DATE=5/4/2000
TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT
TITLE=CHINA - JIANG (L ONLY)
NUMBER=2-261967
BYLINE=ROGER WILKISON
DATELINE=BEIJING
CONTENT=
VOICED AT:
INTRO: A Hong Kong newspaper reports Chinese
President Jiang Zemin will step down from his job as
Communist Party boss in the year 2002 and has urged
the politburo to back Vice-President Hu Jintao as his
successor. As we hear from VOA correspondent Roger
Wilkison, the South China Morning Post says Mr. Jiang
told his colleagues the Communist Party leadership
must make room for younger members, so as to speed up
reforms.
TEXT: The South China Morning Post report is written
by the newspaper's China editor, Willy Wo-Lap Lam, who
is known for having Communist Party insiders among his
sources. It quotes an anonymous party source as
saying Mr. Jiang told the politburo last week that
only two of the body's seven Standing Committee
members should stay on after the next Communist Party
Congress in 2002. The newspaper reports Mr. Jiang
mentioned the 57-year-old Mr. Hu -- now number five in
the hierarchy -- and 65-year-old Li Ruihuan, who
ranks fourth and heads the government's main advisory
body.
The newspaper says Mr. Jiang pointedly suggested that
the party's top job -- the one he now holds -- should
go to Mr. Hu, who is widely seen as his protege.
The South China Morning Post says that -- after
stepping down as party general secretary -- Mr. Jiang
will stay on as President of China for six more
months. But it quotes its source as saying that Mr.
Jiang hinted he might remain as head of the party's
Central Military Commission, the position from which
the late senior leader Deng Xiaoping ruled China. The
newspaper says that, according to its source, Mr.
Jiang justified staying as commander-in-chief because
of Beijing's need for an experienced hand at the helm
as long as China's standoff with Taiwan continues.
Beijing has vowed to reunite the island with the
Chinese mainland -- by force, if necessary. Taiwan
has resisted unification with China on Beijing's
terms.
The newspaper reports Mr. Jiang -- who is 73 -- told
his comrades that it is time to bring younger
officials, with an international perspective, into the
party leadership. It says his decision has been
influenced in part by the emergence of younger leaders
in such places as the United States, Britain, Russia
and Taiwan. (SIGNED)
NEB/RW/FC/PLM
04-May-2000 05:45 AM EDT (04-May-2000 0945 UTC)
NNNN
Source: Voice of America
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