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Jasper Becker

SOME OF CHINA's leaders are having second thoughts about whether they are ready to retire this year, according to rumours emanating from Zhongnanhai.

The last-minute doubts add a dash of spice to the routine dish served up at the National People's Congress (NPC) which opens on Tuesday, especially as the chief suspect, Li Peng, will be on stage as its presiding chairman.

The year's big political event is actually the Communist Party's 16th Congress, now about six months away. Until then the NPC is the only public event where it is possible to see all the main protagonists in action.

The script rarely varies from one NPC to another, but there is at least the opportunity to study the body language of the top triumvirate - President Jiang Zemin, Mr Li and Premier Zhu Rongji.

All the stories circulating say they have again fallen out on the terms for their mutual retirement at the 16th Congress.

One version has it that Mr Li wants Mr Jiang to agree that he can become state president after he relinquishes his post as head of the NPC next year.

Another is that Mr Jiang wants Mr Zhu to stay on and keep running the economy, although the Premier himself is more than ready to lay aside the heavy burdens of state.

If any one of them is responsible for spreading these rumours, the most likely is thought to be Mr Li and his supporters. He has the most to gain or lose from the leadership shake-up.

If he gives up all his power, there is the risk that he might later be called to account for the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown or that his enemies might target his wife and children and call for an investigation into their business activities.

His wife, Zhu Lin, recently went on record in the Chinese press denying she was involved in any business, let alone corruption, despite having been a key power broker in the state power industry and deals such as the Daya Bay nuclear power station.

Her daughter also runs a business consultancy offering advice to investors in this sector, while her eldest son, Li Xiaopeng, runs Huang Power International and is the second most powerful man in the industry.

They are reasons why back in November the Securities Weekly encouraged investors to buy shares in companies the Li family was backing. Subsequently, the authorities seized all copies of the publication and reportedly detained the author of the offending article.

In January investors who lost money when Xinguoda Futures Brokerage collapsed in 1998, with a loss of 532 million yuan (HK$502 million), staged protests and demanded that the younger Li son, Li Xiaoyong, should be brought to book for his alleged links to the scam.

None of this proves the Li clan is corrupt, but it does show how fragile the status of the family has become.

As such, Li Peng is rumoured to be demanding guarantees that he and his family will be safe when he does retire. The best guarantee of all is for Mr Li to hold on to power. If not that, he is said to be asking for Li Xiaopeng, who has a reputation as a solid businessman, to be promoted into a powerful position.

Some analysts think it would strengthen Mr Li's case if it was also believed that Mr Zhu was to stay on as well. However, since Mr Zhu has often talked publicly about retiring, another rumour is doing the rounds.

This claims that the elder generation is harbouring doubts about the credentials of his replacement candidate Wen Jiabao. Mr Wen is said to be too young and inexperienced to cope with the job. Also, his loyalties are suspect. He was at the side of Zhao Ziyang, the then party chief, when he visited the students at Tiananmen Square in June 1989 to say that he had come too late. This was the last time Mr Zhao, who backed the protesters, was seen in public and Deng Xiaoping then replaced him with Jiang Zemin.

'People are saying that the party shouldn't make the same mistake as the Soviet Union and not bring in younger leaders like Gorbachev,' said one source.

It also is being suggested that the leadership is discussing proposals to re-create a body like the central advisory commission, in which Li Peng and others could join to wield power behind the scenes. Deng invented this institution after 1979 and it was used in the 1980s to topple reformers like Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, but was then disbanded in the early 1990s.

This idea runs counter to the major effort that Mr Jiang has made to realise Deng's wishes that retirement rules should be strictly enforced across the length and breadth of the party system. Mr Jiang's most visible success was in persuading his one-time rival Qiao Shi, who ran the security apparatus, to retire quietly at the last Party Congress.

While one could imagine that Mr Jiang would see some merit in keeping Mr Zhu at his side to run the economy, it would create other difficulties.

Making exception of one and not the other man could ruin his grand strategy to push through a major generational transfer at the 16th Party Congress and ensure that everyone important goes together.

Mr Jiang has wanted to be the only exception to the retirement process. Just as Deng did before him, he wants to hang on as head of the party's Central Military Commission, a post which has no constitutional age limit.

Mr Jiang's difficulty, some say, is being unable to pick his successor. If he had it would probably have been Zeng Qinghong. But he is bound by Deng's wishes to allow Hu Jintao to succeed as head of both party and state.

'Hu is being presented to everyone as the next head of state. He was there with [US President George W.] Bush last week on television,' said one Western diplomat. 'So I can't imagine how they can change that and allow Li Peng to be president.'

'Nothing is ever for sure in China,' added another observer. 'That's why Jiang has been in a hurry to hold the Party Congress before it all unravelled.'

Li Peng is not reckoned to be powerful enough though to hold up the whole process of rejuvenating China's leadership.

'Ultimately, Li is very dependent on Jiang's goodwill,' said one diplomat. 'He can't do much on his own.'

Despite the flurry of rumours, the Chinese media continues giving prominence to all those tipped to take top positions.

Wen Jiabao continues to be presented as the next premier and Li Ruihuan remains the favourite to take over as head of the NPC a year from now.

Jasper Becker is the Post's Beijing bureau chief (jasper@a-1.net.cn)



When breaking up is hard to do