Party Intrigue Seen in China as Official Is Demoted

Ray · Sep 4, 2012

Party Intrigue Seen in China as Official Is Demoted

SHANGHAI â€” Ling Jihua, a senior Chinese official and a close ally of President Hu Jintao, was named Saturday to a new post in a move that some Communist Party experts said was a demotion and a surprising development ahead of this yearâ€™s leadership transition.

Mr. Lingâ€™s appointment as head of a department that deals with non-Communist Party organizations was announced online in the Peopleâ€™s Daily, the party newspaper.

The partyâ€™s once-in-a-decade leadership transition has been complicated by the worst political scandal in decades, with the detention of Bo Xilai, who had been a Politburo member, and the recent conviction of his wife in the murder of a British businessman.

Two officials widely expected to be at the top of the ruling Communist Party during the next five-year term, which begins next year, are Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang, now the youngest members of the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee. But the other members are expected to be formally announced in the next few months.

Political observers say there has been intense infighting in the Communist Party over who will fill those positions, as well as other major posts, when the current leaders step down.

Although the Communist Party has a monopoly on power, analysts say there are powerful factions, political alliances and interest groups that jockey for power, and even departing leaders are determined to find positions for allies in order to strengthen their legacy or protect their political networks.

In recent years, Mr. Ling, 55, has been considered one of Chinaâ€™s most powerful behind-the-scenes figures because he was a close adviser to Mr. Hu and was chief of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Partyâ€™s Central Committee, a post that includes managing the security and logistics of top leaders.

Several analysts said Mr. Ling had been under consideration for a position on the nine-member Standing Committee, which some analysts believe could be reduced to seven members.

Now, they say, Mr. Ling is unlikely to be selected for such a high post. He could still be a candidate for the Politburo, which has 25 members, though even that, they say, is in question.

As chief of the United Front Work Department, Mr. Ling would oversee the partyâ€™s relations with nonparty organizations and Hong Kong, Macau and the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader.

Cheng Li, an expert on Chinaâ€™s party politics at the Brookings Institution in Washington, said that in recent years Mr. Ling had been likened to Zeng Qinghong, the former Standing Committee member and power broker aligned with former President Jiang Zemin. That was considered an indication that Mr. Ling might join the Standing Committee. â€œThis is very significant,â€ Mr. Li said in a telephone interview Saturday, referring to Mr. Lingâ€™s new post. â€œWe donâ€™t know whatâ€™s going on behind the scenes, but this looks like Ling has been marginalized to a less important position. With this position, his chance of making it to the Standing Committee is almost completely gone.â€

But Mr. Li and other analysts said it was too early to know what the appointment meant. With the move, Mr. Hu appears to have lost a powerful ally, but he may have gained another position for an ally that has not yet been announced.

Mr. Lingâ€™s successor at the General Office, Li Zhanshu, is considered an ally of Mr. Xi, who is widely expected to succeed Mr. Hu as president.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/02/w...n-in-chinese-officials-apparent-demotion.html
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Is Mr Hu out of favour that he is indirectly being targeted through weaning away of his allies into insignificant, sinecure posts, While Xi Jumping stars are ascending in that Li, the ally of Xi has jumped into the General Office?

And Bo, another Communist hot shot is in the docks!

What's the guess as to what's up with these Communists?

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Virendra · Sep 4, 2012

Nice to see bubbles sprouting up in the CCP pot.
Those who suppress everyone and everything, couldn't keep their own brickbats silent.
The way China goes is the CCP and PLA way. So, I say .. way to go
And more is coming I believe !!

Regards,
Virendra

Ray · Sep 5, 2012

New scandal in China as key official sidelined over car crash

BEIJING -- China's once-in-a-decade leadership transition has been hit by reports of fresh scandal, with a senior ally of President Hu Jintao being demoted after sources said the ally's son was involved in a deadly crash involving a luxury sports car.

