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| Kathmandu Friday April 12, 2002 Chaitra 30, 2058. |
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China’s political succession and its
implications
By NISHCHAL NATH PANDEY
Throughout recorded history, China has
continuously remained mystifying for outside travellers and onlookers. The 16th National
Congress of the Chinese Communist Party to be held this fall is the latest in the series
of those perplexing mega events-apparently to gracefully transfer power from the third
generation to the fourth generation of modern China. Although other strong contenders do
also exist, if the party’s supreme power is smoothly transferred from President Jiang
Zemin to his designated successor Hu Jintao-the current Vice-President, it will mark an
unique event of routine power transition without the driving force of a political crisis
or the death of a top leader.
China began to build its own bridges to the
new millennium with the election in 1998 of Hu Jintao as the country’s new
Vice-President. The following year he became Vice-Chairman of the Central Military
Commission, the second most powerful civilian post in this supreme military body after
President Jiang Zemin himself. Most China experts emphasize that "no Chinese
communist has been able to rise so fast, so far and stayed there like Hu Jintao." It
will be rewarding to analyse the prospects for this largest and economically most dynamic
newly emerging power in case this transition
takes place and the influences (if any) that it may have on the conduct of China’s
neighbourhood foreign policy, especially pertaining to Nepal.
If he succeeds in succeeding President Jiang
as party boss and head of state during the 16th National Congress and the 10th National
People’s Congress, Hu will be the first head of state in the history of China who has
served in Tibet and anybody can guess that whoever has worked in the Tibet Autonomous
Region (TAR) naturally develops a strong intimacy with Tibetan issues and China’s
policy towards surrounding neighbouring states. It was in the year 1988 that Hu became
Tibet’s first civilian party head. However, this was one of the most difficult
periods in not only Tibet’s but likewise Nepal’s political history with the
Panchayat system raising hackles in India for purchasing military hardware from China and
the lapse of trade and transit treaties, eventually leading to the pro-democracy
people’s movement. In March 1989, troops entered Lhasa to stop rioting and
pro-independence displays. Despite this, Hu was successful in keeping Tibet quiet through
June’s Tiananmen Square tragedy paving the way for the backward region’s
magnificent economic development course, which has often bewildered visiting tourists and
officials. A Tibetan village bordering Nepal today even boasts of VCDs, TV sets and other
modern amenities that Nepalese kith and kin can only dream of. This issue of growing
economic dissimilarity will become even more pungent if Kathmandu does not give extra
attention to the development of bordering districts in the north. The hydraulic engineer
who loves table tennis and has travelled extensively in Tibet has since then never looked
back: he was elected a member of the standing committee of the 6th Chinese People’s
Political Consultative Conference National Committee and was named President of the Party
School of the CCP Central Committee in 1993 to name only a few. Nonetheless, China
analysts and an overly interested world media are still anxious to know whether President
Jiang will hold on to the powerful chairmanship of the Military Affairs Commission and (2)
whether the fourth generation of leaders without the revolutionary credentials of either
Mao or Deng will be able to enjoy the same emotional hold on the Chinese population. Yet
these inquisitors have little doubt that the young generation have good education, a wider
worldview and a desire to implement a pro-active fiscal policy, a prudent monetary policy
and a longing to open up more.
Throughout the Cold War a small group of
leaders and diplomats framed China’s foreign policy without having to worry about the
world media, answer to lobbies and get influenced by swaying public opinions. But at the
same time, it also gave the system one of its favourable executing characteristics-the
ability to make decisions and enforce them or dramatically change course without
negotiating with other domestic power centres/departments/institutes/policy making bodies
etc. China was able to pursue a foreign policy that was the imperative of the times and
was equally compatible with changing times while rival states remained confused by the
poker faces that Chinese diplomats often exhibited. However with the ebb and flow of time
and as the complexities of issues evolved, a larger and a more complex bureaucratic set up
has come into place compared to the China of Mao Tse-tung or Zhou Enlai (except the
Shanghai Institute for International Studies which was established by Zhou forty two years
ago). Experts/academics on specific areas assigned to render regular recommendations on
acute foreign policy cruxes are becoming the spinal columns of Chinese foreign policy
overtures.
The last two years have marked the beginning
of China’s 10th five-year plan with a rapid economic development despite a slowdown
in the world economy, Beijing succeeding in its bid to host the 2008 Olympic Games. The
successful hosting of the APEC leaders’ meeting and its membership of the WTO. The
new leadership that eventually comes up in Beijing will not have the emotional bondage
either with Mao or with the revolution compared to their predecessors. Nor will it carry
the historic baggage of strained relations with countries like India, the US and Russia.
Instead, it will be more interested in economics and in securing China’s strategic
and political ascendancy in an increasingly confused multi-polar world order.
Nepal needs to keep these ramifications in
mind while seeking a more profitable relations in political and commercial terms with its
northern neighbour. Among the younger generation of leaders, Li Peng, Li Ruihuan and Zhu
Rongji may have visited Nepal and high level visits may have continued from our side too
but there is a widely spaced shortage of China experts or even researchers that conduct
regular study on China related issues while examining their implications for South Asia in
general and Nepal in particular. For instance, both India and China have decided that they
will be sharing information on terrorist related activities and the first bilateral
dialogue on counter terrorism will be taking place from April 23rd in New Delhi.
Isn’t this a major development taking place between the two arch-rivals? Are we sure
that it will only have positive effects for the region?
Therefore, now is a time like never before to avert second
hand knowledge and information about China by striving to develop our own. We have had a
consulate in Lhasa since a very long time and we are the only foreign country that has
direct air links with that city. But times are changing and our political and economic
leverage as a middle kingdom between two of the largest markets in the world maybe be fast
diminishing. With the opening up of direct air links between New Delhi and Beijing last
week, it may be easier for tourists and Nepalese alike to fly to Beijing from New Delhi.
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