The Fate of This One-Time Xi Heir May Signal China’s Direction

  • Hu Chunhua’s next move watched during reshuffle in Beijing
  • Will he succeed Premier Li Keqiang? Or get passed over again?

In a parallel universe where Chinese President Xi Jinping hadn’t spent the past decade rewriting succession rules and sidelining rivals, Beijing might be counting down to the start of the Hu Chunhua era.

The vice premier was once the youngest person appointed to the Communist Party’s Politburo and positioned by his patron, the former leader Hu Jintao, as a leading candidate to succeed Xi. Instead, the question is whether “Little Hu” will get the ultimate consolation prize in Chinese politics: the post of premier.

Hu Chunhua, 59, is among the contenders most often mentioned to replace Premier Li Keqiang, after a twice-a-decade reshuffle expected to conclude Sunday in Beijing. While his promotion could represent a compromise, it would more likely be a strategic move to pacify any internal critics as Xi stays in power indefinitely.

“If Hu takes the premiership, it will likely be because Xi wants him there, not as a potential successor, but as a weak No. 2 who will not challenge his authority,” said Neil Thomas, senior China analyst at Eurasia Group. Hu has the experience to execute policies, Thomas added, but lacks the political authority to change the system. His ability to survive in elite politics despite Xi’s purges suggests he isn’t seen as a threat.

Hu’s promotion is among a series of developments expected to come from the party congress ongoing in Beijing that will provide clues on how Xi will rule in his third term. Chief among them will be whom the Chinese leader appoints to the supreme Standing Committee.

Xi, 69, is expected to remake the seven-member body on Sunday, replacing four men now on it, the South China Morning Post reported Tuesday, without saying where it got the information. Only two posts had been set to change under the traditional retirement age 68, which Xi has already exceeded.

He plans to pack the leadership team with close allies and might not promote Hu, the Wall Street Journal reported separately, citing people close to party leaders. In that scenario, Shanghai party chief Li Qiang, a one-time Xi aide, is the front-runner for the premier post. His elevation after overseeing Shanghai’s bruising, months-long Covid lockdown this year would signal that Xi values loyalty above all else.

Perhaps no one still remaining in elite Chinese politics has lost more during Xi’s power-consolidation drive than Hu. A decade ago, his career was on a seemingly unstoppable rise after a prodigious stint of promotions. Within four years, Hu had became the youngest ministerial level cadre, Central Committee member and then a provincial party chief.

That trajectory abruptly stalled in 2017, when Xi passed over him for the Standing Committee lineup and declined to elevate a potential successor. That was part of a series of moves that have remade the process for peaceful power transfers set up after Mao Zedong’s chaotic tenure of personalized rule.

Hu at a banquet celebrating the 58th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Friendship between China and North Korea in Beijing, in 2019.Photographer: Shen Hong/Xinhua/Getty Images

Unlike Xi, who is the son of a famed party revolutionary hero, Hu was born into a poor family in central Hubei province. He excelled his way into the party’s upper echelons, starting by winning a spot at the prestigious Peking University at age 16.

Four years later, Hu shot to national prominence when the party’s People’s Daily newspaper, reported on his decision to accept a job in Tibet, as his peers graduated into coveted government roles in Beijing. That year, Hu declared his commitment to the country’s ethnic frontiers in a speech at the prestigious Great Hall of the People, where this week’s congress is taking place.

“My hometown is in an inland ethnic area,” Hu said. “Without reform and opening up, as well as rapid modernization, I might still live in the mountains.”

That work brought Hu Chunhua to the attention of Hu Jintao, party chief of the Tibetan autonomous region from 1988 to 1992. He put the younger man on a fast track through the Communist Youth League. After Hu Chunhua advanced onto the Politburo in November 2012, he was widely seen as a potential presidential candidate, along with Chongqing party chief Sun Zhengcai.

Xi had other plans. Within five years, Sun had been prosecuted for corruption and jailed for life. While Hu continued to maintain a high profile, rising to his current post of vice premier, he was left off of the Standing Committee membership.

“Things changed dramatically under Xi’s rule and all old assumptions about Chinese elite politics should be reconsidered,” said Zhang Yang, assistant professor at the School of International Service, American University.

All Chinese premiers in recent decades have been a former vice premier and Politburo member. Other than Hu, only one cadre meets that criteria as well as the unofficial age cap: Wang Yang.

Wang YangPhotographer: Liu Weibing/Xinhua/Getty Images

Wang, 67, is currently China’s No. 4 official, heading the top political advisory body. But like Hu, Wang didn’t overlap significantly with Xi in his early career and he could be retired out one year early, as Xi makes room on the Standing Committee for his allies.

Cheng Li, director of the John L. Thornton China Center at Brookings Institution, said the main advantage of appointing Hu over someone like Li Qiang would be to signal political unity within the party. Past leaders, such as Hu Jintao, are believed to still hold sway behind the scenes. “Unity is something Xi Jinping wants,” he added.

Still, even if Hu gets appointed as premier, he won’t have the ability to “influence the course of the reforms,” said Alex Payette, chief executive officer of Cercius Group, a Montreal-based geopolitics and strategy consultancy, alluding to Xi’s growing influence over economic policy in the past decade.

“The premiership has been weakened so much,” he said, that even if Hu gets the role “it wouldn’t change anything.”

Source: Bloomberg

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