Hu Who? New Chinese Ruler
Elicits Wary Reaction Among U.S. Experts

BERKELEY -- Two California-based International policy and political science experts interviewed today reacted with an air of wait-and-see cautions as China formally announced a major transition of power in the ruling Chinese Communist Party.

Hu Jintao, 59, is expected to take the reins in March from Jiang Zemin, the 76-year-old general secretary who is retiring from his post. Jiang also holds the state president post, a spot Hu is also expected to fill, and is chairman of the military. It is not yet known whether Jiang will retain his third title.

The mysterious Hu, who has surfaced in the public eye only in the last several months, has caused a good deal of speculation and conservative judgment about exactly what his appointment means for China.

“The man is amazingly opaque,” said Orville Schell, dean of the Graduate School of Journalism at UC Berkeley and expert in Chinese history. “There’s a saying in China that a nail that sticks up gets hammered down—this guy learned the way to the top is not overt, in your face leadership, but being much more passive, working with factions and building coalitions.”

What is known about Hu is he is ubiquitously regarded as “brilliant and bland” and fiercely loyal to the Communist party, as reported in the New York Times. Hu was raised outside of Shanghai and in 1992, Hu was given a seat by Deng Xioaping, at the time China’s ruling leader, on the ruling standing committee of the party’s Politburo. Hu was 49, and one of the youngest appointed members of the powerful group in the party’s history. Like Schell noted, Hu is known for building leadership by consensus instead of on individual impetus. It is a modus operandi that many expect to continue.

“One of the amazing things about this leadership is how secretive it is and how little we know about them,” Schell said. “It’s gotten very bureaucratic, it’s no longer driven by a big leader, but by a larger leadership group.”

Many believe Jiang will try to exert his influence from behind the scenes, especially in light of the recent appointments of six key Jiang allies and suspicions he will retain his post as military chair. Hu will likely have trouble setting forth his own ideas early in the term and Jiang’s appointments will probably serve as guides, said Stan Rosen, a political science professor at the University of Southern California and specializes in Asian politics.

“He's going to have trouble establishing his own identity,” Rosen said. “It's unlikely he’d do very much even if he wanted to.”

But, what seems clear, Schell said, is that Jiang is unlikely to fade out in the near future.

“The historical pattern is that elders exert lots of power on their younger surrogates,” he said. “When one administration leaves they don’t just pack up and go home. They go behind the curtain.”

Hu’s mystique has directly impacted the world’s wait-and-see attitude toward the inscrutable new leader. For his own taciturn behavior, Hu receives the dubious honor of low expectations to make any real change in China. For now the world seems content in assuming he will advance Jiang’s drive to integrate increasingly capitalistic tendencies into a ostensibly Communist society, a movement Orville Schell calls laughable.

“It’s like a capitalistic Leninism,” he said. “China is run like a corporation now. There’s a certain amount of horse trading and jockeying involved [among leaders].”

However unlikely, it remains to be seen what Hu can contribute to one of the fastest growing countries in the world. Presently, Stan Rosen said, the prospects of Hu inciting a major change are slim.

“Nobody knows what Hu Jintao stands for,” he said. “There's no real mandate for change unless there’s a real crisis, but as of now I don't see one.”