Jiang's man moves up pecking order

ZHANG Wannian is the man of the moment. The newly-promoted vice-chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC) is the general who will take the People's Liberation Army into the new century.

It is widely expected that following the retirement in 1997 of the two senior CMC vice-chairmen, Liu Huaqing, 79, and Zhang Zhen, 81, General Zhang will become first vice-chairman and member of the Politburo Standing Committee.

In the pecking order announced at last week's fifth plenum of the Communist Party Central Committee, the 67-year-old chief of the General Staff outranks fellow Shandong native General Chi Haotian, who was also made CMC vice-chairman.

This is despite the fact that Defence Minister General Chi, who is a year younger and more well-known, is General Zhang's predecessor as army chief of staff. General Chi, a Korean War hero and a protege of patriarch Deng Xiaoping, became a full general in 1988, six years earlier than General Zhang.

General Zhang's rising star is even more intriguing given the fact that as commander of the Guangzhou Military Region in 1989, he was one of the last regional military officers to profess support for Mr Deng's suppression of the June 4 'counter-revolutionary rebellion'.

Army analysts said the upturn in General Zhang's political fortune was due to his impeccable professional credentials. As chief of staff, he has overseen the PLA's most aggressive drive to date to modernise weaponry and upgrade training.