Hu Jintao

**Hu Jintao** (born 21 December 1942) is a Chinese retired politician who served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) from 2002 to 2012, the president of China from 2003 to 2013, and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) 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 was the 4th paramount leader of China from 2002 to 2012.

## Early life, education, and family

Hu Jintao was born on 21 December 1942 in Tai County, Jiangsu province, which was under Japanese occupation at the time. He is a direct descendant of the Ming dynasty general Hu Zongxian, known for fighting Japanese pirates. His branch of the family migrated from Jixi County, Anhui to Taizhou during his grandfather's generation. Though his father owned a small tea trading business in Taizhou, the family was relatively poor. His mother was a teacher and died when he was 7, and he was raised by an aunt. Hu's father was denounced during the Cultural Revolution, an event that (together with his relatively humble origins) apparently had a deep effect upon Hu, who diligently tried to clear his father's name.

He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in April 1964. That year he graduated from Tsinghua University after studying hub hydropower stations at the Water Conservancy Engineering Department. He worked as a political counselor at Tsinghua. In July 1965, Hu began work as an engineer.

In 1968, during the Third Front construction, Hu volunteered for his service in Gansu and worked on the construction of Liujiaxia Hydroelectric Station while also managing CCP affairs for the local branch of the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power. From 1969 to 1974, he worked for Sinohydro Engineering Bureau.

Hu is married[*when?*] to Liu Yongqing, whom he met at Tsinghua University when they were studying there. They have two children together, Hu Haifeng and Hu Haiqing. Unlike Wen Jiabao, the premier, he never granted a public one-on-one interview with the media. He has been noted for his liking of table tennis and ballroom dancing. Hu is also said to possess a photographic memory that became evident in his high school days.

## Early political career

In 1973, Hu was transferred to the Construction Department of Gansu as a secretary. The next year he was promoted to deputy senior party secretary. In 1980, Deng Xiaoping implemented the "Four Transformations" program, which aimed to produce communist leaders who were "more revolutionary, younger, more knowledgeable, and more specialized." In response to this nationwide search for young party members, Song Ping, the first secretary of CCP Gansu Committee (Gansu's governor) discovered Hu Jintao and promoted him several ranks to the position of deputy head of the commission. Another protégé of Song, Wen Jiabao, also became prominent at the same time.

In 1982, Hu was promoted to the position of Communist Youth League Gansu Branch secretary and was appointed as the director of the All-China Youth Federation. His mentor, Song Ping, was transferred to Beijing as Minister of Organization of the Chinese Communist Party, and was in charge of senior cadres' recommendation, candidacy and promotion. With the support of Hu Yaobang (no relation) and Deng Xiaoping, Hu was assured of a bright future in the party. At Song Ping's suggestion, in 1982 central CCP authorities invited Hu to Beijing to study at the Central Party School. Soon after, he was transferred to Beijing and appointed to a position in the secretariat of the Communist Youth League Central Committee ("CY Central"). Two years later Hu was promoted to first secretary of CY Central, thus its actual leader. During his term in the Youth League, Hu escorted Hu Yaobang, who was CCP general secretary then, in visits around the country. Hu Yaobang, himself a veteran coming from the Youth League, could reminiscence his youth through Hu's company.

### Leading the party in Guizhou

In 1985, Communist Party general secretary Hu Yaobang pushed for Hu Jintao to be transferred to Guizhou as the provincial Committee secretary of the Chinese Communist Party. Hu attempted to improve the economy of the backwater province, and reputedly visited all of its eighty-six counties. While in Guizhou, Hu was careful to follow Beijing's directives and had a reputation of being "airtight"; he rarely would offer his views on policy matters in public. While Hu was generally seen as an official with integrity and honesty, some locals preferred his predecessor Zhu Houze. In 1987, Hu Jintao handled the local students protest parallel to the Democracy Wall carefully, whereas in Beijing similar protests resulted in Hu Yaobang's forced resignation.

