China's Presidential "Primary"

Just as the United States is picking its next president, so too China is choosing its next leaders in its own fashion. But whereas the winner of America’s primary season will take office in one year, the prospective Chinese leaders will have to wait a while longer.

China’s current leaders, president and party secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao won’t likely relinquish power until 2012 at the earliest. Nevertheless, their successors are now being selected, promoted and groomed.

Americans thinks in terms of administrations lasting four to eight years, the Chinese think in terms of generations. They are now choosing leaders for the “Fifth Generation”, those born in the 1950s and 1960s. China takes the long view.

Last October, while the non-Chinese world’s attention was elsewhere, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its 17th Congress and elevated two senior cadres, Li Kegiang, 52, and Xi Jinping, 54, to the inner sanctum of power, the Standing Committee of the Politburo.

When the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, meets in March, these two are expected to be given important central government portfolios to prepare them for the final push. Li is likely to be named minister of finance; Xi probably will be named vice president.

The finance portfolio puts Li on track to replace Wen Jiabao as premier, while the vice presidency has, in recent years, been the stepping stone to ultimate power and prominence, the presidency, and leadership of the communist party.

Both men were brought into national government after serving in important provincial posts, Li as party secretary of Liaoyang province, Xi as party secretary of Shanghai. In the normal course of events Xi would take on the highest post in 2012 after the incumbent has served about ten years in office.

That is how the Chinese system currently works. Senior cadres are given important posts in the field as party secretary or governor of important provinces. Then they are brought into the central government for the final seasoning.

Li Kegiang and Xi Jinping, two persons virtually unknown outside the tiny community of China Watchers, but by the time they reach the ultimate offices, China will arguably be the most powerful nation on the planet and thus one or both of them will be the world’s most powerful men.

Whoever is elected U.S. president this November will be dealing with one or both of them probably by the time he or she begins his second term. Fortunately we have plenty of time to wrap our minds and mouths around their unfamiliar Mandarin Chinese names.

“Normal” is, of course, a relative term. This kind of orderly progression and peaceful succession has only been in place in China for about 20 years. It is the legacy of former “paramount” leader Deng Xiaoping, better known for his reforms in opening China’s economy to the world.

But he was also a political reformer. Deng was no democrat, but he did want to inculcate a sense of term limits and orderly, progressive succession. He didn’t want octogenarian strongmen clinging to power until their death beds. (Of course, Deng himself clung to power until he was over 90).

The man Deng picked in 1989 to succeed him, Jiang Zemin, retired in 2003 (not entirely without a struggle), making way for Hu Jintao. Jiang also set the pattern of personally assuming the office of state president, previously considered a fairly meaningless sinecure for deserving party veterans.

Of course, no one can say for sure that Hu will retire at the end of his official term of office. No one can say for sure that he might not see himself as president-for-life, and have the power to make it stick.

For that matter, one or both of the prospective candidates might stumble along the way or be muscled out by some other figure we haven’t heard of. Five years can be a long time in anybody’s politics.

That seems unlikely at this point, and the odds are that either or both of these two men will be China’s future leader. So it is probably worth mentioning their names once again: Li Kegiang and Xi Jinping.

China's Presidential "Primary"

Just as the United States is picking its next president, so too China is choosing its next leaders in its own fashion. But whereas the winner of America’s primary season will take office in one year, the prospective Chinese leaders will have to wait a while longer.

China’s current leaders, president and party secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao won’t likely relinquish power until 2012 at the earliest. Nevertheless, their successors are now being selected, promoted and groomed.

Americans thinks in terms of administrations lasting four to eight years, the Chinese think in terms of generations. They are now choosing leaders for the “Fifth Generation”, those born in the 1950s and 1960s. China takes the long view.

Last October, while the non-Chinese world’s attention was elsewhere, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) held its 17th Congress and elevated two senior cadres, Li Kegiang, 52, and Xi Jinping, 54, to the inner sanctum of power, the Standing Committee of the Politburo.

When the National People’s Congress, China’s parliament, meets in March, these two are expected to be given important central government portfolios to prepare them for the final push. Li is likely to be named minister of finance; Xi probably will be named vice president.

The finance portfolio puts Li on track to replace Wen Jiabao as premier, while the vice presidency has, in recent years, been the stepping stone to ultimate power and prominence, the presidency, and leadership of the communist party.

Both men were brought into national government after serving in important provincial posts, Li as party secretary of Liaoyang province, Xi as party secretary of Shanghai. In the normal course of events Xi would take on the highest post in 2012 after the incumbent has served about ten years in office.

That is how the Chinese system currently works. Senior cadres are given important posts in the field as party secretary or governor of important provinces. Then they are brought into the central government for the final seasoning.

Li Kegiang and Xi Jinping, two persons virtually unknown outside the tiny community of China Watchers, but by the time they reach the ultimate offices, China will arguably be the most powerful nation on the planet and thus one or both of them will be the world’s most powerful men.

Whoever is elected U.S. president this November will be dealing with one or both of them probably by the time he or she begins his second term. Fortunately we have plenty of time to wrap our minds and mouths around their unfamiliar Mandarin Chinese names.

“Normal” is, of course, a relative term. This kind of orderly progression and peaceful succession has only been in place in China for about 20 years. It is the legacy of former “paramount” leader Deng Xiaoping, better known for his reforms in opening China’s economy to the world.

