Edward Wong
The New York Times
August 6, 2012
At least five senior Communist Party officials have arrived at the beachside resort of Beidaihe, including Xi Jinping, the man expected to be the next leader of China, setting the stage for what some analysts expect to be the climactic negotiations over the coming once-a-decade power transition.
For months, party elders and senior officials in Beijing have been quietly jockeying over how to fill the seats of the party’s top governing bodies, the 25-member Politburo and its elite Standing Committee, whose final dispositions are expected to be announced during the Communist Party’s 18th National Congress this fall.
The transition comes at a crucial period for the country. A growing number of voices urge more liberal economic policies and, in some quarters, adjustments to the system of one-party rule; the Internet amplifies public opinion; and China’s presence on the world stage continues to expand. In recent months, the buildup to the handover of power has been roiled by the fall of Bo Xilai, a disgraced Politburo member whose father was one of the party’s founding elite.
Mao adopted Beidaihe, a 19th-century resort built by Westerners 180 miles east of Beijing, as a summer meeting site for the Communist leadership. The current president, Hu Jintao, called for an end to large gatherings there, but leaders still met informally. Though the party tries to keep its workings veiled, indications of a conclave this month at Beidaihe are multiplying.
On Sunday, the nightly 7 p.m. news program of China Central Television showed Mr. Xi, the vice president and expected successor to Mr. Hu, at the resort, meeting with ordinary people.
A report by Xinhua, the state news agency, said Mr. Xi was meeting with “renowned experts and grass-roots talents” who had been invited to Beidaihe as a reward for their work. The report said 62 such people had been invited this year, in a program that began in 2001.
The Chinese version of the article mentioned several other leaders at Beidaihe, including Liu Yandong, Li Yuanchao, Ling Jihua and Ma Kai. Mr. Li, the head of the party’s powerful Organization Department, is considered a favorite for the Standing Committee. Ms. Liu, a member of the Politburo and the State Council, the equivalent of China’s cabinet, was mentioned by some political observers earlier this year as an outside contender for a Standing Committee seat. Mr. Ling is a senior official on the Central Committee, and Mr. Ma is on the State Council.
A member of a party news organization said some of the central figures in the succession talks began arriving last week.
Among the crucial issues senior officials are expected to debate is whether to shrink the Standing Committee from nine seats to seven, returning it to the size it was before 2002. That would hurt the chances of some of the more hotly debated candidates, like Wang Yang, the party chief of Guangdong Province. Others believed to be in the running for Standing Committee seats are Wang Qishan, a vice premier who helps manage the economy; Yu Zhengsheng, the Shanghai party chief; Zhang Dejiang, the Chongqing party chief; Liu Yunshan, director of the propaganda department; and Zhang Gaoli, the Tianjin party chief. Mr. Xi and Li Keqiang, pegged to be the next prime minister, are expected to stay on the committee.
Earlier this year, there had been talk that Meng Jianzhu, the minister of public security, might get a Standing Committee seat, but political observers now say it is more likely that he will end up on the Politburo. At one point, some people had also mentioned Mr. Ling as a long shot for the Standing Committee.
The talks preceding the 18th Party Congress have been complicated by the disgrace of Mr. Bo, the son of a deceased Communist revolutionary elder and former party chief of the booming metropolis of Chongqing. He had been a contender for the Standing Committee until this spring.
In February, a former police chief of Chongqing went to the American consulate in Chengdu to tell diplomats there of his suspicions that Mr. Bo’s wife, Gu Kailai, was involved in the death of a British businessman last November. That opened the way for senior party officials to strip Mr. Bo of his Chongqing post in March and suspend him from the Politburo in April.
The trial of Ms. Gu is scheduled to start Thursday in Hefei, Anhui Province, and is being closely tracked by British and American officials. A family aide, Zhang Xiaojun, has also been charged in the death.
Mr. Bo, meanwhile, is under investigation for what the party calls “serious disciplinary violations.” He is presumed to be under detention, and there has been no news of his fate.