The car â€” a Ferrari, according to some of the sources â€” crashed in Beijing on March 18 in an embarrassment for the ruling Communist Party, sensitive to perceptions that children of top party officials live rich, privileged lifestyles completely out of touch with the masses, the sources said.

The country has already been rocked by the biggest political scandal in two decades â€” the sacking of Bo Xilai, an ambitious senior politician whose wife recently received a suspended death sentence for the murder of a British businessman in a case that also involved a mix of money and power.

The car crash, the details of which are still shrouded in mystery, reportedly involved the son of Ling Jihua, 55, who state media said was dropped at the weekend as head of the party's General Office of the Central Committee.

It is a powerful post, similar to cabinet secretary in Westminster-style governments. Ling is very close to Hu.

Ling could not be reached for comment on the matter. He had been eyeing a promotion to the Politburo â€” the party's policy-making council â€” and to become head of the party's Organization Department, which oversees the appointment and dismissal of senior officials, sources said.

â€œThe central leadership decided that the scandal over the incident was too serious to allow Ling Jihua to be promoted, and Hu Jintao really couldn't resist,â€ a retired party official said.

Sources close to the leadership, speaking on condition of anonymity, said three young people were in the car at the time of the crash, including the ally's son, aged in his 20s. At least one of the trio died in the crash, they added, but the victims' identities were unclear. They did not know the son's full name.

One source and a journalist who once worked for a party publication â€” both speaking on condition of anonymity â€” said the son had died in the crash, and the source added that the son's death certificate had been changed to disguise his identity.

The South China Morning Post first reported this alleged cover-up on Monday, saying the son's surname had been changed to â€œJiaâ€, which has the same pronunciation as the word â€œfakeâ€ in Chinese. The newspaper gave the son's real name as Ling Gu.

A second source with ties to China's leadership said the son had not died in the crash. The South China Morning Post said two women, one aged in her 20s and the other in her 30s, were seriously injured.

The Beijing city government and police have declined to comment on the accident.

Anger at the Top
A businesswoman with family ties to a senior leader said Ling had been criticized by other leaders, including former president Jiang Zemin, for attempting to hush up the accident.

â€œJiang has been adamantly opposed to Ling Jihua receiving a powerful position,â€ she said, requesting anonymity due to the sensitivity of discussing elite politics.

Over the weekend, Ling Jihua was appointed head of the Communist Party's United Front Work Department, a less influential position than his current post, in a move that was viewed as a setback for President Hu's efforts to retain major influence in the next administration. He will retire as president at the next annual national parliament session, which usually takes place in March.

Calls to the United Front Department and Organization Department went unanswered on Monday.

Ling has been among the officials who are nearly always at Hu's side during visits at home and abroad over the past decade.

Story continues on page 2

Chinese state media announced that he was replaced as head of the General Office by Li Zhanshu, 61, a close ally of Vice President Xi Jinping, a move that confirmed a July 18 Reuters report. Li cut his teeth in the Communist Youth League, Hu's power base, but is not seen as being as close to the current president as Ling.

The General Office is the organizational cockpit of the party's top leaders. It is responsible for shaping the policy agenda, deciding who those leaders meet, as well as their travel arrangements at home and abroad, and security details. Its head is roughly equivalent to the White House chief of staff.

The car crash first drew public interest in March when the Global Times, published by the official People's Daily, reported that online information about the accident had been deleted.

That triggered suspicions about the identity of the deceased and a storm online, but China's government censors have deleted all microblog posts mentioning the car crash and blocked searches of the words â€œFerrari,â€ â€œLittle Lingâ€ and â€œPrince Ling.â€

New scandal in China as key official sidelined over car crash - The China Post
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This is a report from China direct.

It appears that the Chinese public have become aware of how the Communist head honchos have used their high offices and become the real Mings of China!

Now, the firefighting to pretend that they are fair to the people of China!

Ling Gu is a odd name!

And so is Little Ling.

Too many Lings are roaming around China!

