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China's old guard makes way for new faces

By P. S. Suryanarayana

BEIJING Nov.14. An entire galaxy of China's top leadership will fade away from its political firmament, following a momentous decision by the ruling establishment here today.

The leaders who bid farewell to politics include the Chinese President, Jiang Zemin, and the Prime Minister, Zhu Rongji, who will, nonetheless, retain their official positions for the present.

Li Peng, a powerful ideologue who has ranked next only to Mr. Jiang at the top echelons of the Communist Party of China (CPC), is among the others who will retire from active politics. Mr. Li, too, will keep his position as the chief parliamentarian for the present.

The other party veterans who have agreed to step down from the CPC's Central Committee are Li Ruihuan, Wei Jianxing and Li Lanqing.

While all the six leaders are above or about 70 years old, China's Vice-President, Hu Jintao, who is hardly 60, is the only leader within Mr. Jiang's brains trust to have made the grade to a new Central Committee of the CPC, even as the party voted for massive changes in a transparent ambience of peace and amity during the concluding stages of its week-long 16th National Congress at the Great Hall of the People.

Mr. Hu is widely expected to succeed Mr. Jiang as the CPC general secretary when a plenum of the new Central Committee, which was constituted today, meets here tomorrow to set up a new-look Politburo and its Standing Committee. With that, Mr. Hu will come into the reckoning for the post of China's President, under the country's current constitutional practices, as and when Mr. Jiang completes his term within the next few months. Of political significance in this context is whether Mr. Jiang will, under the party ``laws,'' be able to retain his position as chairman of the CPC's Central Military Commission.

The other significant decision that the CPC took today was the adoption of an amendment to the party's constitution. Hailing the theory of "Three Represents,'' which defines the party's new political identity, the CPC sought to fast-forward China's present movement towards capitalism within a framework of "socialist modernisation.'' However, there was no mention of a capitalist manifesto as distinct from the original communist manifesto under the ambit of a "Red Star.''

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