Hu Jintao

President

• Born: 1942

Background

Hu Jintao was the president of the People's Republic of China and the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party from 2002 until 2012. A former youth leader and hydraulic engineer, Hu worked to increase the presence of the Communist Party in Chinese society and made economic reform a primary goal of his administration.

Hu Jintao was born on December 21, 1942, in Shanghai. He was the oldest of three children born to an upper-middle-class family of tea merchants. Hu was involved in Communist youth groups from a young age. He was an excellent student, and upon his acceptance to Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University in 1959, he decided to major in engineering.

In college, Hu became involved with politics and befriended Jiang Nanxiang, the president of the university. Jiang sponsored Hu's entrance into the Chinese Communist Party in 1964, shortly before Hu graduated with a degree in hydraulic engineering. Hu remained at the university to conduct research and took a position as an instructor of politics. He married Liu Yong-qing, with whom he eventually had two children.

The Cultural Revolution began in 1966, and instructors at many local universities were persecuted for their role in encouraging civil unrest. In 1968, Hu was one of several Tsinghua instructors who were deported and forced into manual labor. Hu was sent to Gansu Province to work for the construction team of the Gansu Liujiaxia Power Station.

That same year, Hu Jintao's father, Hu Jingzhi, was imprisoned and accused of political crimes, including being a capitalist sympathizer. He died in prison in 1978, just as the Cultural Revolution was ending. Hu was unable to clear his father's name until the mid-1980s.

In 1969, Hu secured a position with the central government's engineering department in Gansu. He served as deputy party secretary until 1973, when he was hired by the Gansu Provincial Construction Department as a deputy chief of the Project Design Management Division.

The chair of Gansu Provincial Construction Department was Song Ping, a conservative party member with close ties to Beijing's political elite. Song was impressed by Hu's talents and dedication to Communist ideology. In 1980, he promoted Hu to director of the Gansu Provincial Construction Commission and recommended him for leadership training at Beijing's Central Party School.

While training in Beijing, Hu was named deputy secretary of the Gansu Provincial Communist Youth League (CYL). The CYL is one of China's most influential youth organizations and plays a major role in recruiting and training citizens for leadership in the Communist Party.

Thanks to recommendations from Song Ping and former Tsinghua president Jiang Nanxiang, Hu was transferred to Beijing in 1982 to work as a secretary for the national branch of the CYL. He was also named president of the All-China Youth Federation and was selected as an alternate member of the Twelfth Communist Central Committee, a position usually reserved for leaders of significantly higher stature.

Early Political Career

In 1984, Hu became the leader of the national CYL secretariat, in which capacity he worked closely with CYL leader Hu Yaobang. However, Hu made enemies with leaders of competing CYL factions when he supported controversial economic reforms and promoted a critical view of foreign relations with the United States. Fearing damage to his career, Hu Yaobang and Song Ping arranged for Hu to be transferred to Guizhou Province in 1985, where he served as provincial party committee secretary.

In Guizhou, Hu proposed sweeping economic and educational reforms. In 1986, Hu acted as a negotiator during a student riot at Guizhou University. Rather than allowing the military to suppress the protestors, Hu visited the university and personally negotiated with students to defuse the situation. The success of his economic reforms and his handling of the university protests helped to bolster his reputation in Beijing.

In 1988, on the recommendation of Song Ping, Hu was appointed party secretary in the Tibet Autonomous Region. Soon after, violent demonstrations occurred in Lhasa, leading to the deaths of several protestors. Hu was unable to quell public unrest without the aid of police, eventually leading to a declaration of martial law from Beijing. Confrontations between protestors and military police led to deaths on both sides, but Hu's decisive management gained the attention of Deng Xiaoping, then the most powerful leader in China, who recommended Hu for future advancement in the party.

In 1990, Hu returned to Beijing to recuperate from altitude sickness. He maintained his position as secretary, though he visited Tibet only to attend critical conferences. While in Beijing, Hu served on various boards and committees and worked with Song Ping in the Communist Party's Organization Department.

Deng Xiaoping appointed Hu to organize the fourteenth party congress in 1992. For his work, Hu was chosen to replace Song Ping as a member of the seven-seat Politburo Standing Committee. Hu was the youngest member of the standing committee, a group that represents the elite members of state and military leadership and is often called the most powerful political body in Chinese government.

In 1993, Hu became the head of the Central Party School, the nation's most prestigious Communist academy. He made significant changes to the school's curriculum, including adding classes on Western economics and business management. He established the school's first foreign-policy institute and promoted the comparative study of international politics.

