre. All the standing committee members for the Chinese Communist Party (“CCP”) Politburo (the most important 9-men team to determine every political aspects of China) were present except for Wen Jiabao, Wu Bangguo and Jia Qinglin.
The whole event, which will last for six months, was initially budgeted to cost US$4.2 billion, which is twice the amount for the Olympics in 2008. However, according to the China media, actual amount spent could blow up to as high as US$58 billion. This was captured and commented by the western media to be an opportunity for China to flex its muscle to show its prowess. It is precisely because China views this event with utmost importance that political observers noticed an interesting and suggestive scenario during the opening ceremony. As is all major activities attended by Chinese national leaders, during the TV broadcast of the opening ceremony, the six present politburo standing committee members appeared in the sequence of Hu Jintao, Li Changchun, Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, He Guoqiang and Zhou Yongkang. The total opening ceremony was divided into two parts. After the ceremony at the Cultural Center, the national leaders and guests proceeded to the Huangpu VIP arena for the fireworks display.
In this second part of the opening, the camera first captured Hu and his wife, then turned to fireworks display. Next on TV, in sequence, were Li Changchun, Li Keqiang and Zhou Yongkang, and then the fireworks. Half a minute later, Xi Jinping (the heir apparent to Hu), He Guoqiang and Wang Qishan were featured. This sequence raised much discussion amongst scholars and observers. Even though Li Keqiang was seating beside Li Changchun and not Hu, the fact that he appeared earlier after Hu than Xi raised speculations. The sequence, frequency and conditions of official media appearance in China politics, especially with the presence of President Hu, are considered very sensitive and highly controlled issues.
At the same time, both Xi and Li arrived in Shanghai on 29 April. The official media provided extensive reports on these two fifth-generation leaders. Upon close study of these coverage (which is a common practice in order to decipher the hidden messages in an otherwise not-so-transparent China government), analysts felt that the 29th reports gave more coverage for Xi while the 30th coverage skewed towards Li.
First, let’s look at Xi’s activities. On the 29th, accompanied by Li Yuanchao, Xi toured the Shanghai World Expo Park. According to the official Xinhua news, Xi toured the various pavilions of China, United Nations, Germany, Denmark and North Korea. The official media provided extensive and detailed coverage of the pavilions that he visited. In the evening, he met up with Columbia’s Vice President Francisco Santos. The following day, Xi had a meeting with the President of the Sixty-Fourth Session of the United Nations General Assembly Dr. Ali Abdussalam Treki.
Next, let’s look at Li’s coverage. On the 30th, Li visited several of the above pavilions as Xi did. Thereafter, he met up with Greece’s Deputy Prime Minister Theodoros Pangalos and the former president of Chile Michelle Bachelet Jeria separately. Li discussed several cooperation opportunities with them and the discussions were reported in the media.
From the above, in the absence of Premier Wen, Vice-Premier Li, who was supposedly the preferred successor by Hu, appeared to have more extensive and in-depth news coverage relative to Xi.
During the days of Mao Zedong, when the political positional structure was not exactly clear cut, the way academics and analysts, both in and out of China, used to determine the political status of individuals was by the type and extent of media coverage. For example, when Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping were in power, they were always seen next to Mao in official pictures in the media. After the Great Leap Forward and the commencement of the Cultural Revolution, both Liu and Deng were never spotted beside Mao. Replacing them in the official media pictures was Lin Biao, who was made the unofficial heir apparent of Mao.
According to scholar Alan Liu, in the article “The Politics of Corruption in the People's Republic of China” published in the American Political Science Review, all political media coverage in the China official press must be preapproved by the propaganda department. This means that all politically sensitive issues have been thought through and whatever published should be in conjunction with the CCP’s policies. In this case, while it is commonly believed that Xi will succeed Hu in 2012, the fact that Li appeared earlier than Xi, as mentioned above, and that Li had more positive and extensive coverage during this high profile event seemed to hint of a possible power shift, if a parallel is drawn to that of Mao.
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