elle
Joined: 27 Feb 2003
Posts: 334
Location: Nottingham, UK
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 Posted: Fri Oct 20, 2006 2:13 pm Post subject: Who is Hu Jintao and what kind of leader will he be? |
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What kind of man is Hu Jintao? What will he do for China?
Economic inequality
One of the biggest challenges Hu faces is the big inequality between Chinese rich and poor, for which discontent and anger mounted to a degree which wreaked havoc on CPC's reign. Furthermore, the cronyism and corruption plaguing China could drag China into deep crisis, too. In the beginning of 2006 however, Hu launched the "8 Honours and 8 Disgraces" movement [1] in a bid to promote a more selfless and moral outlook amongst the population. It remains to be seen if Hu is capable of managing the continued peaceful development of China while avoiding international incidents, at the same time presiding over an unprecedented increase in Chinese nationalist sentiment.
George W. Bush with Hu JintaoObservers indicate that Hu distinguishes himself from his predecessor in both domestic and foreign policy. In domestic policy, he seems to want more openness to the public on governmental functions and meetings. Recently, China's news agency published many Politburo Standing Committee meeting details. He also cancelled many events that are traditionally seen as communist extravagances, such as the lavish send-off and welcoming-back ceremonies of Chinese leaders when visiting foreign lands. Furthermore the Chinese leadership under Hu has also focused on such problems as the gap between rich and poor and uneven development between the interior and coastal regions. Both party and state seem to have moved away from a definition of development that focuses solely on GDP growth and toward a more balanced definition which includes social equality and environment effects.
Foreign policy
In 2004, Hu ordered all cadres from the five major power functions to stop going to the Beidaihe retreat for their annual summer meeting which, before, was commonly seen as a gathering of ruling elites from both current and elder cadres to decide China's destiny. In foreign policy, he has differed from his predecessor by actively engaging in the current North Korea nuclear crisis. He has also assured neighbors in the region with the concept of China's peaceful rise.
Media
At the same time, Hu has contradicted some initial expectations that he was a closet liberal. Hu was a pragmatist and hard-liner as far as any effort of political reform is concerned. Although his son-in-law, Mao Daolin used to be CEO of Sina.com, a well-known internet portal of China. Blocking of websites takes place more frequently, among which include websites such as Nytimes.com, Washingtonpost.com and Wikipedia. Furthermore, while Hu has attempted to make decision-making more transparent and to increase rule of law he has also explicitly stated that his goal is to strengthen and make the party more efficient rather than weaken the party or move toward a pluralistic political system. In December 2004, the Hong Kong magazine Open quoted an alleged instruction by Hu to propaganda officials in September in which he wrote that, when managing ideology, China had to learn from Cuba and North Korea. Although North Korea had encountered temporary economic problems, its political policies were consistently correct. Open also quoted Hu as calling Mikhail Gorbachev, "a betrayer of socialism".
Taiwan
While Hu Jintao has given some signs of being more flexible with regard to political relationships with Taiwan as in his May 17 Statement where he offered to address the issue of "international living space" for Taiwan, he appears unwilling to reconsider Chinese reunification as an ultimate goal. During Hu's administration, the government has stopped promoting immediate reunification under one country, two systems in favor of a more gradual approach of increasing economic and cultural integration. The combination of both soft and hard approaches were apparent in the Anti-Secession Law which was passed in March 2005 and in the unprecedented meeting between Hu and Kuomintang leader Lien Chan in April 2005, seen by commentators as an embrace of a status quo.
Eight Do's and Don'ts
In the March of 2006, Hu Jintao released the Eight Do's and Don'ts as the moral codes to be followed by Chinese. It has been widely regarded as one of Hu Jintao's ideological solutions to the moral problems in modern China. However, the codes are somehow different as compared with his predecessors' jobs, namely, Jiang Zemin's Three Represents, Deng Xiaoping Theory, and Mao Zedong Thought, which is generally an informal tradition for each Communist Party of China leader to observe to make theoretical contributions to and further elaborations on socialism. |
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