### Tenure in Tibet

Hu Yaobang was purged by Deng Xiaoping in 1987 due to his 'liberal' tendencies, and his departure from the political scene was initially seen as unfavourable towards Hu Jintao, who drew criticism from party elders for failing to criticize the ousted reformer. In 1988, Hu Jintao was transferred to become Party Regional Committee secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region, while also taking on the role of Political Commissar of the local People's Liberation Army units. This made Hu effectively the number-one figure in the vast, restive region. A number of Tibetans have long been opposed to government policy in the region. Unrest and ethnic conflict were brewing, particularly anti-Han sentiments among segments of ethnic Tibetan society. Minor clashes had been occurring since 1987, and when the scale of unrest grew, Hu responded with the deployment of some 1,700 People's Armed Police into Lhasa in February 1989 in an attempt to warn against further disturbance. Increased clashes culminated in serious rioting in Lhasa's core on 5 March 1989, five days before the 30th anniversary of the 1959 Tibetan uprising. What occurred after is a matter of dispute. Rioters accused the police of shooting them arbitrarily, and the police claimed that they had acted in self-defense. In addition, there was speculation that Hu delayed his orders to clamp down on the protesters until late into the evening, when the police chief was forced to act because the situation was spiraling out of control. The protesters were suppressed early into the next day, and Hu asked Beijing to declare martial law on 8 March.

Hu's role in the demonstrations and rioting on 5 March was never made clear. While it is general protocol that Hu must have at least implicitly approved the use of force against protesters, whether he actually gave orders throughout 5 March is a matter of debate. In addition, John Tkacik cites that Hu had been coordinating with the Chengdu Military Region for troops to be on full alert as the situation progressed. Some diplomatic analysts linked what they saw as Hu's brutal use of force to the suppression of activists and students in Tiananmen Square, which took place three months later. Whether Hu provided "inspiration" for the PLA on 4 June is a matter of debate, but it was clear that Hu's actions in Lhasa earned him unprecedented attention in the upper echelons of party power, including by "paramount leader" Deng Xiaoping. When tanks rolled into Tiananmen Square, Hu was one of the first regional leaders to publicly declare his support for the central authorities.

Hu experienced high-altitude sickness in June 1990, and returned to Beijing, but remained in his position for another two years, during which he achieved little. His departure to Beijing was seen, however, simply as a pretext to return to the center of Chinese politics, which led to some doubts as to whether or not he was as ill as he had claimed. Martin Seiff of United Press International commented on Putin and Hu: "Both are tough and able authoritarians who had extensive experience of repressing dissent on their rise to the top."

## Candidacy

Before the opening of the 14th National Congress of the CCP in 1992, senior party leaders, including Deng and Chen Yun, were to select candidates for the CCP Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) to ensure a smooth transition of power from the so-called second-generation leaders (Deng, Chen, Li Xiannian, Wang Zhen, etc.) to third-generation leaders (Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Qiao Shi etc.). Deng also proposed considering another candidate for a further future transition, preferably someone under fifty to represent the next generation of leaders. Song Ping, as the organization chief, recommended Hu as an ideal candidate for the prospect of a future leader. As a result, shortly before his 50th birthday, Hu Jintao became the youngest (aged 49 in October 1992) member of the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, and one of the youngest PSC members since the Communist Party assumed power in 1949.

In 1992, Hu took charge of the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party as its first secretary, which oversaw day-to-day operations of the CCP Central Committee, and the Central Party School, which was convenient for him to bring up his own supporters among senior CCP cadres. Hu was also put in charge of the ideological work of the CCP. Although Hu was considered heir apparent to Jiang, he always took great care to ensure that Jiang be at the center of the spotlight. In late 1998, Hu promoted Jiang's unpopular movement of the "Three Stresses" – "stress study, stress politics, and stress healthy trends" – giving speeches to promote it. In 2001, he publicized Jiang's Three Represents theory, which Jiang hoped to place himself on the same level as other Marxist theoreticians. In 1998, Hu became vice president, and Jiang wanted Hu to play a more active role in foreign affairs. Hu became China's leading voice during the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999.

