Epilogue: the Seventeenth Party Congress

Summary

The CCP convened its Seventeenth Party Congress, October 15–20, 2007, followed on October 21 by the First Plenary Session of the newly elected Central Committee. The Seventeenth Party Congress was the fourth Party Congress held since the tragic events of June 1989, and it marked a new stage in the political evolution of the CCP. Following the Tiananmen upheaval, it will be recalled, Deng Xiaoping, in consultation with Chen Yun and Li Xiannian, selected Jiang Zemin as the “core” of the third generation of leadership. Despite the seeming long odds of holding onto power, Jiang managed to maneuver, build coalitions, and gradually consolidate his power. Nevertheless, in 1992, Deng Xiaoping selected Hu Jintao, then only 50 years of age, to the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) at the Fourteenth Party Congress, apparently naming him internally as Jiang's successor. Deng was striving to build a balance in the Party that would outlast himself and one that would contrast with the bitterly divisive leadership situation Mao Zedong had left behind when he died in 1976. Given the different interests in the Party, Deng's arrangements stuck, despite Jiang's palpable desire to pass power on to Zeng Qinghong. As we saw in Chapter 8, Hu Jintao's succession to power was smooth by historical standards but not without friction. Contestation was inevitable given that Jiang surrounded Hu with many of his (Jiang's) own protégés. Hu nevertheless maneuvered with considerable skill to articulate his own ideology and begin to promote people from his own power base, the Communist Youth League (CYL).