Hu Yaobang: New Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party
AT THE SIXTH PLENUM of the Eleventh Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in June 1981, Hua Guofeng, Mao Zedong's designated successor, was forced to resign his posts as party chairman and chairman of its Military Affairs Commission. Hua was replaced as party chairman by Hu Yaobang, a protege of Deng Xiaoping, China's de facto leader and party general secretary, and as Chairman of the Military Affairs Commission by Deng himself. Meanwhile, Hua was demoted to a junior party vice-chairman, and Zhao Ziyang, another Deng protege and Premier of the State Council, was promoted to party vice-chairman. In ranking order, the changes have created the following lineup in the powerful Politburo Standing Committee of the CCP Central Committee: Hu Yaobang, He Jianying, Deng Xiaoping, Zhao Ziyang, Li Xiannian, Chen Yun, and Hua Guofeng.1 Thus, Hua was dropped from first to seventh in the party hierarchy. Hua's demotion and Hu's promotion were the products of a compromise between the Deng faction and the Maoists. It is still unknown whether Hua retains some sort of residual power; probably his party vice-chairmanship like his former party chairmanship is a nominal position. The results of this plenum are: a tripartite leadership with Hu running the party, Zhao running the government, and Deng running the army; the formal end of the Maoist era; abolition of lifetime tenure for the party chairmanship; and the discontinuance of the concentration of party and military power in the hands of one man. Now Hu, as Deng's heir apparent, plays a leading role in China's decision-making process, although Beijing continues to emphasize collective leadership.
The Rise of Zhao Ziyang
a pragmatist and a close associate of Deng Xiaoping, the most powerful man in China today. Zhao’s appointment is a major victory for Deng and a heavy blow to Hua. It is likely to have a significant impact on China’s political and economic development in the next decade. What is Zhao’s career background? Why was he promoted so fast? What is his policy stand? Can he achieve his policy goals? Zhao (61) was born in 1919 to a wealthy landlord family in Henan Province. He joined the Chinese Communist Youth League in 1932 at the age of 13 and became a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in 1938 at the age of 19. After the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, he quitted his studies in a middle school and joined the
The Internet and the Changing Beijing-Taipei Relations: Toward Unification or Fragmentation?
Information and its technologies facilitate the exercise of what has been called “soft power,” a concept that differentiates information from the conventional dimensions of “hard power,” which is mainly associated with military force and economic influence. Soft power, according to Nye, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense of the United States, means that “A country may obtain the outcomes it wants in world politics because other countries want to follow it, admiring its values, emulating its example, aspiring to its level of prosperity and openness. In this sense it is just as important to set the agenda in world politics and attract others as it is to force them to change through the threat or use of military or economic weapons.”1