Published: November 26, 2012
BEIJING — When American diplomats in China
scanned the political landscape this year for officials on a fast track
to the Communist Party’s top ranks, one name jumped out: Hu Chunhua.
So in June, the United States ambassador, Gary F. Locke, traveled to
Inner Mongolia, the coal-rich region of grasslands and boom cities,
where Mr. Hu is party chief. At a banquet in Hohhot, the regional
capital, Mr. Hu proudly opened a bottle of local liquor, and Mr. Locke
joined in a toast.
Mr. Hu’s rising star got brighter this month when he was named one of 15
new members on the party’s 25-seat Politburo. Political analysts say he
could be on track to ascend to the Politburo’s elite Standing Committee
at the next party congress, in 2017. That would put him in the running
for the top party job — and the mantle of leader of China — when Xi Jinping, the new party chief, steps down after his expected two five-year terms.
Mr. Hu
is the most prominent of a clutch of political stars known as China’s
“sixth generation.” They were handpicked by party leaders and elders
years ago to succeed Mr. Xi’s fifth generation (the first generation was
that of Mao Zedong). Now, those politicians are being slotted into some
of the most important posts across China.
Political insiders say Mr. Hu will probably be sent soon to Guangdong, a
coastal province that is central to China’s export economy. His closest
rival, Sun Zhengcai,
whom Mr. Locke also met this year, was posted earlier this month to
Chongqing, the booming southwest municipality of 31 million once run by Bo Xilai, the disgraced party aristocrat.
If Mr. Hu and Mr. Sun both make it onto the Standing Committee in 2017,
they would be in position to vie for the top two party posts in 2022,
which would confer on them the state titles of president or premier.
Even as prominent voices across China are calling for greater political
openness and a more democratic selection process, the promotions suggest
that party leaders want to institutionalize the path to power that
elders laid out in back-room deals for Mr. Xi and the new second-ranking
party member, Li Keqiang. The two were the only fifth-generation
officials selected for the Standing Committee in 2007, putting them
ahead of their peers.
Mr. Hu and Mr. Sun, both 49, are the youngest members of the Politburo,
and their new postings would be aimed at giving them exposure to the
economic engines of China’s main industrial centers before they ascended
further.
“The fact that they’re in the Politburo makes them far more competitive than others,” said Cheng Li,
a scholar of Chinese politics at the Brookings Institution. “They’ll be
tested in their current positions, but the tests work in their favor
unless something terrible happens.”
Mr. Hu and Mr. Sun grew up during the Cultural Revolution; they were in
their formative teenage and young adult years during the dawn of Deng
Xiaoping’s “reform and opening” era in the late 1970s and early 1980s,
when China experimented with market-economy policies and gradually
opened to the world. The two men are better educated than most older
leaders: Mr. Hu has a degree in Chinese literature from Peking
University; Mr. Sun received a doctorate from China Agricultural
University. While earning that degree, Mr. Sun studied in Britain for a
half-year.
By some accounts, they are on opposite sides of the two competing patronage networks that have dominated Chinese politics in the post-Deng era. In broad terms, the main power centers revolve around Hu Jintao,
69, who just stepped down as party chief and civilian head of the
military, and Jiang Zemin, his predecessor. A third pole is expected to
emerge, as Mr. Xi, 59, who became the new party chief with the strong
support of Mr. Jiang, tries to consolidate his power and move allies
into important posts.
This year, Mr. Jiang, 86, though retired, quietly exerted enormous
influence during the leadership transition to ensure that five of his
allies got on to the seven-member Standing Committee. A central question
in the coming years is how long Mr. Jiang will stay in decent health;
last year, he suffered a severe illness.
Five Standing Committee members are expected to retire in 2017 because
of an age limit. That means negotiations for those seats are already
starting in earnest. Hu Jintao is expected to push hard for the younger
Mr. Hu, who is no relation but is known as “Little Hu,” to get on the
committee in the next round. Mr. Sun, meanwhile, is said by Mr. Li and
several other analysts to be a protégé of Jia Qinglin, who recently
stepped down from the Standing Committee and is close to Mr. Jiang. But
there is also talk that Wen Jiabao, who is scheduled to retire as
premier in March, could be another patron of Mr. Sun.
As Mr. Xi builds his power base, he may have as much say as Mr. Hu and
Mr. Jiang over committee seats and other senior posts. That could throw a
wrench into the current maneuvering by elders to secure prime jobs for
the younger Mr. Hu, Mr. Sun and other sixth-generation stars, like Zhou Qiang, the party chief of Hunan Province and another protégé of Hu Jintao.
“Whether or not they’ll be able to take power and rule China is still a
question mark,” said an editor of a party publication, who spoke on the
condition of anonymity because of security concerns. “The question for
these leaders isn’t whether or not they’re capable. The key is whether
or not Xi likes them.”
He added: “If Xi likes someone, this person won’t have any problems. But
if Xi doesn’t like him, then one crisis could end his prospects of a
top job.”
It is unclear what kind of relationships Mr. Hu and Mr. Sun have with
Mr. Xi. Neither is one of the princelings, the children of notable party
leaders from an earlier generation, as Mr. Xi and most other members of
his network are.
Mr. Hu and Mr. Sun were born into farming families, and each took a
different path to the Politburo. After graduating from university in
1983, Mr. Hu worked in party organizations in Tibet and advanced through
the Communist Youth League. At the time, Hu Jintao, also a Youth League
stalwart, was the party chief of Tibet, and he became a mentor to the
younger Hu.
The two Hus share a policy outlook: Both say China needs to better
distribute the benefits of growth since rural areas lag far behind
coastal provinces.
After a stint in Hebei Province, during which he avoided being
implicated in an infamous scandal over tainted milk, Mr. Hu became party
chief of Inner Mongolia. From 2009 onward, he has dealt with rising ethnic tensions.
Rural residents of Inner Mongolia, many of them Mongolian herders, have
come to resent the growing presence of mining companies, which are
generally run by ethnic Han and are accused of destroying the
grasslands.
Last year, protests erupted over the deaths of two men who had been
opposed to mining. Mr. Hu locked down the streets with security forces
and met with some of the aggrieved residents.
At the party congress this month, Mr. Hu rebutted a reporter who asked him whether his policy stand was too soft.
“Practically speaking, things are handled the way they should be,” he
said, according to China News Service, an official agency. “It’s tough
when it needs to be tough; it’s soft when it needs to be soft.”
Mr. Sun served as agriculture minister before becoming party chief of Jilin Province in 2009.
He emphasizes his attachment to rural China. He has told reporters that
in 2007, while visiting a party historical site in Jiangxi Province, he
was given two i.o.u. notes that the Red Army had handed peasants in 1934
for food borrowed by soldiers.
“Ever since then, I’ve always kept them in my wallet,” Mr. Sun told a
reporter from Xinhua, the official news agency, in 2009. “They
constantly remind me that Chinese farmers have made enormous
contributions to the Chinese Revolution and the building of a new
China.”
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