From 1995 to 1997, Hu toured central Asia, Europe, Central America, Mexico, and Cuba, meeting with national leaders and examining alternative political models. His diplomatic travels helped him to establish his credibility as an international figure.

In 1998, Hu was selected as Jiang Zemin's vice president. President Jiang cited Hu's history as a political reformer and his ability to decisively quell political turmoil as reasons for his appointment. Hu became the symbolic leader of the reform movement, in opposition to Li Peng, one of Jiang Zemin's other key administrators, who was seen as the leader of the conservative movement. He was named vice-chair of the Central Military Affairs Commission in 1999 and began a military-reform program that included enforcing President Jiang's orders for the military to suspend any business activity.

Communist Leadership

As vice president, Hu continued his visits to foreign nations, including, Iran, Syria, Uganda, Thailand, Indonesia, Japan, Russia, Germany, France, and Great Britain. He organized an informal committee to investigate the issues of US-Chinese relations and Taiwanese policy. Hu's political actions were clearly aimed at building a strong network of alliances that would aid in his transition to the presidency.

In 2002, Hu replaced Jiang Zemin as Communist Party chief. He revealed his plans for further economic reform, concentrating on elevating conditions in China's poorest regions and updating the nation's conservation policies. Though Jiang Zemin would soon resign as president, he promoted many of his supporters to positions on the standing committee and maintained control of the Central Military Commission to ensure that he would maintain influence from behind the scenes.

Hu became president in 2003 and immediately faced a crisis over the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) epidemic. He advocated increased openness with the international health community and called for the resignation of leaders seen as responsible for the state's slow reaction to the outbreak of SARS. Later that year, Hu was faced with protests in Hong Kong over proposed legislation that would grant the Chinese government additional powers to punish sedition among Hong Kong citizens. Hu called for the resignation of several Hong Kong legislators and managed to defuse the situation before the protests became violent.

In 2004, Jiang relinquished control of the Central Military Commission, leaving Hu as the undisputed leader of the Chinese state. China was undergoing an economic revival but still faced problems related to dissatisfaction with the Communist regime, economic inequity in China's poorest regions, and an increase in nationalist sentiment among China's youth.

During the years prior to Hu's presidency, political analysts noticed a widening gap between the Communist Party and the government in China. As president, Hu reversed this trend, calling for increased Communist involvement in state and local government. He took preemptive steps to quell social unrest and advocated aggressive policies regarding dissent. Under Hu's direction, police shut down several websites and publications used to debate party politics, and newspapers had been warned against publishing articles critical of socialism. He also took measures to strengthen the government's propaganda department and ordered liberal leaders arrested or censored.

International observers criticized Hu for establishing politics and law committees at local levels to influence legal decisions, using aggressive tactics to discourage debate, taking an ambiguous stance on key issues, and refusing to clearly support reform or conservative legislation. He advocated increased debate with Taiwan but refused to withdraw the threat of military action if Taiwan declared independence. Hu's decisions indicated that his primary goal was to strengthen Communist involvement at all levels of government. However, he was also responsible for China's transformation into a major economic power.

Hu retired from the presidency in November 2012. He was succeeded by his vice president, Xi Jinping.

Hu kept a low profile in his retirement, though he appeared at events such as Communist Party Congress meetings. In October 2022, he attended the 20th CCP National Congress. He was seated beside Xi at the closing ceremony when two men in suits walked up to him, removed him from his seat, and escorted him out of the room, which prevented him from voting. Hu's removal occurred in full view of the press, who had been permitted to enter the room only a few minutes earlier. Government spokespersons said only that Hu had become ill. Analysts widely believed Xi was sending a message to the world that the more open style of governing Hu had favored was firmly in the past; Xi's hardline approach was the new order. However, Hu and Xi appeared in public together after former Chinese president Jiang Zemin died on December 5, 2022. Hu served on the funeral committee and attended the farewell ceremony alongside Xi.

Bibliography

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Li, Cheng, and Eve Cary. "The Last Year of Hu's Leadership: Hu's to Blame?" China Brief 11.23 (2011): n. pag. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.

"The Newsweek 50: Chinese President Hu Jintao." Newsweek. Newsweek, 19 Dec. 2008. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.

Tkacik, John J., Jr., Joseph Fewsmith, and Maryanne Kivlehan. "Who's Hu? Assessing China's Heir Apparent, Hu Jintao." Heritage Foundation. Heritage Foundation, 19 Apr. 2002. Web. 19 Jan. 2015.