In the run-up to the transition to the fourth generation of Chinese leaders in 2002, intellectuals in Beijing were cautiously optimistic that Hu Jintao would be a force for reform. But they conceded that the man who was slated to be the country's top leader was virtually unknown.
That Hu remained a political enigma, despite more than two decades in top of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) positions, came as no surprise. In the oblique world of Chinese politics, heirs apparent have traditionally had to be extremely cautious. Hu had been so careful, in fact, that liberal intellectuals had dubbed him sunzi, or "grandson", a synonym for "yes man".
Hu is now supreme leader - CCP chairman, national president and head of the party's powerful Central Military Commission. His predecessor, Jiang Zemin, stepped down from the commission last September, leaving Hu with the reins of power.
During the first few months of Hu at the helm there were indeed signs of a flowering of intellectual life, as emboldened Chinese media went on the offensive. Unfortunately, this Beijing spring - a reference to the flowering in the late 1970s - was short-lived. Since the spring of 2003, freedom of expression has been on the ropes in China. Newspapers have been shut down, editors, journalists and Internet dissidents have been imprisoned, lawyers have had their licenses temporarily revoked, and intellectuals have come under attack.
Chinese intellectuals now openly admit they misread China's new helmsman as Hu the reformer. In fact, they say the political situation is the worst in years. Some even yearn for the good old days under former honcho Jiang Zemin.
Xu Youyu, a political philosopher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said intellectuals are "surprised and disgusted" with Hu's actions. "It's very strange," Xu told Asia Times Online. "When we were in the Jiang Zemin period, we thought we were in the worst situation and that any change would be better. But the policies of Hu Jintao are much worse than that of Jiang."
"In 2003, like other intellectuals, I had some high expectations for Hu," said Wang Yi, an outspoken law professor at Chengdu University in Sichuan province, southwestern China. "But I didn't understand him - none of us did." Wang said he is now "completely disappointed" in Hu, who he said "is ideologically more conservative than Jiang Zemin".
Some say that Hu hasn't changed, and that he has always been a committed Marxist. Like other top CCP leaders, he studied engineering at the prestigious Qinghua University, known in the past for maintaining its staunch political conservatism and turning out graduates who were youhong, youzhuan, or both red and expert. From 1982-85 he served as the head of the Communist Youth League, where he developed the core of
his support.
"From the day Hu Jintao came up I said, 'Don't look for him to become China's Gorbachev,'" said Jiang Wenran, associate professor of political science at the University of Alberta in Canada. Jiang agrees that Hu has proved himself tough in shutting down dissent, but he argues that things were not any better under Jiang Zemin. "It was not all that free then," he told Asia Times Online, "and there were still limits on how much you could say."
More important, Jiang said Hu is moving forward in solving the problems that are posing the biggest threat to China. "The disparity between rich and poor is so wide and there is so much social unrest, they have to put this at the top of their agenda," he said. "It's about regime survival."
Jing Huang, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute, said all new Chinese leaders have to prove their mettle, and that Hu's actions are a sign that he still does not feel secure at the top. "You have to learn from history," said Huang. "When Jiang Zemin came to power in 1989, he was also labeled a hardliner."
Huang said that the first step is for Hu to consolidate his own position. "He has to be a dictator first to get the power he needs to do things," said Huang. "This is what both Deng [Xiaoping] and Jiang [Zemin] did."
Hu has moved fast to secure his power and lay the foundation for the 17th Party Congress in 2007, when he'll finally have the personal authority to set the agenda for both the party and the nation. He carried out a major reshuffle of local and government officials in 2004, with many of the newly elevated leaders coming from the provincial and central ranks of
Hu's power base - the Communist Party Youth League. In a paper on new provincial chiefs, Cheng Li, a professor at Hamilton College in New York state, pointed out that of 15 newly appointed provincial leaders, none were princelings or the offspring of high-ranking official families, but rather people who had worked their way up the CCP ladder from less developed inland provinces, and who share Hu's concern for social equality.
In January, Hu launched an 18-month campaign to "maintain the advanced nature of Chinese Communist Party members", which will allow him to put some of his own people into positions of power. The campaign has people in ministries, factories and schools across China sitting down for regular study and self-criticism sessions. In a report in the China Leadership Monitor, Boston University Professor Joseph Fewsmith said that while party members are cynical about such campaigns, they can nevertheless "give the party center new information about lower-level party cadres and provide a basis for reshuffling careers".
Jing Huang of the Brookings Institute said the campaign of reshuffling, study and self-criticism is aimed at cementing Hu's position at the top of the party. "This is really to show who the leader is," he said. "If you refuse
to recognize the big boss, you're out. It's a loyalty campaign."
With the resignation of Jiang Zemin as chairman of the Central Military Commission (his last state post, less powerful than his former party position) at the National People's Congress (NPC) this week, Huang says that Jiang no longer wields much influence. The real challenge, he says, comes from the localities. "Hu has to convince second-tier leaders that he's the real boss," Huang told Asia Times Online. "The challenge to Hu does not come from Jiang Zemin, but from the people below him." He gives Hu six months to a year to secure his position at the top of the CCP, after which he predicts that the Chinese leader will be better able to promote his own set of reforms.
Ma Ling, the author of an unauthorized biography of Hu, accuses intellectuals of being naive and misunderstanding Hu. The former Ta Kung Po (considered the voice of the Beijing leadership in Hong Kong) reporter remains convinced that the Chinese leader is bent on reform. "He wants to change, but he has to do this in accordance with China's reality and conditions," Ma said. "Whenever you touch politics, you have to be extremely careful and not move too fast - the ramifications can be big." Ma expects Hu to reveal his real self at the 17th Party Congress.
At the annual session of the NPC, which opened last Saturday, a major theme has been Hu's call for the building of a "harmonious society", a campaign that focuses on the need to reduce social disparities and move away from the policies of the previous leadership that emphasized runaway growth in coastal areas at the expense of less developed inland areas. And this may be more than just a propaganda ploy. Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao have promised to reduce the gap in rural areas, where salaries are less than a third of urban incomes, by lowering hefty fees piled on farmers, scrapping rural taxes, boosting peasant incomes and offering assistance to grain-producing areas. The first three quarters of 2004 saw increases in rural incomes.
Scholars, however, are split on how things will turn out.
When asked whether Hu could be a reformer in a Leninist straightjacket, Xu, the political philosopher at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, shook his head firmly and said, "No, no, not at all." He continued, "I'm very pessimistic. I'm convinced that the harsh policies are not temporary. Hu is following his real ideals."
"When Hu is more stable, he may relax the controls a bit," said Jiao Guobiao, an outspoken professor of journalism at Beijing University and critic of the government. "If China's economy improves, living standards will rise and society will become more stable, giving democracy more room to develop."
It's still not certain, however, that Hu will succeed. For one thing, the
problems facing the CCP are huge. There is a huge gap between rich and poor, corruption is still massive, and protests are occurring at a rate of about 160 a day, despite party attempts to deal with social disparities and corruption.
More important, Hu does not see his mandate as bringing an end to the Chinese Communist Party dictatorship - his goal is to make it stronger. As a result, the move toward reform can only go so far.