Chinese Kremlinology: Will Jiang Go?

Just four months ago Hu Jintao toured Washington as Chinese leader Jiang Zemin's heir apparent, and it seemed China was preparing for the first smooth political succession in its modern history. But reports have swirled in the months since then that Jiang — once expected to cede his post as Communist Party chief to Hu at the party's congress in November — will instead cling to power, holding on to the party position, as well as that of military chief. Over the summer, Jiang's staff organized a petition campaign in the provinces to get him to stay; suddenly a spate of pro-Jiang stories appeared in the state-run press, and now the evening news features nightly reports of people all over China studying Jiang's ideas. Jiang's real plans are unknown, and China watchers are resorting to a kind of East Asian Kremlinology to guess what's coming. One theory is that Jiang's supporters are bluffing-that the threat the 76-year-old leader will stay is really a bargaining tactic to win his cronies key posts under Hu. Another possibility is that the pro-Jiang propaganda is just some last-minute image burnishing. But Jiang's rivals aren't taking any chances. They have started circulating essays about another communist leader who "didn't keep up with the times"--Leonid Brezhnev. By refusing to retire at his Communist Party's congress in 1981, Brezhnev threw the party into a leadership crisis after his death a year later, a legacy Jiang doesn't want to share.