The January release of the Tiananmen Papers — the purported leaked documents and transcripts of important top-level meetings of China's leaders concerning the June 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre — appears to be aimed at discrediting President Jiang Zemin before he steps down from two of China's three most powerful positions.
Jiang's term as the general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) will expire at the party's 16th Congress in October 2002 and his post as state president in March 2003. He is expected to remain the head of the Central Military Commission (CMC).
Though having held the three top posts for most of the last decade, Jiang's authority within the CPC seems to have hardly improved. He only joined the CPC in 1946, spending most of his time as an engineer and factory director before assuming in the late 1970s a rather junior post in the industry department — the external affairs director of one division.
Jiang's rise as the minister of electronic industry in 1983 and into the Politburo in 1987 were big steps up, but his elevation in May 1989 to party general secretary was completely unexpected by outside observers.
When Deng Xiaoping anointed Jiang as "the core" of the "third generation" of party leaders, he made a special appeal to Li Peng and Yao Yilin, the only two in the five-member Politburo standing committee (PSC) who supported the 1989 crackdown, not to "harbour any resentment" against Jiang.
Any successors that Jiang may pick to fill the two posts he is soon to vacate aren't likely to be accepted without challenge.
From thousands of pages of records which were supposedly smuggled out of China and provided by an anonymous CPC official, US academics Andrew Nathan and Perry Link translated a third into English and published them in the 513-page The Tiananmen Papers, with the full Chinese version to be released in April.
While the broad thrust of the documents didn't go beyond what had been "leaked" previously, one new revelation is that rather than the party leadership bodies — such as the Politburo or its standing committee — making crucial decisions during the Tiananmen crisis, it was Deng Xiaoping, and to a less extent seven other party "elders" whom Deng handpicked, who called the shots.
According to The Tiananmen Papers, the eight elders met four times to make four crucial decisions: to declare martial law, to dump Zhao Ziyang as party general secretary, to pick Jiang Zemin as Zhao's replacement and to send troops and tanks to Tiananmen Square.
The eight's words were more orders than advice, considering, for example, that their decision to declare martial law overrode a PSC decision on May 17 not to declare martial law. (In that May 17 meeting, Qiao Shi abstained while Zhao Ziyang and Hu Qili voted against the declaration of martial law).
With only one of the eight elders still living — Bo Yibo — the revelations couldn't backfire on them anymore. However, the way the elders seemed to have pushed aside the constitutional leadership bodies of both the CPC and the central government will raise questions within China, including within the CPC bureaucracy itself, as to whether this "tradition" is still in practice today.
Of greater immediate relevance to the struggle for top positions within the CPC is the suggestion that Jiang only became party general secretary through extra-constitutional means. This hardly enhances his authority today.
Another leader who stands to be undermined by the Tiananmen Papers is Li Peng, China's prime minister in 1989, currently chairperson of the National People's Congress (NPC, China's parliament). A PSC member since 1987, he is now ranked number two in that top body.
Li has been widely hated since 1989 for the aggressive manner in which he carried out the Tiananmen crackdown. The Tiananmen Papers now reveal him as having been the key instigator of the crackdown. Li's June 2, 1989 report to the home-bound and apparently ill-informed Deng — in which Li portrayed the protesters as "counter-revolutionaries" seeking to overturn the "socialist system" and remove Deng from power) seemed to be decisive in persuading Deng to send troops to "clear the square".
Though "popular opinion" plays no role in the selection of the CPC leadership, this new blow to Li's credibility will help his rivals and diminish his perceived chance in picking up any of the posts to be vacated by Jiang.
Li's position seems further shaken by the recent arrest of two senior executives of the State Power Corporation, a key Li Peng power base in the power sector which he used to lead and where two of his three children — Li Xiaoping and (daughter) Li Xiaolin — are holding important posts. His other son, Li Xiaoyong, allegedly has done well from a $120 million investment pyramid scheme which collapsed recently and many disgruntled investors hold Li senior responsible.
Prime minister Zhu Rongji, currently number three in the PSC and Shanghai mayor in 1989, didn't emerge badly from these new revelations. This should put him in a strong position to win more powerful posts.
But Jiang doesn't seem to favour Zhu for further elevation, clearly preferring Hu Jintao instead. Hu joined the PSC in 1992, at 49, as the seven-member body's youngest member, ranking number five. In 1982, he joined the Central Committee at 39, also as its youngest. Hu also joined in 1992 the seven-member CC Secretariat as its only executive and has since then been holding the influential post. Hu presided over the CC Party School since 1993, became state vice-president in 1998, vice-chairperson of the party's military commission in 1999 and vice-chairperson of the CMC last year.
The remaining three PSC members — Li Ruihuan (No. 4, a PSC member since 1989), Wei Jianxing (No. 6, a PSC member since 1992) and Li Lanqing (No. 7 and the first vice-premier in charge of economics) — also stand considerable chance to win further promotions. Equally hopeful are the other three vice-premiers (in ranking): Qian Qichen, Wu Bangguo and Wen Jiabao. Competition also comes from the CMC's remaining two vice-chairpersons: Zhang Wannian and Chi Haotian.