When anti-Chinese riots broke out in Tibet in March, 1989,
Chinese troops, under Mr. Hu's orders, opened fire on rioting crowds
for three consecutive days, killing between 100 and 700 Tibetans.
TIBET & TIANANMEN TYRANT HU
Three months later, when the People's Liberation Army
conducted a similiar operation in Beijing
to crush pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square,
Mr. Hu was one of the first provincial leaders
to publicly endorse the action.
Champion of reform or tyrant in waiting
China's heir apparent
Peter Goodspeed, National Post, May 2, 2002
Who is Hu?
It's a question top U.S. leaders are urgently asking themselves this week as Hu Jintao, China's Vice-President and heir apparent, opened a crucial two-day visit to Washington yesterday. Mr. Hu, a bland, tight-lipped, 59-year-old technocrat who is widely expected to become secretary-general of the Chinese Communist Party this fall and then replace Jiang Zemin as China's president early next spring, is a man of mystery who has never staged a news conference or given any kind of media interview.
'Hand-picked for leadership by Mr. Jiang's predecessor, Deng Xiaoping, Mr. Hu was catapulted on to China's ruling Politburo in 1992 after ruthlessly supressing ethnic riots in Tibet in 1989 while serving as the region's governor. But Mr. Hut remains an enigma, both in and outside China, despite spending the past four years as Mr. Jiang's right-hand man and holding the ranks of Vice-President, vice-chairman of China's Central Military Commission and head of the Party School of the Chinese Communist Party Central Committee.
Early in his career, Mr. Hu was close to the late party chief Hu Yaobang, a liberal reformer. But by the time he came to Public prominence, he was a strong supporter of the leaders who crushed the 1989 Tiannanmen Square protests. Is Mr. Hu a closet liberal and potential reformer who will boldly lead China into the 21st century, or a faceless apparatchik lacking charisma and vision?
No one seems to know.
Yet Mr. Hu's two days of Washington meetings - ostensibly to set the stage for a U.S. meeting this fall between Mr. Jiang and George W. Bush, the U. S. President, but haunted by bitter disagreement over U.S. support for Taiwan and U.S. demands that China stop exporting weapons and technology to terrorist states - may well set the tone for Sino-U.S. relations for years to come. Yesterday, Mr. Hu met with a number of U.S. Congressional leaders and dined with Colin Powell, the Secretary of State. Dick Cheney, the Vice-President and Mr. Hu's official host, will meet with the Chinese leader today and escort him to sessions with Donald Rumsfeld, and to a brief Oval OFfice meeting with Mr. Bush. Tomorrow, Mr. Hu heads to San Francisco on his way back to China.
Given the tortured history of anointed successors in past Chinese leadership struggles, few experts expect Mr. Hu to strike out on his own while in the United States. He will be cautious and toe the party line, carefully endorsing stands already taken by Mr. Jiang while avoiding anything that may give opponents a chance to attack him. It is a style Mr. Hu has perfected.
Born in 1942 to a merchant family in Anhui province, he earned a degree in hydroelectric engineering from Qinghua University in Beijing in 1965. He joined the Communist Party in college and, despite a "suspect" family background, managed to flourish there during the brutality of the Cultural Revolution. Sent to work in the northwestern province of Gansu, Mr. Hu emerged as the local leader of the Commlunist Youth League and ultimately became the youngest member of the Chinese Communist Party's Central Committee when he was 39. By the time he was 44, he had become China's youngest provincial secretary, in dirt-poor Guizhou province, in south-central China. He continued his rise, becoming national head of theCommunist Youth League in 1985 and then party chief of Tibet in 1988.
When anti-Chinese riots broke out in Tibet in March, 1989, Mr. Hu quickly imposed martial law. Chinese troops, under his orders, opened fire on rioting crowds for three consecutive days, killing between 100 and 700 Tibetans. Three months later, when the People's Liberation Army conducted a similiar operation in Beijing to crush pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square, Mr. Hu was one of the first provincial leaders to publicly endorse the action. Three years later, he was rewarded with a promotion to the ruling Politburo, becoming, at 55, the youngest leader in China's hierarchy. He became Vice-President in 1998.
As Mr. Jiang's deputy, Mr. Hu has repeatedly voiced China's deep suspicions of the United States, even though he is said to have a daughter who recently completed a master's program in finance, under an assumed name, at Columbia University in New York.
In 1999, during the Kosovo war, when U.W. warplanes accidentally bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Mr. Hu led the official condemnation of Washington and read out a statement on television authorizing public demonstrations outside the U.S. and British embassies in Beijing. He displayed his hardline credentials again last spring when he took charge of China's confrontation with Washington after a U.S. spy plane collided with a Chinese fighter jet and crash-landed.
In Washington, Mr. Hu will give U.S. leaders their first glimpse of the man with whom they may have to do business for years to come. "He is not well known to us or to most Chinese," says Bates Gill, a China analyst with the Brookings Institution in Washington. "Yet he is going to be leading the world's largest country in all likelihood. This is a person we should be trying to know."
Giant Mao statue erected in Tibet (to commemorate 30th anniversary of former leader's death). BBC, Apr 17, 2006
MACARTHUR, JFK, KOREA & VIETNAM
Reader says President Hu views Canada as part of "greater China"
REMEMBER WHO HU IS (chief cop of China's police state chosen by cabal of Communist Leaders). Globe & Mail, Sep 6, 2005
Russia, China expand military cooperation (concerned over USA domination). RadioFreeEurope, Sep 6, 2005
Yellow Peril on USA radar screen (China's expanding military & threat to American jobs). Telegraph, Jul 24, 2005
Stalin's ghost haunts China (USA future secretary of state allowed Red Army to escape). Times, Sep 11, 2005
6.Superstates and 7.Systems of Thought
Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~
email: orwelltoday@gmail.com
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