#China Begins Preparing for #Successor to Hu

BEIJING — President Hu Jintao of China returned home this weekend after a trip intended to repair relations with the United States. But the next time the White House marches out the honor guard and polishes the crystals for a Chinese leader, it is unlikely to be for Mr. Hu.

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Andy Wong/Associated Press

President Hu Jintao of China, left, spoke with Vice President Xi Jinping in 2009.

Following a secretive succession plan laid out years ago, Mr. Hu has already begun preparing for his departure from power, passing the baton to his presumed successor, a former provincial leader named Xi Jinping, now China’s vice president. While Mr. Xi is expected next year to formally take the reins in China, the world’s second-largest economy and fastest-growing military power, he remains a cipher to most people, even within China.
But an extended look at Mr. Xi’s past shows that his rise has been built on a combination of political acumen, family connections and ideological dexterity. Like the country he will run, he has nimbly helped maintain the primacy of the Communist Party, while making economic growth the party’s main business.
There is little in his record to suggest that he intends to steer China in a sharply different direction. But there are also signs that he may have broader support within the party to experiment with new ideas than Mr. Hu has had — injecting uncertainty about how he may wield authority in a system where power has grown increasingly diffuse. Mr. Xi also has deeper military ties than his two predecessors, Mr. Hu and Jiang Zemin, had when they took the helm.
For much of his career, Mr. Xi, 57, presided over booming areas on the east coast that have been at the forefront of China’s experimentation with market authoritarianism: attracting foreign investment, helping put party cells in private companies and expanding government support for model entrepreneurs — the kind of political and economic experience that Mr. Hu lacked when he ascended to the top leadership position.
He is less of a dour mandarin than Mr. Hu is. The tall, stocky Mr. Xi is a princeling — the aristocracy of descendants of revolutionary party elites — and his second marriage is to a celebrity folk singer, Peng Liyuan.
Unlike the carefully scripted Mr. Hu, Mr. Xi has dropped memorable barbs against the West into a couple of recent speeches, warning critics of China’s rise to “stop pointing fingers at us.” But he also enrolled his daughter in Harvard, under a pseudonym, last fall.
Mr. Xi climbed the ladder by building a network of support among top party officials, particularly those in Mr. Jiang’s clique. He has sought to cultivate an image of humility and self-reliance despite his prominent family ties, political observers say.
His subtle and pragmatic style was seen in the way he handled a landmark power project teetering on the edge of failure in 2002, when he was governor of coastal Fujian Province. Bechtel, the American contractor, and other foreign investors had poured in nearly $700 million. But the investors became mired in a dispute with planning officials.
After ducking repeated requests by foreign executives for a meeting, Mr. Xi finally agreed to meet one night in the governor’s compound with an American business consultant on the project whose father had befriended Mr. Xi’s father in the 1940s. Mr. Xi explained that he could not interfere in a dispute involving other powerful officials. But he sent signals that he expected both sides to come to terms and promised to meet the investors “after the two sides have reached an agreement.”
That spurred a compromise that allowed the plan to begin operating. “I thought, This person is a brilliant politician,” said the consultant, Sidney Rittenberg Jr.
Mr. Xi’s political skills paid their greatest dividend last October, when he was appointed vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, a move that means he will almost certainly succeed Mr. Hu as party secretary in late 2012 and president in 2013.
Over the years, Mr. Xi had built his appeal on “the way he carried himself in political affairs,” said Zhang Xiaojin, a political scientist at Tsinghua University. “On economic reforms and development, he proved rather effective. On political reforms, he didn’t take any risks that would catch flak.”
Mr. Xi also emerged as a convenient accommodation to two vying wings within the party — those loyal to Mr. Hu and those allied with Mr. Jiang, who in China’s collective leadership had an important role in naming Mr. Hu’s successor.
Mr. Xi’s elite lineage and career along the prosperous coast have aligned him more closely with Mr. Jiang. But like Mr. Hu, Mr. Xi also spent formative years in provincial boondocks. Mr. Hu was once close to Mr. Xi’s father, a top Communist leader during the Chinese civil war.