The New Guard

It takes a certain amount of hubris to rule 1.3 billion people. Mao Zedong ran China with awe-inspiring ruthlessness, while Deng Xiaoping was obsessed with shaking things up. Jiang Zemin presides with a grandfatherly smile that sets him above the bickering of his conservative and reformist underlings. Who dares to follow?

With China's 50th anniversary now safely in the bag (having raised Jiang's image to the pantheon of communist all-stars on the shoulders of hand-picked celebrants), the Communist Party is looking ahead to the accession of a "fourth generation" of leaders, expected to take place in 2002 during the 16th Party Congress. By then, President Jiang will be 76 and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji 73; succession scenarios are already being floated. But unlike the saturation coverage given to, say, a U.S. presidential contest, the race to rule China is bafflingly opaque, resting in the hands of a few party insiders unaccountable to the public. The leadership compound inside Zhongnanhai is a world of factions--conservatives, reformers, princelings with long pedigrees, the Shanghai clique--and of personal feuds, old debts and older memories. Seasoned Chinese politicians know better than to go on the equivalent of Larry King Live to announce their ambitions for all to see.

"The era of the strongman is over in China," says Wang Shaoguang, professor of political science at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. "The turn of the century will bring collective leadership to the fore." The current leaders-in-waiting are technocrats, not revolutionaries, and their instincts are to manage the status quo rather than destroy and build something new. "They were in their mid-20s during the Cultural Revolution," says David Zweig, associate professor at Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, who argues that the next generation's primary concern is to avoid a return to chaos. "I don't expect any of them to push for rapid political reform."

For now, the frontrunner to succeed Jiang is Hu Jintao, the 56-year-old Vice President who has risen to his current position more by avoiding mistakes than through any notable accomplishments. His chances have been further boosted by his appointment last month as vice chairman of the influential Central Military Commission.

The other top contenders for power are thought to be Wen Jiabao, a Vice-Premier who is viewed as a committed reformer, and Zeng Qinghong, who as head of the party's Organization Department controls promotions and personnel decisions across the country. Zeng is immensely influential but tends to operate in the background. In one scenario bandied about in the capital, Hu would become President, Wen the Prime Minister and Zeng the Communist Party chief. Jiang might remain chairman of the military commission and adopt a role similar to Deng's in his later years, directing from behind the scenes and playing his proteges off against one another.

Much can change over three years, of course, and double-guessing the party's inner workings is like estimating China's real GDP figures. William Overholt, executive director of Nomura International in Hong Kong, expects the pendulum to swing back toward the reformers, as the necessity for economic restructuring increases. That could change succession plans. "Five years before Deng Xiaoping died," says Overholt, "who would have thought that Jiang Zemin would become his successor--and a reformist one at that?"

Here's a look at the next generation of men who would rule China:

[handshake=] Guanxi [hammer=] Reform credentials [star=] Advancement potential

HU JINTAO 56 [4 handshakes, 2 hammers, 5 stars]

The Anhui native is the current heir apparent. Hu holds top posts in the government (Vice President), party (No. 5 in its hierarchy) and army (vice chairman of the Central Military Commission). Hu was plucked from obscurity as a construction official in relatively impoverished Gansu province by party elder Song Ping in the mid-1970s and moved up through the party's Youth League. As party secretary of Tibet, Hu presided over a violent crackdown on independence demonstrators in 1989. Earlier this year, after the NATO bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade, it fell to Hu to go on TV to finesse the leadership's strategy of encouraging student protests against the U.S. while ensuring they did not spin out of control. Hu is known for a photographic memory and for pleasing visitors by remembering details of past conversations he's had with them. But he has no real economic experience and is regarded as Jiang's choice partly because he poses no threat to the elder leader's power.

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