But he was also a political reformer. Deng was no democrat, but he did want to inculcate a sense of term limits and orderly, progressive succession. He didn’t want octogenarian strongmen clinging to power until their death beds. (Of course, Deng himself clung to power until he was over 90).

The man Deng picked in 1989 to succeed him, Jiang Zemin, retired in 2003 (not entirely without a struggle), making way for Hu Jintao. Jiang also set the pattern of personally assuming the office of state president, previously considered a fairly meaningless sinecure for deserving party veterans.

Of course, no one can say for sure that Hu will retire at the end of his official term of office. No one can say for sure that he might not see himself as president-for-life, and have the power to make it stick.

For that matter, one or both of the prospective candidates might stumble along the way or be muscled out by some other figure we haven’t heard of. Five years can be a long time in anybody’s politics.

That seems unlikely at this point, and the odds are that either or both of these two men will be China’s future leader. So it is probably worth mentioning their names once again: Li Kegiang and Xi Jinping.

Japan's Dilemma

Japan’s Maritime Self Defense Force is making preparations to send a fleet oiler to the Indian Ocean next month to refuel and resupply of coalition warships in an operation that has been suspended since November 1 last year when the previous enabling law expired.

The authorization to renew refueling came after the House of Representatives, overruling the other house in Japan's bicameral parliament, passed legislation permitting the navy to begin supporting allied warships in the Indian Ocean once again.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda invoked a seldom-used provision of the constitution that allows the lower house to override a decision of the House of Councillors by a two-thirds majority vote. The upper house, now controlled by the opposition, had previously killed the refueling legislation.

Fukuda is probably relieved to get this contentious issue behind him, at least for another year, clearing the deck for the up-coming regular Diet session where he will be under increasing pressure to call a general election.

His government felt obligated to renew the refueling operations to show solidarity with its chief ally, the United States. But politically it is a loser for him at home. The public tends to support the position of the opposition Democratic Party of Japan, which opposes such activities unless specifically authorized by the United Nations.

But as the year opens, neither Fukuda nor opposition leader Ichiro Ozawa has many attractive options. Fukuda’s main problem is simply to govern in the face of opposition from the Democrats who now control the upper house, which must approve all legislation subject the override provision.

The Democratic Party’s strategy is straight-forward – outright opposition in hopes of creating an impasse that can only be broken by a new election. Since its victory in the July election, the Democrats have sat on virtually every piece of legislation to emerge save for a very few motherhood issues such as a relief bill for those suffering from Hepatitis C contracted from tainted blood.

Fukuda could, of course, continue to use his two-thirds majority in the lower house to ram its bills through parliament, as it did with the refueling bill, but this risks charges of arrogance and ignoring the people’s will as expressed in the most recent election, last July’s Democratic triumph.

The public is unused to the over-ride mechanism, which had not been used previously since 1951 and strikes the average Japanese as somewhat unfair in this consensus-ruled society, even though perfectly constitutional. Fukuda himself said, “as a rule, I do not think it should be used frequently.”

A showdown might shape up over passing the budget and related bills this spring. Fukuda does not need upper house concurrence in passing the budget, which is the sole prerogative of the lower house, but he does need its approval for passing bills related to the budget, such as raising or lowering taxes.

Fukuda does not have to call a general election for the House of Representatives until September, 2009, and he says he would prefer not to call one, at least until after the meeting of the G-8 in Hokkaido in July. Nevertheless, both parties are making plans for new polls sometime in the new year.

Fukuda has nowhere to go but down in such a poll. That’s the legacy of former premier Junichiro Koizumi’s smashing general election victory in 2005, which saw the Liberal Democratic Party, which already enjoyed a majority, gain some 80 seats. It is hard to see how Fukuda could improve on that, especially as he lacks Koizumi’s impressive talent for political theater. Probably, the most he could hope for would be to stay in power with a reduced majority.

But his counter-part Ozawa faces uncertainties too. Even though his party is on a roll, even though the Fukuda government’s approval ratings are sinking, even though the public is still upset with the way the government is handling the pension funds fiasco, obtaining a working majority to form a government may be a bridge too far.

Of course, it is possible that Ozawa could win an outright majority and initiate the first real change of power since the post-war years, but he has an awfully big mountain to climb to do it. Realistically, Ozawa needs two elections, one to get him in striking distance and the other to put him over.

So Japan could find itself in a worse predicament, as the LDP would probably no longer enjoy the two-thirds majority is has now and thus would not be in a position to override the upper house. (Fukuda cannot dissolve the upper house which is elected on a fixed schedule. The next poll isn’t until July 2010.)

If the LDP prevails, even with a reduced majority, Fukuda then would be the one with the fresh mandate and insist that the opposition party in the upper house cooperate in passing bills or paint the opposition as dead-end obstructionists. Whether the opposition would be disposed to cooperate remains to be seen.

The only way out of that impasse might be the formation of a national unity government, a grand coalition between the LDP and its allies and the Democrats, which would leave only the tiny communist contingent as the official opposition.

Fukuda gave this notion a test run in November, and Ozawa seemed interested in listening until the other senior members of the party quashed the proposal. But if the current situation prevails, it may be the only way out.