Philippe Lopez/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Officers of China's People's Liberation Army watched planes perform at an exhibition on Tuesday.
BEIJING — When Maoists were trying to keep control of China in the 1970s, a powerful general from the south came to the aid of moderates, helping to arrest the radicals and throw them in jail. The bold actions of the general, Ye Jianying, paved the way for the country’s move to a more market-oriented economy, and created a political dynasty that still plays kingmaker, able to influence national policy and protect its sprawling business empire in southern China long after his death.
Over the past year, according to party insiders familiar with the situation, members of Mr. Ye’s family have helped organize meetings to criticize the country’s current course and have influenced top military appointments while helping block a vocal economic reformer from joining the Politburo Standing Committee, the small, powerful group at the top of the party hierarchy, because they felt that he was not attentive to their interests.
The rise of so-called princelings like the Ye family will reach a capstone this week, when Xi Jinping, himself the son of a Communist Party pioneer, is to be unveiled as China’s top leader at the conclusion of the 18th Party Congress. Mr. Xi is likely to be joined by at least two other relatives of senior leaders on the seven-member Standing Committee.
Despite rising controversy over their prominent role in government and business — highlighted by recent corruption cases, as well as the fall of Bo Xilai, whose wife was found guilty of murder — China’s princelings, who number in the hundreds, are emerging as an aristocratic class with an increasingly important say in ruling the country.
While they feud and fight among themselves, many have already made their mark in the established order, playing important roles in businesses, especially state-owned enterprises. Others are heavily involved in finance or lobbying, where personal connections are important.
“Many countries have powerful families, but in China, they are becoming the dominant force in politics and business,” said Lü Xiaobo, a political science professor at Columbia University. “In this system, they have good bloodlines.”
Many of the oldest among them — those now set to take power — share something else: an upbringing during some of China’s most difficult years. Many were children during the Great Leap Forward, when upward of 30 million people died of famine from 1958 to 1962, and teenagers during the Cultural Revolution from 1966 to 1976, a period many spent as outcasts or in exile after their parents were attacked by Maoist radicals.
“This is a volatile generation, one that didn’t have a systematic education and often saw the worst side of the Communist revolution,” said a senior party journalist who grew up with some of China’s princelings and spoke on the condition of anonymity because of pressure from China’s security apparatus. “They’ve learned one thing, and that’s all you can count on is your family.”
The princelings are distinct from the current top rulers of China, most of whom owe their allegiance to institutions in the Communist Party. The departing party general secretary, Hu Jintao, rose up through the Communist Youth League, one of the party’s central bodies. Likewise, the prime minister, Wen Jiabao, who leaves office next year, is an organization man with few outside sources of power.
Mr. Hu’s legitimacy derives from being appointed by Deng Xiaoping, the last leader to have played a central role in the Chinese Revolution and a dominant figure until his death in 1997. Mr. Deng had a series of general secretaries and prime ministers whom he dismissed before settling on Jiang Zemin after the 1989 Tiananmen uprising. Later, he gave Mr. Hu the nod as Mr. Jiang’s successor.
“Without a Deng to settle questions, you have competition for the top spots,” said an independent Chinese political commentator who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he is under police observation during the congress. “We don’t have elections, and we don’t have a system, so they go for the person with the most connections.”
That was evident five years ago when Mr. Xi was picked to be Mr. Hu’s successor. Initially, the front-runner had been one of Mr. Hu’s protégés, Li Keqiang. But Mr. Xi won a higher-ranking slot, with the help of another princeling, Zeng Qinghong, then vice president and son of a security minister.
Mr. Xi’s career reflects his status. His father had been a senior party leader for half a century: military commissar, governor, vice prime minister and pioneer of market reforms, a background that helped create a network of support for Mr. Xi.
The elder Mr. Xi’s status helped his son enter university during the Cultural Revolution when few were allowed to study, then secured him a job as personal secretary to one of the country’s top military leaders. Later, when the younger Mr. Xi was working in local government and ran afoul of a provincial leader, his family got him transferred to a province run by a friend of his father’s.
Changing of the Guard: China’s ‘Princelings’ Wield Sway to Shape Politics
This article
Changing of the Guard: China’s ‘Princelings’ Wield Sway to Shape Politics
can be opened in url
http://newsbedwetter.blogspot.com/2012/11/changing-of-guard-chinas-princelings.html
Changing of the Guard: China’s ‘Princelings’ Wield Sway to Shape Politics
