I make no claim of being a real China historian, but I do have an interest (okay, a mild obsession) in recent Chinese history, specifically the revolutionary period and the Peoples’ Republic pre-Deng.
In a system where there is no official opposition, in the sort of factional and court politics practiced under Mao, you frequently find political figures who are, in a somewhat uncharitable interpretation, the regime’s fixers. Their loyalities are fluid, or perhaps in some cases, they are able to take a very long view towards the accomplishment of their own goals. In a more positive reading, they are coalition builders, helping to bridge the gaps between bitter rivals and move projects forward. The much revered Zhou Enlai was a figure of this sort, the ultimate survivor, who only advanced his own agenda when he was relatively certain of success and rarely, if ever, went against the high tide, even if what was being proposed went very much against his own instincts and preferences. The Mao/Zhou relationship was complex and fraught with ambiguity; Mao depended on Zhou but never fully trusted him, while Zhou acted the part of the loyal, “good” official until the day he died, even though Mao’s more “revolutionary” programs seemed the antithesis of Zhou’s innately practical sensibilities.
Which is a long-winded, roundabout introduction to Joseph Kahn’s analysis of the ongoing anti-corruption probe that brought down Shanghai party leader Chen Liangyu, among others:
The investigation, the largest of its kind since China first pursued market-style changes to its economy more than a quarter-century ago, was planned and supervised by Zeng Qinghong, China’s vice president and the day-to-day manager of Communist Party affairs, people informed about the operation said.
They said Mr. Zeng had used the investigation to force provincial leaders to heed Beijing’s economic directives, sideline officials loyal to the former top leader, Jiang Zemin, and strengthen Mr. Zeng’s own hand as well as that of his current master, President Hu Jintao.
Aside from frightening officials who have grown accustomed to increasingly conspicuous corruption in recent years, the crackdown could give Mr. Hu greater leeway to carry out his agenda for broader welfare benefits and stronger pollution controls, which may prove popular in China today.
Some critics fear that it may also consolidate greater power in the hands of a leader who has consistently sought to restrict the news media, censor the Web and punish peaceful political dissent…
…Several party officials and well-informed political observers said they believed that the investigation had not yet reached its climax. They say Mr. Zeng hopes to dismiss two fellow members of the Politburo Standing Committee, Jia Qinglin and Huang Ju, who are under pressure to take “political responsibility” for corruption that has occurred in Beijing and Shanghai, their respective areas of influence.
If he succeeds in removing officials who serve on the nine-member Standing Committee, the party’s top leadership, the purge will amount to the biggest political shake-up since 1989, when Deng Xiaoping ousted Zhao Ziyang, then the party’s general secretary, after the crackdown on democracy protests in Beijing.
It would also be likely to seal Mr. Zeng’s reputation as China’s political mastermind, who mixes personal ambition with a nearly legendary ability to deliver results for his superiors. Officially ranked No. 5 in the party hierarchy, he is widely seen as exercising more authority within the party than anyone except Mr. Hu.
Here’s where it gets interesting. According to Kahn, until 2004, when Zeng Qinghong joined forces with Hu Jintao to push Jiang Zemin from his last post, Zeng was widely seen as being close to Jiang…
CONT. BELOW THE FOLD
But Mr. Zeng’s campaign to remove some Jiang loyalists may end up strengthening his own hand as well as Mr. Hu’s, some party officials suggested. The reason is that Mr. Zeng has become the standard-bearer for a wide array of political interests.
The son of one of Mao’s first security chiefs, Mr. Zeng maintains close ties to the sons and daughters of Communist China’s founding fathers and has relatives in the military. He has supporters among those who favor deeper capitalist-style changes to the economy and financial system.
Some Chinese intellectuals say he has signaled an openness to political change. Mr. Hu, in contrast, is viewed as cautious and doctrinaire.
Mr. Hu has sought to promote officials he trusts from his days as a provincial official in western China and as the head of the national Communist Youth League in the 1980’s. Though he now has broad authority, his traditional base is considered narrower and less influential than that of Mr. Zeng.
The political dance between the men underlines uncertainties about the political succession scheduled to take place in 2007. At that time the party will hold a congress, as it does every five years, to approve a new lineup of officials for the Politburo as well as other top party, government and provincial positions.
Party officials say that while Mr. Hu and Mr. Zeng have worked together to consolidate their own power, they have not agreed on choices for the Standing Committee or some top provincial posts. That suggests that their alliance possibly temporary and that the country’s politics could remain volatile.
“I think that at this point neither of them has the power to dictate the future,” one party official said. “They need each other, but that does not mean they trust each other.”
(hat tip to Andrew Leonard at salon’s How the World Works
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By Fat Cat
It is a good report. But I am not inclined to read too much into this kind of political manoeuvring at Zhongnanhai, particularly ahead of a Central Committee Meeting.
