Jia Qinglin
Because of his high local position and his ties to Jiang, in November 2002 Jia was named to the 16th Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) of the Communist Party of China. Although his ceremonial role as the Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a quasi-consultative upper house in China's political system, made him fourth in the official order of precedence, it was widely accepted that the position carried very little power, perhaps the least powerful in the nine PSC members. Jia Qinglin was the most senior Chinese official to attend the funeral of Zhao Ziyang. With the transition of authority to Hu Jintao, Jia appeared to have been given the job of coordinating policy on Taiwan.