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China parliament okays Jiang's last resignation
2005-03-07
BEIJING - China's former Communist Party chief and president, Jiang Zemin, ceded his last official post on Tuesday as parliament prepared to hand the final, if only ceremonial, lever of power to his successor Hu Jintao.Parliament approved Jiang's resignation as chief of the symbolic state Central Military Commission in a near unanimous vote, the final step in a historic leadership transition that started in November 2002 with his retirement as party chief. Hu, due to be named state military chief by parliament on Saturday, will finally hold all the top positions as head of the party, military and state. Jiang, 78, was widely expected to see his influence diminish, although he should retain some clout having stacked the party leadership with allies and proteges while engineering the first orderly transfer of power in Chinese Communist history. Jiang, who in his near 16-year reign was known to enjoy basking in the limelight, made no appearance as parliament delegates cast their votes at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. Following his surprise retirement as party military chief in September, Tuesday's vote was seen as a mere formality with 2,853 votes for, eight against and five abstentions. Political sources said last year that age and ill health had caught up with Jiang. While Jiang will never rival Mao Zedong or former paramount leader Deng Xiaoping for charisma, his legacy may be no less significant. He presided over the growth of China from a nation struggling to implement market reforms to the seventh-largest economy in the world. He saw himself as a master of foreign policy and ushered China into the World Trade Organisation, played host to an Asia-Pacific summit in Shanghai and oversaw a successful bid to win the 2008 Olympics for Beijing. RELATIVELY UNKNOWN The former president was plucked from obscurity by Deng and named head of the party after the bloody crackdown to end the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in 1989. Jiang would go on to collect all the top positions. A former automobile factory manager and Soviet-trained technocrat, Jiang was relatively unknown when he was chosen to be the party's General Secretary in 1989 after the crackdown on the student-led protests. He was widely seen as a compromise candidate when he replaced reformer Zhao Ziyang, who was toppled for sympathising with the democracy movement. Zhao died in January after more than 15 years under house arrest. Jiang clung on, adding the presidency to his list of titles in 1993 and proving an astute politician who ousted top rivals to consolidate power at home while charming foreign dignitaries with quotations from Shakespeare and the occasional song and dance. Jiang surprised Asia-Pacific leaders by crooning the Elvis Presley hit "Love Me Tender" at a Manila meeting. He serenaded U.S. President George W. Bush at a banquet during a Beijing summit and waltzed then U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice onto the dance floor. A fan of the United States, he wooed Americans with recitations of Lincoln's Gettysburg address. In his final major act as president, he won a prized invitation to Bush's Crawford ranch where he was treated to a barbecued ribs and a personal tour of the 1,600-acre (650 hectare) spread in the president's pickup truck. Analysts expect Jiang's residual influence will be limited because his power was largely derived from his posts and he lacks the personal authority of his predecessors. Deng wielded considerable influence until his death despite retiring from all his posts except honorary chairman of the Chinese Bridge Association. (Reuters)
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