I also have problems picturing Zeng Qinghong as a political reformer with a vision. Zeng has a record as a close ally to Jiang Zemin in his purge of political rivals and persecution of the FLG. Zeng comes across to me as an opportunistic and spineless politician who will do anything to advance his own political career. He may out-manoeuvre Hu Jintao and becomes the top man in Chinese politics. But then so what? Is his policy likely going to bring along more freedom and civil liberty for the benefit of the general public in China? I doubt it.
October 5, 2006 @ 7:32 pm | Comment
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By Fat Cat
It is a good report. But I am not inclined to read too much into this kind of political manoeuvring at Zhongnanhai, particularly ahead of a Central Committee Meeting.
I also have problems picturing Zeng Qinghong as a political reformer with a vision. Zeng has a record as a close ally to Jiang Zemin in his purge of political rivals and persecution of the FLG. Zeng comes across to me as an opportunistic and spineless politician who will do anything to advance his own political career. He may out-manoeuvre Hu Jintao and becomes the top man in Chinese politics. But then so what? Is his policy likely going to bring along more freedom and civil liberty for the benefit of the general public in China? I doubt it.
October 5, 2006 @ 7:34 pm | Comment
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By Tom - Daai Tou Laam
I can’t see VP Zeng as spineless. Opportunistic, remorseless, and self-serving, but not spineless.
If the investigation in to the shenannigans in Shanghai is his doing, I can’t see it driven by concern about corruption or the erosion it causes on party credibility. Instead it probably would be an opportunity to take advantage of a weakness to sideline a faction standing between himself and the top, especially as the Shanghai Gang machine has traditionally been stronger than Hu’s narrow support base and Wen’s almost non-existent support base.
October 6, 2006 @ 12:21 am | Comment
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By OtherLisa
It’s really hard to know what anyone’s about in the upper leadership until you actually see what they do over a period of time, and I don’t know that much about the current high level players. But I’ll admit to being fascinated by the maneuvering. Zeng has to be some operator to be able to deftly step off the Shanghai train and onto Hu’s.
I agree that it’s a mistake to hold out hope that one of these leaders is some sort of closet liberal who, once having achieved his ultimate power goals, is going to transform China into some kind of western democracy (it’s rarely a good bet to put democratic hopes in the hands of an autocrat).
October 6, 2006 @ 1:26 am | Comment
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By Jessica Copeland
I agree.
October 6, 2006 @ 1:47 am | Comment
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By J. from the Granite Studio
Yeah, my read on Zeng is that he’s kind of a hatchet man for hire. Right now he’s on Hu’s team, but who knows how long that’ll last.
I also have some trouble with the Zeng/Zhou Enlai comparisons. Zhou often acted as a moderating influence on Mao’s policies though not always effectively. (There’s some terrifying footage of Zhou screeching at the top of his lungs leading Red Guards in cheers.) But he also acted as a buffer between Mao and the ‘pragmatists’ and sought to temper Mao’s crazier ideas (and here’s the big caveat) when he thought he could get away with it.
Zeng is more of a political fixer than a statesman, playing Luca Brasi to Zhou’s Tom Hagen.
(Which leads to the obvious question: does the Godfather apply to Chinese politics? If Mao was Sonny and either Jiang or Hua was Fredo does that make Deng the smart one? I dunno. Back to grading papers. )
October 6, 2006 @ 8:05 am | Comment
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By OtherLisa
J., don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of admiration for Zhou – also sympathy – he was in an incredibly difficult situation. But he definitely was able to navigate between factions like nobody’s business, and did some pretty distasteful things in order to keep his position. He tried to moderate Mao’s excesses (he strikes me as the type who constitutionally can’t stand that kind of waste), but he also enabled them – Mao could not have run the regime without him (as an example, Zhou was on the CR “Special Case” committee – the small group in charge of meting out punishment to CCP high officials).
Zhou really was in many ways the architect of the PRC as a state – he was a builder of institutions, and his attention to detail was unparalleled. It’s always tempting to say, “What if…?” and wonder what a PRC run by Zhou instead of Mao would have been like.
So it’s an interesting question – were the compromises Zhou made to stay in power worth the costs?
And yeah, “when he thought he could get away with it,” is my reading as well.
People I knew used to called Hua “Mao’s dumber, younger brother” because he looks kinda like Mao.
