page_title: Hu Jintao
section_title: Succession of Jiang Zemin
hierarchical_section_title: Hu Jintao / Leadership / Succession of Jiang Zemin
caption_attribution_description: President George W. Bush is joined by his father, former President George H. W. Bush, during their visit with China's President Hu Jintao Sunday, Aug. 10, 2008, at Zhongnanhai, the Chinese leaders compound in Beijing.
context_page_description: Hu Jintao is a Chinese politician who was the paramount leader of China from 2004 to 2012. He held the offices of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 2002 to 2012, President of the People's Republic of China from 2003 to 2013 and Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 2004 to 2012. He was a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, China's de facto top decision-making body, from 1992 to 2012.
  Hu participated in the Chinese Communist Party for most of his career, notably as Party Committee Secretary for Guizhou province and the Tibet Autonomous Region and then later First Secretary of the CCP Central Secretariat and Vice-President under former leader Jiang Zemin. Hu was the first leader of the Communist Party from a generation younger than those who participated in the civil war and the founding of the republic.
  During his term in office, Hu reintroduced state control in some sectors of the economy that were relaxed by the previous administration, and was conservative with political reforms.
context_section_description: On 15 November 2002, a new Hu Jintao-led Politburo nominally succeeded Jiang. Although Jiang, then 76, stepped down from the powerful General Secretary and the Politburo Standing Committee to make way for a younger leadership, there was speculation that Jiang would retain significant influence because Hu was not associated with Jiang's influential Shanghai clique, to which six out of the nine members of the all-powerful Standing Committee were believed to be linked. However, later developments show that many of its members have shifted their positions. Zeng Qinghong, for example, moved from a disciple of Jiang to serving as an intermediary between the two factions. In 2003, Jiang was also re-elected to the post of Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the CCP.
  Deng Xiaoping appointed three party General Secretaries, all designed to be successors, and was instrumental in the ousting of two of them, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang. His third and final selection, Jiang Zemin, won Deng's continued, although ambiguous, backing and was the only General Secretary in Communist Chinese history to voluntarily leave his post when his term ended.
  Jiang resigned as Chairman of the Central Military Commission in September 2004, his last official post. Following Jiang's stepping-down, Hu had officially taken on the three institutions in the People's Republic of China where power lie, the party, the state, as well as the military, thus informally, had become the paramount leader.
  Hu and Premier Wen Jiabao inherited a China wrought with internal social, political and environmental problems. One of the biggest challenges Hu faced was the large wealth disparity between the Chinese rich and poor, for which discontent and anger mounted to a degree which wreaked havoc on the Communist Party's rule. Furthermore, the cronyism and corruption plaguing China's civil service, military, educational, judicial and medical systems sought to destroy the country bit by bit. In the beginning of 2006, however, Hu launched the "8 Honours and 8 Shames" movement in a bid to promote a more selfless and moral outlook amongst the population
  . 
  At the 17th CCP National Congress, Hu was re-elected as General Secretary of the Central Committee and Chairman of the CCP Central Military Commission on 22 October 2007. At the 11th National People's Congress, Hu was re-elected as President on 15 March 2008. He was also re-elected as Chairman of the PRC Central Military Commission.
  Newsweek named Hu the second most powerful person in the world, referring to him as "the man behind the wheel of the world's most supercharged economy." Forbes also named him the second most powerful person in the world. Hu was named the 2010 World's Most Powerful Person by Forbes Magazine. Hu was listed four times (2008, 2007, 2005 and 2004) on the Time 100 annual list of most influential people.
caption: Hu with George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush in Beijing, 10 August 2008
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