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Saturday, September 19, 2009

PLA Resistance to Xi Jinping?

A colleague sent me the piece below on Central Party School Professor Du Guang's comment on Xi's exclusion from the CMC at the 4th plenum. There is a rather jarring passage in the piece in which Du Guang said "Jiang Zemin panders to powerful figures in the military and promote them at will. Relatively speaking, Hu Jintao does this less. This is perhaps why his arrangements in military personnel are meeting resistance." Although Du is an "old liberal" at the Party School, it still seems rather out of bound to comment on the party secretary general's relations
with the army, and even compare it with the loose promotion practice of his predecessor (which I also find to be unfair as Hu just promoted three princelings to full general).

Reluctance in the PLA against Xi Jinping is plausible. I have always thought that Xi Zhongxun's revolutionary stature and Jinping's wife's connections in the military would make him a popular figure in the military. It turns out this may not be the case. I was doing some research on the Fourth Front Army recently and looked through a list of all officers who were made generals in 1955. Of the over 1000 generals promoted at the time, only ten or so came from the Shaanbei revolutionary area where Xi Zhongxun had been active before 1935. Thus, Xi Zhongxun did not have
any base in the army; This may explain why Xi was a compromise candidate because his influence in the army was limited, thus making him vulnerable to whoever still retained influence in the army.


Hong Kong Economic Times

四中全會閉幕 不提軍委副主席安排

胡錦濤接班人習近平遇阻力

2009 年09 月19 日

備受關注的中共十七屆四中全會昨日閉幕。令外界意外的是,全會未有提及習近平

接任中央軍委副主席的人事安排。有學者認為,此或意味習近平接班在黨內受阻;

也有學者指,即使習近平最終接班,但事件反映中共黨內對現有接班模式不滿,欽

點接班人的做法今後未必能繼續。

官方新華社昨晚全文刊發了四中全會閉幕公報。此前海外一直揣測,沿襲胡錦濤

10 年前的接班模式,中共政治局常委習近平或會出任軍委第一副主席,以便在

2012 年中共十八大上順利接班,出任中共總書記兼軍委主席。但昨日公佈的全會

公報,對此隻字不提,亦無提及其他人事安排。

1999 年 9 月 19 日中共十五屆四中全會閉幕時,當局發佈會議公報專門提及人事安

排:「全會決定增補胡錦濤同志為中央軍事委員會副主席,郭伯雄、徐才厚同志為

中央軍事委員會委員。」但本屆四中全會習近平沒能如期更上一層樓,引起海外廣

泛關注。港台媒體、美聯社、英國廣播公司( BBC)等,專門就此事報道。美聯

社稱,習近平今次沒如外界預料進入中央軍委,但相信中共會按以往做法,確保政

權會順利交接。 BBC 引述境外報道指,當局有可能在稍後的軍委擴大會,才公佈

有關任命。

中共中央黨校教授杜光昨接受本報電話採訪指,中共全會通過的決議不可能在公報

發表後再另外公佈。他指,胡錦濤主政後,與軍方的關係沒有江澤民時代親密,

「江澤民拉攏軍頭,封官許願;相對而言,胡錦濤做得少,這也許是導致他在軍中

人事安排受阻的原因。」他認為這也意味着習近平的接班安排,在黨內受阻。

學者:反映黨內不滿欽點接班人

國情專家、北京理工大學教授胡星斗指,事件雖不能證明習近平接班成問題,但至

少可說明中共黨內對接班人有不同聲音,由個別人欽點接班人的做法,受到挑戰,

「你可以說這是黨內鬥爭激烈,但我認為是民主的一種表現。」

本港時事評論員張華認為,事件不能推論出習近平接班落空,只能說明接班模式不

同,「另一個解讀是,習近平現在入軍委,在黨內還沒有共識。」北京時事評論員

蔣兆勇對習近平未能入軍委表示「意外」,認為事情「值得進一步觀察分析。」

56 歲的習近平是中太子黨成員之一,父親是中共元老習仲勛,習仲勛在 20
年前六

四事件中曾堅決反對動用軍隊鎮壓。習近平清華大學畢業後,曾在中央軍委辦公廳

任軍委秘書長耿飆的秘書,其妻子是中國著名歌唱家彭麗媛,兩人生育一女習明澤。

外界對習也有一些負面報道,例如質疑他的博士文憑,以及今年初在墨西哥用粗話

反駁外國對中國的指摘等。

四中全會昨日通過《中共中央關於加強和改進新形勢下黨的建設若干重大問題的決

定》,公報還提及反民族分裂問題。

本報記者

Comments:
Surely Xi was plucked from relative obscurity by Zheng Qinghong as part of the latters' retirement deal? It is difficult to believe that it is PLA resistance that thwarted Xi's move onto the CMC. Far more plausible that it is CYL resistance...
 
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