The China Renaissance: The Rise of Xi Jinping and the 18th Communist Party Congress by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Communism; Post-Communism & Socialism, Leadership, Political Ideologies, Commentary & Opinion, Political Science, World, Political Process, Asian
ISBN: 9789814522885
Google: -z27CgAAQBAJ
Publisher: World Scientific
Published: 2013-06-06T07:03:56+00:00

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Xu Qiliang

by Choi Chi-yuk

As widely predicted, People’s Liberation Army air force General Xu Qiliang became one of the two military vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission (CMC) after the 18th party congress, thanks to his military talent and close ties with a former CMC chairman, Jiang Zemin.

Like his fellow CMC vice-chairman, General Fan Changlong, General Xu enjoyed a double promotion, having also entered the Politburo.

For many years “princelings” — the children of communist veterans — have dominated high-ranking positions in the PLA and there had long been rumours that Xu was one of them, owing his rise to being the son of late lieutenant general Xu Lefu, a former deputy political commissar of the air force. But the politically savvy Xu said he came from a peasant family and distanced himself from the princeling group following the spectacular downfall in 2012 of Chongqing party secretary Bo Xilai.

A Beijing-based military source said that Xu Qiliang was born into an ordinary family in Shandong province in 1950. He was a Jiang Zemin protégé from the 1980s, when Jiang was Shanghai mayor and then the municipality’s party secretary. Xu was a senior air force officer in Shanghai at the time. Jiang still wielded huge influence in the party leadership transition, even though he retired from his last formal post as CMC chairman in September 2004.

Xu was first identified as a rising military star in 1992, when he became an alternate member of the party’s Central Committee at the 14th party congress at the age of 42. Two years later, he was named air force chief of staff.

Xu then became air force commander of the northeastern Shenyang military area command in 1999 and a deputy chief of general staff five years later. He became air force chief and a member of the CMC in 2007.

In recent years Xu appeared to have had a chequered relationship with then president and CMC chairman Hu Jintao. One incident in 2011, which sparked widespread discussion at home and abroad, saw US defence secretary Robert Gates remark that Hu appeared to have been in the dark when Gates raised a question about the first test flight of China’s J-20 stealth fighter that took place just hours before a meeting in Beijing.

That led to intense speculation about possible discord between the PLA’s civilian leaders and their military subordinates. Antony Wong Dong, a PLA-watcher based in Macau, said: “This tiny clue has revealed a lot of hidden and underlying conflicts between Hu and Xu, even though the official Chinese media later tried to clarify that Gates had misread Hu’s response.”

Hu also appeared to snub a ceremony in Beijing in November 2009 to mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PLA air force, instead choosing to pay a visit to Malaysia and Singapore. That contrasted with his attendance at a naval review in April that year to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the founding of the PLA navy.

“Taking these two cases into account, I wonder how come Hu

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