The sudden disappearance of Executive Vice-Premier Huang Ju from the media has prompted much discussion among diplomats and China watchers regarding the fate of the former Shanghai party secretary and confidant of ex-president Jiang Zemin.
Huang, one of nine Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) members, missed the Chinese New Years celebrations on January 29 -- and has not appeared in public since.
Authorities are refusing to say what has happened to Huang, apart from not disputing foreign press reports that the 68-year-old has been sick. Informed sources in Beijing and Shanghai said Huang’s “ailment” was due as much to political as to physiological reasons.
The sources pointed to a truism in Chinese politics, that a senior cadre whose political fortune is fast declining is particularly vulnerable to all types of germs and viruses. This was true, for example, of ex-party chief Hu Yaobang, whose health nose-dived after being removed from power in January 1987. President Hu’s health was also said to be precarious through much of the 1990s, when he lived in Jiang’s shadow and didn’t have much to do save parroting slogans first coined by his unfriendly boss.
Diplomatic sources in Beijing and Shanghai noted that Huang’s disappearance could be Hu's the first salvo to sideline and penalize members of the Shanghai Faction deemed to have run afoul of party discipline and the law.
Huang is reportedly linked to a series of real estate and stock market scandals in Shanghai. The sources said the Central Commission on Disciplinary Inspection (CCDI), the nation’s highest anti-graft watchdog, had compiled thick files on Shanghai Clique affiliates who had allegedly pocketed millions of dollars through helping well-heeled businessmen secure choice real estate sites in Shanghai -- as well as feeding the latter with inside information about forthcoming government policies.
The CCDI is headed by Wu Guanzheng, a staunch Hu ally. Going by CCP tradition, it is likely that, even assuming that speculation about Huang’s misdemeanors were true, the PSC member would only have to face the music after his retirement at the 17th CCP Congress scheduled for late 2007.
However, the suspicious circumstances surrounding Huang’s prolonged absence from the public eye have already amounted to a severe warning that Hu has served on his political foes: “I’m the boss. Follow my instructions -- or else!”
Willy Lam, whose column, "Inside China" begins this week in East-Asia-Intel.com" is a Hong Kong-based China scholar and journalist specializing in Communist Party politics and foreign policy.
