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Workers tend to a lawn by the sign for the Central Party School written in calligraphy by former president Jiang Zemin. It has been moved from the entrance to inside the school's campus. Photo: SCMP Pictures

Communist Party’s elite training school denies shifting sign a snub to ex-president Jiang Zemin

The removal of a stone sign inscribed with Chinese calligraphy written by China’s former president Jiang Zemin from the entrance to a key Communist Party training centre is not a sign of disrespect, a senior official said on Monday, after rumours of destabilising infighting in the party.

Jiang stepped down as party chief in 2002 and state president in 2003, but remained head of the military for another year after stacking the Politburo, one of the party’s elite ruling bodies, with his people.

He remains influential to this day.

Rumours periodically circulate in leadership and diplomatic circles about Jiang, especially arguments between him and President Xi Jinping about policy, which are almost impossible to verify because China’s political system is so opaque and secretive.

So when a stone sign for the Central Party School, which was written in Jiang’s distinctive calligraphy, was removed from the front entrance more than a week ago, speculation spread that this was a sign of infighting between Xi and Jiang and that Xi was signalling his displeasure with the former president.

The party’s official newspaper the People’s Daily had already stirred the pot with a commentary criticising unnamed officials who clung to power after retirement and caused party splits.

Ex-president Jiang stepped down as head of state in 2003, but still remains influential, fueling rumours of disputes with the country's current leadership. Photo: AP

Zhuo Zeyuan, head of the school’s political science and law department, said he was aware of the concern the removal of the plinth had attracted at home and abroad.

The plinth, he told a news conference ostensibly about a huge military parade in Beijing on Thursday marking the end of the second world war, had been moved inside the school’s grounds as too many people had been stopping outside on a main road to take pictures of it and that had become a safety issue.

READ MORE: Stop meddling in politics: Chinese President Xi Jinping's coded message to Jiang Zemin

“Also, the Central Party School is undergoing a full refurbishment and moving it to the front of the main building in fact does not mean any disrespect to comrade Jiang Zemin. We still respect him as before,” said Zhuo, who has given lectures to the Politburo.

A visit to the school by the South China Morning Post soon after the rumours started to spread on the internet confirmed that the plinth had been moved to a prominent position behind the main gate of the site.

The school, which trains rising officials, had set up a central axis of displays as part of the renovations, including statues of Deng Xiaoping, who ushered in China’s landmark economic reforms in the late 1970s, and Mao Zedong, the founder of Communist China, Zhuo said.

Jiang’s sign was at the front of that axis, he added.

Additional reporting by Staff Reporters

 

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