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| Sunday, 16 November 2003 |
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China's Hu, a year in power, finds his feet BEIJING, Saturday (Reuters) Chinese Communist Party chief Hu Jintao spent a decade preparing for high office with a career that marked him as cautious, colourless and, perhaps, capable.After a year in power, Hu has surprised many critics, weathering two major crises with a combination of decisiveness and determination while shadow-boxing to erode the power of his still influential predecessor, Jiang Zemin. All the while, he has carefully avoided a political showdown. "As Hu has not yet fully consolidated power, he does not want to trigger a direct and serious confrontation with Jiang," said Kou Chien-wen, a China expert at Taiwan's Institute of International Relations who is working on a biography of Hu. Hu has chiselled away at party traditions and Jiang's policies, cultivated allies among the other top leaders and left no opening for his chief rival - the Jiang ally, Vice President Zeng Qinghong. Hu, named party chief on November 15, 2002 at a congress that saw the first smooth transition of power in Communist Chinese history, now aims to survive through the 17th congress in 2007. |
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