Aides to Jiang Zemin are intensifying the personality cult surrounding the Chinese President as signs emerge that the decline of patriarch Deng Xiaoping's health has accelerated.
Political sources in Beijing said members of the Jiang Zemin Office were orchestrating his public functions and media coverage to highlight his status as Mr Deng's successor.
One strategy used by the publicists is to compare Mr Jiang to both Chairman Mao Zedong and Mr Deng.
In a trip to Henan this month, Mr Jiang retraced the footsteps of Mao when the latter inspected the nation's first people's communes in the central province in the late 1950s.
'The itinerary and the way Jiang conducted himself with the cadres and peasants were meant to invoke comparisons with Mao,' a source said. 'Jiang's outing has received saturation coverage in all official media.' In a trip to Shanghai in the spring, Mr Jiang revived Mr Deng's famous slogan about the need to forge ahead with reform.
While touring Guangdong in early 1992, the patriarch had indicated all reform measures were justified so long as they met three conditions: raising the 'comprehensive strength of the nation'; raising productivity; and improving the people's standard of living.
Mr Jiang is set to further boost his standing as the new 'helmsman' in a major speech he is delivering on the Chinese Communist Party's birthday on July 1.