Ray · Sep 5, 2012

September 1

Hu aims to promote close ally Li: sources

By Benjamin Kang Lim
BEIJING -- China's outgoing President Hu Jintao is angling to promote one of his closest allies to the military's decision-making body, sources said, in a move that would allow him to maintain an influence over Beijing's most potent instrument of power.

Three sources with ties to the top leadership said Hu hopes to cut all of his direct links to the top echelons of power by early 2013, on the understanding that his protege, Vice Premier Li Keqiang, is made a vice chairman of the military commission at the party's five-yearly congress later this year.

Hu wants a clean handover of the party leadership, the presidency and the top military post to his anointed successor, Xi Jinping, over the next seven months, to avoid a repeat of the past internal rancor when a transition of power took place, sources say.

They point to the example of his predecessor, Jiang Zemin, who clung onto the top job at the Communist Party's Central Military Commission for two years after stepping down as party chief and president, a move seen as unpopular with party cadres and the public.

Hu, as president, is the current military commission chairman and, like Jiang, could choose to stay on as its chief for another couple of years beyond his handover of the presidency to Xi in March 2013.

In what is seen as the ultimate bulwark of power, the commission oversees the 2.3-million strong People's Liberation Army (PLA) as well as the People's Armed Police which enforces domestic security.

Hu has not made public his plans for retirement but, unlike in the West where former presidents and prime ministers tend to fade from the public eye, Chinese leaders seek to maintain influence to avoid possible adverse political repercussions down the road.

The government generally does not comment on elite politics and personnel changes before the official announcement.

As a senior member of the commission, Li, who is also set to be named as the next premier in March 2013, would be expected to help protect Hu's legacy in the area of military affairs, which has included a more moderate approach towards Taiwan and to territorial disputes in the South China Sea and East China Sea.

â€œHu hopes to go down in history as the first leader (since 1949) to step down when his term ends instead of being reluctant to go,â€ a businessman with leadership ties said.

As well as helping to preserve Hu's legacy, analysts say Li's promotion will ensure there is no political retribution against Hu or his family by rivals who remain in power once he is gone.

But bargaining over the next leadership line-up is not over, and there is still room for change and surprises.

'Check and balance'
Some political analysts interpreted Hu's plan to promote Li as a move to bolster civilian oversight over the PLA â€” the world's biggest armed force.

But other analysts saw it as an attempt to dent Xi's political influence.

â€œIt'll be a check and balance on Xi,â€ a Chinese analyst said of the push to install Li, asking not to be identified due to the sensitivity of the issue.

Xi, 59, has been vice chairman of the military commission for two years and has military experience under his belt when he worked for then defense minister Geng Biao from 1979 to 1982.

Xi, like Hu, is a pragmatist seen as being keen to seize on opportunities from crises to perpetuate Communist rule and strengthen his own position, analysts say.

Though Xi is acceptable to both the Hu camp and the rival Shanghai Gang faction, the incoming premier, Li, is much closer politically to the outgoing president and belongs to Hu's own faction of the party, the Communist Youth League.

As vice chairman of the military commission, Li would oversee the 660,000-strong paramilitary People's Armed Police which acts against unrest, guards government compounds and foreign embassies and mobilizes during natural disasters.

The People's Armed Police is under the direct jurisdiction of the military commission and the State Council, or cabinet.

If Li held the positions of both premier and commission vice chairman, he would be in a stronger position to react to domestic emergencies than outgoing Premier Wen Jiabao.

Without a seat on the commission, and no say in military affairs, Wen had difficulty mobilizing the People's Armed Police to help with rescue work after the 2008 earthquake in Sichuan province which killed about 87,600 people.

â€œThis will change if Li Keqiang becomes vice chairman of the military commission,â€ a third source with leadership ties said.

Two People's Liberation Army generals are expected to also be named vice chairman of the commission, the sources added.

Hu aims to promote close ally Li: sources - The China Post
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Interesting way how each party apparatchik ensures his own safety when fading away and the exciting churn, rough and tumble that takes place with everyone agog and breathless!

Party Intrigue Seen in China as Official Is Demoted

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Party Intrigue Seen in China as Official Is Demoted

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