- BEIJING (Reuters) - China's
Communist Party offered the vaguest of clues to a new leadership lineup
on Thursday as the government gave sagging stock markets a shot in the
arm on the eve of a watershed party congress.
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- More than 2,000 party delegates from every corner of
China gathered in the cavernous Great Hall of the People to elect a Presidium
spanning the old and new guard to oversee its 16th congress.
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- In front of the imposing Soviet-style building, Tiananmen
Square was sealed off from the public but strewn with red flags, slogan-bearing
banners and even coconut palms to mark what is billed as the first orderly
succession in Communist China.
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- President Jiang Zemin, 76, is expected to step down as
party chief with other leaders over 70 in the most dramatic reshuffle since
purges following the bloody 1989 Tiananmen crackdown on student protesters.
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- On Friday, Jiang is due to deliver his last policy speech
hailing the country's achievements and outlining policy for the next five
years.
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- Chinese authorities have gone out of their way to create
a "favorable atmosphere" for the congress, detaining an outspoken
democracy activist, executing dozens of criminals and warning Chinese reporters
they will be jailed for leaks.
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- The government gave China's 60 million stock punters
a pre-congress perk, saying select foreign investors would be allowed into
the massive $500 billion stock markets in a move expected to boost share
prices which have fallen 30 percent in 17 months.
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- "The implication of the timing is clear to all,"
said one analyst who declined to be identified.
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- OPENING UP THE PARTY
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- The congress is also expected to change the party's constitution
to allow private entrepreneurs to join in a bid to make it more relevant
to rapidly changing China.
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- Congress spokesman Ji Bingxuan said on Thursday the party
would broaden its membership to include "outstanding elements from
new social strata" -- code for private entrepreneurs long excluded
as capitalist exploiters.
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- But the party would not forsake its core membership of
workers, peasants, soldiers, intellectuals and party cadres, congress spokesman
Ji told a news conference.
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- "I think I can tell you with no doubt at all enrolment
of outstanding people from new social strata will not change the nature
or purposes of the party at all," he said.
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- "We must proceed from our own national conditions
and unswervingly embark on a road of our own toward political development,"
he said. "We should by no means simply copy the political systems
or models in the West."
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- His comments set the ideological tone for the congress
but shed little light on expected personnel changes.
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- The Presidium elected Vice President Hu Jintao as secretary-general
of the congress, along with a 32-member Presidium Standing Committee, he
said.
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- Jiang is expected to hand his top party post to Hu but
to maintain power by installing allies into the Politburo Standing Committee,
the party's top policy body which now has seven members, Chinese sources
say.
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- NEAREST THING TO DEMOCRACY
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- Several candidates for those seven seats joined the Presidium
Standing Committee, analysts said.
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- They included Zeng Qinghong, Jiang's main protege, who
stepped down as head of the party's organization department two weeks ago,
as well as internal security chief Luo Gan, and China's most powerful woman,
State Councillor Wu Yi.
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- Wu Guanzheng, party boss of Shandong province, Li Changchun,
party chief in Guangdong province, and Jia Qinglin, who stepped down as
party boss in Beijing two weeks ago, were also in there.
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- "Particularly given our understanding of where the
leadership is heading, it seems to be showing that these are people who
are going to be in the top leadership spots," said one diplomat.
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- "I think it shows who may be the state councillors,
the vice premiers and some in the Politburo Standing Committee."
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- At the last congress in 1997, the Presidium Standing
Committee included all the incumbent and future members of the Politburo
Standing Committee as well as three incoming members of the Politburo.
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- Next week, the congress will formally elect a new Central
Committee of about 200 members, which will then hold its first meeting
and choose a Politburo and Politburo Standing Committee.
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- But the Presidium sets the agenda, draws up candidate
lists for the new Central Committee and supervises voting.
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- The final vote is held on the last day of the congress
on November 14 but the result is effectively set in advance by unofficial
preliminary rounds, Chinese sources say.
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- "If they are not happy with the result of a preliminary
vote, the Presidium leaders go round to negotiate with the different delegations,"
said one Chinese political scientist who declined to be identified.
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- "It is the closest thing we have to democracy."
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