### Succeeded Jiang Zemin

On 15 November 2002, after the 16th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party, a new Hu Jintao-led Politburo nominally succeeded Jiang's, while Hu became the CCP general secretary, effectively making him the paramount leader. Additionally, Wen Jiabao became the premier. However, Jiang was re-elected to the post of chairman of the Central Military Commission, the top military body, despite Hu taking over as the general secretary. Jiang resigned as CMC chairman 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.

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.

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 had shifted their positions. Zeng Qinghong, for example, moved from a disciple of Jiang to serving as an intermediary between the two factions.

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 threatened to destabilize the country bit by bit.

Hu was mostly conservative on political reforms during his tenure. In the beginning of 2006, 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.

### Domestic policy

#### SARS crisis

The first crisis of Hu's leadership happened during the outbreak of SARS in 2003. Following strong criticism of China for initially covering up and responding slowly to the crisis, he dismissed several party and government officials, including the health minister, who supported Jiang, and the Mayor of Beijing, Meng Xuenong, widely perceived as Hu's protégé.

#### Economic policies

Hu and Wen Jiabao took a more conservative approach towards reforms, and began to reverse some of Deng Xiaoping's reforms in 2005. Observers note that the government adopted more egalitarian and populist policies. The administration increased subsidies and control over the health care sector, increased funding for education, halted privatization, and adopted a loose monetary policy, which led to the formation of a U.S.-style property bubble in which property prices tripled.

The privileged state sector was the primary recipient of government investment, which, under the new administration, promoted the rise of large "national champions" which could compete with large foreign corporations. During Hu's administration, the Chinese government increasingly funded the consolidation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), supplying massive subsidies and favoring SOEs in regulatory matters. These efforts helped SOEs to crowd out foreign and domestic private sector competitors. Nevertheless, the share of SOEs in the total number of companies have continued to fall, dropping to 5%, though their share of total output remained at 26%. Exchange rates for the yuan were also liberalized and the peg to the U.S. dollar was broken, leading the yuan to rise by 31% against the dollar from 2005 to 2012. China's economic growth has averaged around 10% under Hu, while the economy surpassed the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Japan.

After taking over, Hu and Wen proposed to set up a Harmonious Society which aimed at lessening inequality and changing the style of the "GDP first and Welfare Second" policies. They focused on sectors of the Chinese population that had been left behind by the economic reform, and took a number of high-profile trips to the poorer areas of China with the stated goal of understanding these areas better. Hu and Wen Jiabao also attempted to move China away from a policy of favouring economic growth at all costs and toward a more balanced view of growth that includes factors in social inequality and environmental damage, including the use of the green gross domestic product in personnel decisions. Jiang's clique, however, maintained control in most developing areas; as a result, Hu and Wen's macroeconomic regulation measures faced great resistance.

#### Hong Kong

Main article: Democratic development in Hong Kong

### Foreign policy

Under Hu's leadership, China continued its style of developmental diplomacy which had been adopted under Deng Xiaoping and continued by Jiang Zemin. China's international behavior continued to be generally pragmatic and predictable. Hu pledged that China would seek peaceful development in a harmonious world to assure the international community that China's rise offered opportunities and benefits rather than conflicts. The key attributes of a harmonious world view of foreign policy are building and accepting a world where countries diverge in their paths of national development and political systems, coexistence of diverse civilizations, and rejected unilateralism and hegemonic ambitions.

In 2006, Hu articulated the four phases of China's foreign policy developmental objectives: (1) big powers were the key, (2) periphery countries the priority, (3) developing countries the foundation, and (4) multilateralism the stage.

In 2009, Chinese leader Hu Jintao called for a bolstered arms control agenda at the United Nations General Assembly, joining United States President Barack Obama's earlier calls for a nuclear-free world.

Throughout Hu's tenure, China's influence in Africa, Latin America, and other developing regions increased. He sought to develop China's relationship with Japan, which he visited in 2008. He downgraded relations with Russia because of unfulfilled deals.

Hu emphasized an international relations premise of "shared responsibility": China would contribute to global common good, but it must not adversely affect its core interests in doing so, and its commitments must be conditional to those of other nations. In the analysis of academic Suisheng Zhao, under Hu's leadership, "China remained a reluctant rising power and selectively took on global and regional obligations. Chinese foreign policy became omnidirectional, multilevel, and multidimensional."

