Politics in China

Politics in China are as rough and tumble as anywhere else. Looks like Hu Jintao is cleaning house before the big congress meeting in Ocotober that will create the leadership through 2012. It could b3 a very interesting Fall here, then followed by the US election process.........

China arrest takes scandal into politburo
By Richard McGregor in Beijing
Published: August 3 2007 18:01 Last updated: August 3 2007 18:01
The former political secretary to a member of China’s politburo has been detained in a widening probe over misuse of Shanghai’s pension funds, elevating the scandal for the first time into the inner-circle of the Chinese leadership.

The detention of Wang Weigong, reported by a Chinese financial magazine on Friday, comes ahead of the five-yearly Communist party congress in October, which will choose the country’s senior leadership until 2012.

Mr Wang had headed the office in Beijing of Huang Ju, who until his death earlier this year was the fifth-ranked member of the nine-member politburo standing committee, China’s elite leadership group.

Before moving to Beijing in 2002, Mr Huang was the mayor and then party secretary of Shanghai. Mr Wang worked for him in both capacities.

The scandal has already led to the arrest and expulsion from the party of Chen Liangyu, the former Shanghai party secretary and the highest ranking official to be toppled for corruption in a decade.

In line with disciplinary practices, the party investigates and passes judgment on officials detained for corruption before handing them over to the criminal justice system, which ritually tries and then sentences them.

The latest arrest gives further weight to the conventional explanation of the unfolding scandal, which is regarded as an effort by Hu Jintao, the president, to take down the once dominant “Shanghai gang”.
Jiang Zemin, Mr Hu’s predecessor, hailed from Shanghai and surrounded himself in Beijing with officials trained in the city. Mr Hu has an entirely different power base.

Shanghai officials have sought to play down the implications of the purge of more than a dozen former top officials from the city over the past year. A retired senior Shanghai official said that the central government had singled out the city only because Mr Chen’s behaviour had been so blatant.

“This is not about Shanghai, but about sending a message to other cities, where there are similar problems,” said the official. He said that Mr Jiang had helped to initiate the investigation into Mr Chen.

The party congress will usher in a new leadership team, both in the politburo and also among the four vice-premiers, which are key day-to-day policymaking posts for the economy.

Although there are a number of favored candidates for promotion into the new leadership group, the outlines of Mr Hu’s new team are not yet clear.

The scandal, plus the leaking to a Beijing-backed newspaper in Hong Kong last week of details of Mr Chen’s crimes, is a sign that the struggle over the new line-up is intensifying.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007

Another good article (but it was blocked so I had to use "SurfonSteroids" and anonymous web surfing site. Only way we can get to wikipedia site and our own blog site).

Can Hu Jintao Go Beyond The Politics Of 'Winners Are Kings, Losers Are Bandits'? - Liang Jing
Posted by Xiao Qiang :: 2007-08-04, 10:38 AM :: Politics
Dr. David Kelly translated following essay from overseas Chinese political commentator Liang Jing, the Chinese text is here:

Last week, the Communist Party announced the expulsion of Chen Liangyu from Party and public posts, and handed him over to the processes of law. This development is understood by all, both domestically and abroad, in terms of the needs of the power struggle over the 17th National Party Conference. However, in a recent interview with reporters, Xia Zanzhong, deputy secretary of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission, went so far as to say that "Chen Liangyu's serious breach of discipline was quite covert, deceptive and harmful," implying that Chen had now become his prisoner of war, not because he was Hu Jintao's political opponent, but because he was so clever and subtle.

It was out of the question that Xia Zanzhong himself believed what he said. It has long been public knowledge that, protected by Jiang Zemin, the Shanghai Gang, including Huang Ju, Chen Liangyu, and Jiang's princeling son Jiang Mianheng, did bad things for many years in Shanghai, and were even so bold as to openly confront the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection Group. Why then did Xia Zanzhong give such a performance of "no 300 taels of silver here"? It only shows that Hu Jintao and his supp­orters in the party are aware that attacking their political opponents in the name of pun­ishing corruption is drawing censure.

Why did Hu and his supporters take this step, if they felt it was bound to be criticized? Hu's sympathizers may say that Chen Liangyu, a lackey fed by Jiang, was an un­reasoning thug who had repeatedly challenged Hu's authority under Jiang's protection, so this heavy-handed move of Hu's was a last resort. Moreover, Chen Liangyu was actually guilty of many crimes. Hu's detractors may quite legitimately claim that, if investigated with the same methods and punished according to the same yardstick, not only would a large number of CPC officials have to step down, but Jiang himself would be purged. Hu Jintao's political trick of, on the one hand, lauding Jiang Zemin to the skies, while on the other taking Chen Liangyu down, is less than con­vin­cing.

Hu Jintao may in fact have had no choice but to take neutral stand and praise Jiang Zemin on the one hand while eliminating Chen Liangyu on the other. After all, the rules of the political game are often not chosen by a single party. Jiang Zemin is someone without a moral baseline, is it not asking Hu Jintao to commit political suicide to demand, while his own political strength is wanting, that he act as a "great," not a "mean" man?

So what is Hu's political philosophy in his heart of hearts? When his position is sufficiently consolidated will it be possible for him to transcend the traditional political culture of "winners are kings, losers are bandits" and introduce modern political civilization into China's power game? Unfortunately, Hu's record over the past five years, especially toward civil dissidents and human rights defenders, gives us no cause for optimism.The regime has recently launched a new round of suppression of non-governmental organizations. Founding editor of the China Development Brief, Nick Young, who has always dealt with the Chinese government in good faith and advocated cooperation with it, became a target of this suppression.

Although China Development Brief was banned on the charges of "violating China's law on statistics and carrying out illegal investigations," it is clear to all that this was a tech­nical excuse. The case that best displays the gangster political ideas pf the regime is the "illegal publishing crimes" of Guo Feixiong. China's security departments, which have adopted all manner of illegal means to persecute rights-protection crusader Guo, arrested him 10 months ago on "illegal publication" charges, and tortured him; according to his revela­tions, 90% of the questions and matters said to be related had nothing to do with him, but were connected with his involvement in the "Taishi Village" rights-protection case. Despite 10 months of detention and use of heinous, despicable interrogation methods, when the case came on earlier this month it could not continue for need of "supplementary evidence."

Such cases of "ruling the land through the law" have not diminished but gained in intensity over Hu's five years in power. What reason have people to believe that after purging his political opponents he will bring in civilized politics? Moreover, how can he not be making more enemies for himself with his stale political code?