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Jon Huntsman former US ambassador to China and Governor of Utah, listens to questions during a business lunch January 5, 2012 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. Photo: AFP
Opinion
The Power Shift
by John Kennedy
The Power Shift
by John Kennedy

In Stanford talk, Jon Huntsman slipped his guess at China's next leadership

Keeping with the custom of releasing facts related to Chinese politics through coded message, Jon Huntsman appears to have made his own prediction of who will soon occupy the seats of China's Politburo Standing Committee.

John Kennedy
John Kennedy
Why you can trust SCMP

Former US ambassador to China Jon Huntsman was invited to speak at Stanford University's China 2.0 conference last month ostensibly on the subject of internet freedom.

In this short video clip of Hunstman speaking at the conference, however, he slowly but surely starts listing off the seven names of China's next generation of leaders (to be finalised next week at the 18th Communist Party Congress) who he predicts will have no choice but scale back the country's current overarching internet censorship regime.

And in Huntsman's estimation, they are: Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Wang Qishan, Wang Yang, Yu Zhengsheng, Zhang Dejiang and (maybe) Li Yuanchao.

His lineup differs from SCMP's latest prediction, which can be found here and leans toward a conservative team; the New York Times today also published its own list of those most likely to make it, which aside from Xi and Li at the front includes:

Zhang Dejiang, a vice prime minister and party secretary of Chongqing; Wang Qishan, another vice prime minister; Zhang Gaoli, party chief of Tianjin; and Liu Yunshan, director of the propaganda bureau. With that lineup, the remaining seat is expected to go to either Li Yuanchao, head of the Organization Department, or Yu Zhengsheng, party chief of Shanghai. 

Link via Ray Kwong via Louisa Lim

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