Senior cadre winning battle for minds
Alternate Communist Party Politburo member Zeng Qinghong has made further gains as the prime mover behind ideological campaigns and personnel changes.
Speaking at a national meeting on ideological and political work on Wednesday, President Jiang Zemin played up the Campaign on the Three Representatives, a reference to the party being 'representative' of the foremost economic, technological and cultural forces of the day.
Mr Zeng, who invented the Three Representatives Campaign with Mr Jiang, has been instrumental in putting together ideological campaigns being waged in individual ministries and provinces.
A party source said yesterday Mr Zeng was one of a few senior cadres who ruled that 2000 would be 'the year for ideological and political work'.
The source said the Theory of the Three Representatives was a development of the late patriarch Deng Xiaoping's teaching that party and government policies must be beneficial to economic growth and to the comprehensive strength of the nation. But Jiang aides including Mr Zeng have argued that the Three Representatives Theory was Mr Jiang's original contribution to the Marxist canon.
The next ideological campaign will be to extol Jiang Zemin Theory and to put it on par with Mao Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory.
An Asian diplomat said Mr Zeng, also head of the party's Organisation Department, was playing a key role in grooming officials for promotion at the pivotal 16th party congress in 2002.
The diplomat said Mr Zeng drafted a speech that Mr Jiang recently delivered at the Central Party School on the imperative of cadre rejuvenation. The diplomat said more members of this Shanghai Faction, to which both Mr Jiang and Mr Zeng belong, would be elevated in the coming years.
In his Wednesday speech, Mr Jiang pointed out that ideological work must 'undergo renovation and improvement' to keep up with the times. He also said ideological and political work must be custom-made for 'different individuals and groups, different policies, and different times'.
It is understood Mr Zeng has encouraged Mr Jiang to at least improve the packaging of indoctrination campaigns so that they will not be interpreted overseas as a return to Maoist orthodoxy.
Meanwhile, another close Jiang aide who has responsibility for ideology and personnel, Vice-President Hu Jintao, does not seem to be faring well politically. In Wednesday's meeting, Mr Jiang hardly mentioned the Campaign on the Three Stresses - a reference to studying the Marxist canon, righteousness and being politically correct - which was the brainchild of Mr Hu.
Mr Hu has also complained to intimates that Mr Zeng had 'monopolised' the job of picking and grooming young cadres. Given his background as chief of the Communist Youth League in the mid-1980s, Mr Hu had traditionally taken charge of grooming the party's up-and-coming leaders.
Party affairs in the coming year are expected to be dominated by the imperative of consolidating Jiang Theory and personnel matters relating to the 16th Congress.