#### Taiwan

Early in his leadership, Hu faced a pro-independence counterpart in then Republic of China (ROC) president Chen Shui-bian. Chen called for talks without any preconditions, repudiating the 1992 consensus. Chen Shui-bian and the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) had continued to express an ultimate goal of de jure Taiwanese independence, and made statements on the political status of Taiwan that the PRC considers provocative. Hu's initial response was a combination of "soft" and "hard" approaches. On the one hand, Hu expressed a flexibility to negotiate on many issues of concern to Taiwan. On the other hand, he continued to refuse talks without preconditions and remained committed to Chinese unification as an ultimate goal. While Hu gave some signs of being more flexible with regard to political relationships with Taiwan as in his May 17 Statement, where he offered to address the issue of "international living space" for Taiwan, Hu's government remained firm in its position that the PRC would not tolerate any attempt by the Taiwanese government to declare de jure independence from China.

After Chen's re-election in 2004, Hu's government changed tactics, conducting a no-contact policy with Taiwan due to Chen and the DPP's independence leanings and repudiation of the 1992 consensus. The government maintained its military build-up against Taiwan, and pursued a vigorous policy of isolating Taiwan diplomatically. In March 2005, the Anti-Secession Law was passed by the National People's Congress, formalizing "non-peaceful means" as an option of response to a declaration of independence in Taiwan.

Hu's government increased contacts with the Kuomintang (KMT), its erstwhile foe in the Chinese Civil War, and still a major party in Taiwan. The increased contacts culminated in the 2005 Pan-Blue visits to mainland China, including a historic meeting between Hu and then-KMT chairman Lien Chan in April 2005. This was the first meeting between the leaders of the two parties since the conclusion of World War II.

On 20 March 2008, the Kuomintang under Ma Ying-jeou won the presidency in Taiwan, and a majority in the Legislative Yuan. Thereafter Hu immediately turned to a more 'soft' diplomatic approach and opened the way to a thaw in relations between the two sides. A series of historic meetings between the CCP and KMT have followed. On 12 April 2008, Hu Jintao met with Taiwan's vice president-elect Vincent Siew in the latter's role as chairman of the Cross-strait Common Market Foundation during the Boao Forum for Asia. On 28 May 2008, Hu met with KMT chairman Wu Po-hsiung, the first meeting between the heads of the CCP and the KMT as ruling parties. During this meeting, Hu and Wu agreed that both sides should re-commence official dialogue under the 1992 consensus – that "both sides recognize there is only one China, but agree to differ on its definition." Wu committed the new government in Taiwan against Taiwanese independence; Hu committed his government to addressing the concerns of the Taiwanese people in regard to security, dignity, and "international living space", with a priority given to allowing Taiwan to participate in the World Health Organization.

In addition to the party-to-party dialogue, de facto governmental dialogue took place via the Straits Exchange Foundation and the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits in June 2008 on the basis of the 1992 Consensus, with the first meeting held in Beijing. Both Hu and his new counterpart Ma Ying-jeou agreed that the 1992 Consensus is the basis for negotiations between the two sides of the Taiwan strait. On 26 March 2008, Hu Jintao held a telephone talk with then US president George W. Bush, in which he became the first Chinese leader to officially recognize the 1992 Consensus. After several months of negotiations, in December 2008, the two sides agreed on the resumption of the Three Links, i.e., a re-opening of mail, trade, and direct air links between the two sides. Relations continued to be cordial between the two sides during Hu's tenure, and trade increased immensely, culminating in the signing of the preferential trade agreement Economic Cooperation Framework Agreement (ECFA) in 2010.

### Power transition of Xi Jinping

Main article: 18th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party

See also: 12th National People's Congress

On 15 November 2012, Xi was elected to the posts of general secretary of the CCP and chairman of the CMC by the 18th Central Committee of the CCP to succeed him. On 14 March 2013, his presidency end after Xi was elected president.