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Shanghai party chief Huang tipped, again, to rise
2002-10-02
SHANGHAI - Shanghai comrades are the first on the bus, says an oft-repeated adage about Chinese politics.Judging by the backgrounds of the current Chinese leadership, Shanghai party chief Huang Ju should be one of the next in line. President and national party chief Jiang Zemin, Premier Zhu Rongji and Vice Premier Wu Bangguo all jumped the queue into the leadership's highest echelons after proving themselves in top Shanghai posts. So it is only natural that Huang is counted by some analysts as a likely candidate for promotion to one of the top seven posts in the Communist Party at a congress in November, when the nation's leaders are due to retire. But although Huang, 64, has some key credentials for promotion -- education at the country's elite Tsinghua University, 36 years of party membership and close ties with Jiang -- his fate is far from sealed. Over the past five years the Zhejiang-born engineer has been repeatedly named as a candidate for jobs in Beijing, but has failed to clinch promotion despite the fact that the Chinese president favours loyal easterners who speak his home dialect. In the run-up to the congress, Huang's name is again being mentioned with the "Shanghai Gang" whom Jiang will be trying to manoeuvre into key positions to secure his legacy in power. "Huang's considered to have performed well," one Western diplomat said. Huang would likely take a party- or economics-related post on the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, the diplomat said. Other analysts say, however, that Huang's star may be fading due to other party elders' frustration with the large number of "Shanghai Gang" officials in top Beijing posts. And for many Shanghai residents, he has long been eclipsed by charismatic former city mayor Xu Kuangdi, who left suddenly last year to take an academic post in Beijing. IMPRESSIVE RECORD Shanghai's record under Huang's leadership is impressive by any standards. Since he became mayor in 1991 then Shanghai party chief in 1994, the city has become a showcase for rapidly changing China -- its economy has boomed, incomes soared and a brand-new glass and steel financial district sprouted from riverside farmland. In more recent years, the central government has backed Shanghai to host high-profile events such as last year's Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meeting, and is pushing to stage the world expo there in 2010. "Shanghai is the golden child," the diplomat said. "These events didn't need to be thrown to Shanghai. It's part of his (Huang's) reward for a job well done." However, residents of China's largest and richest city are less quick to credit the former engineer turned factory manager. "Huang Ju is always smiling, but I had a better impression of Xu, who was very honest and frank," said one Shanghainese resident in his mid-40s, asking not to be mentioned by name. Xu, a Zhu Rongji protege who charmed most of the foreign businessmen in the city, stepped down as mayor in December to take a party post at a Beijing-based engineering academy. He is rumoured to have fallen out with the more conservative Huang. "Xu got along swimmingly with many Western businessmen, but he was not so good at internal politics," said an executive at a U.S. firm in Shanghai. "Xu's gone because he and Huang were never friendly." (Reuters)
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