Dictators’ Club: Xi Jinping blocks predecessors on choice of his successor

Special to WorldTribune.com

By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com

While General Secretary and President Xi Jinping has not yet been in office for one year, different factions of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are already jockeying for position regarding the identity of Xi’s successor.

Xi Jinping walks behind Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin on Nov. 8, 2012.  /Jason Lee/Reuters
Xi Jinping walks behind Hu Jintao and former President Jiang Zemin on Nov. 8, 2012. /Jason Lee/Reuters

It was late patriarch Deng Xiaoping who started the tradition called the “cross-generation designation of successors.” In 1992, Deng settled upon then-party secretary of Tibet Hu Jintao as the “Fourth-Generation” leader who would succeed Jiang Zemin in 2002.

Jiang repeated the tradition in 2007, when he picked Xi, the “core” of the Fifth-Generation leadership, to succeed Hu as party chief at the 18th Party Congress last year.

However, Xi who will most likely remain in power until 2022, is adamant that neither Hu nor Jiang should play any role in choosing his own successor.

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