Others more expert in GODFATHER lore will have to answer your primary question…
October 6, 2006 @ 8:48 am | Comment
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By J. from the Granite Studio
Lisa,
You’re quite right, I don’t want to give the impression I’m letting Zhou off the hook. I think there is a real temptation, both in China and in the West, to idealize Zhou at Mao’s expense (witness the 1976 Tiananmen Square demonstration after Zhou’s death.) Zhou was a slick operator–who knows what he was feeling as he negotiated the slippery twists and turns of GPCR politics while watching his good friends and comrades like Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping get carted off and, in the case of Liu, never return.
That said, one of Zhou’s greatest accomplishments was to protect (as best he could) the Forbidden City and the Number One Historical Archives from the Red Guards during the GPCR. He probably wished he could have done more, but he had his skin to save first.
October 6, 2006 @ 11:45 am | Comment
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By OtherLisa
There’s a great anectdote about Zhou in the Dragon’s Pearl – memoir by a Thai woman who was sort of a political pawn when she was a girl and was partially raised in China, with a lot of contact with “Uncle Zhou.” During the Great Leap, she enthusiastically showed him a piece of “backyard steel” as an example of her school’s proletarian zeal. Zhou studied the useless lump, and then asked the girl to explain exactly how the steel was made, what else was happening at the schools, etc. The girl told him how much “steel” their school had produced. “I don’t believe it,” was his response, and told her to study, that the children should get back to school, and it was wrong for the them to be pulled out of their classes this way.
I think Zhou’s tragedy was that he really wanted to build a modern, stable China, that he knew the difference between real productivity and “proletarian steel,” and yet was often powerless in the face of Mao’s destructive, revolutionary zeal.
But he was loyal to Mao to the end. It’s quite a fascinating story.
October 6, 2006 @ 12:22 pm | Comment
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By Tom - Daai Tou Laam
J. – I’d disagree with you that Zeng is a hatchetman for hire. That would seem to imply that he has no personal aspirations and I’ll bet big money that Zeng has his eye on the top seat and control of the Politburo Standing Committee.
You’d have to go back two years to my review of China’s New Rulers to find my statement that Zeng was the joker (and I don’t mean ha ha funny guy) among the New Rulers. Also a link there to a four year old piece by Willy Lam on Zeng.
October 6, 2006 @ 3:41 pm | Comment
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By OtherLisa
Wow – Tom, thanks for those links (I have “China’s New Rulers” and am embarrassed to say that I haven’t read it). The Willy Lam story is particuarly interesting.
One thing I don’t get – why do you think Zeng helped axe Qiao Shi, who was one of the more interesting figures and an eloquent spokesman for the necessity of the rule of law? If Zeng really is a “closet liberal,” that’s one mighty deep game he’s playing.
October 6, 2006 @ 3:55 pm | Comment
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By OtherLisa
Wow – Tom, thanks for those links (I have “China’s New Rulers” and am embarrassed to say that I haven’t read it). The Willy Lam story is particuarly interesting.
One thing I don’t get – why do you think Zeng helped axe Qiao Shi, who was one of the more interesting figures and an eloquent spokesman for the necessity of the rule of law? If Zeng really is a “closet liberal,” that’s one mighty deep game he’s playing.
October 6, 2006 @ 3:58 pm | Comment
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By J. from the Granite Studio
Tom,
Thanks for the links and the info. You’ve changed my feelings on Zeng. Still not sure I’d put him on the level of Zhou yet, but certainly a fascinating character to watch.
October 7, 2006 @ 12:37 am | Comment
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By Fat Cat
Ditto to what J. said. Thanks Tom.
I’m prepared to suspend my judgement on this Chinese politician until more evidence emerges.
October 7, 2006 @ 11:45 am | Comment
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By Tom - Daai Tou Laam
If Zeng really is a “closet liberal,” that’s one mighty deep game he’s playing.
Posted by: OtherLisa
I don’t see Zeng as a closet liberal. I see him willing to put on sheep’s clothing for as long as it is required to sideline political opposition. And from watching him here, I’d say his preference is to make his opponents seem unlovable by the masses. If (and I’m still not convinced) he’s behind the Shanghai corruption investigations, then it’s to sideline them.
In Hong Kong, his handiwork was seen early in the Donald Tsang era with the invitation of the pan-democrats to Guangdong for “talks” at a dog and pony show and then the orchestrated press backlash against the pan-democrats for not accepting the agenda provided by the CCP and Donald Tsang of listening to banquet speeches and photo ops and instead the pan-democrats were unreasonable for calling for discussion of substantive issues like a path towards universal suffrage.
October 8, 2006 @ 12:51 pm | Comment
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By Fat Cat
Tom, thanks for the clarification. It gives me much food for thought and guidelines for further research. Thanks again.
October 8, 2006 @ 1:20 pm | Comment
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By OtherLisa
Seconding Fat Cat’s thanks. Going back to my original headline – “interesting” fellow indeed…
October 8, 2006 @ 2:35 pm | Comment