China's Hu emerges from shadow of predecessor

When Hu Jintao finally reached China's pinnacle of power as Communist Party chief in 2002 after a decade as heir apparent, he faced formidable challenges.

His predecessor, Jiang Zemin, still held the state presidency and top military post and had stacked so many proteges into the upper reaches of power that one political source commented: "Every way Hu looked, there was a Jiang man."

There was even a top Jiang ally, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, waiting in the wings to take over should Mr Hu falter.

Months later, Mr Hu began what analysts say has been a remarkably effective drive to neutralise key rivals, stake out a dramatic shift in policy direction and ultimately emerge from Mr Jiang's shadow. And now Mr Zeng appears ready to retire.

"Many people have consistently underestimated Hu Jintao," said Lin Chong-Pin, a veteran China watcher at Taiwan's private Tamkang University.

"Mr Hu has done better than Mr Jiang at comparable stages." During the Party's 17th Congress, which convened on Monday, Mr Hu commanded a new leadership core that reflects both his dominance and his careful calculus for preserving power and unity.

Mr Hu pledged to press ahead with political reform in the world's fourth-biggest economy in the face of growing social pressures but only with the Party firmly in charge.

For years, he remained something of a mystery after he was helicoptered into the Politburo Standing Committee, the Party's decision-making centre, in 1992 by then paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. At 49, he was its youngest member. A water project engineer by training, Mr Hu earned his political stripes in dirt-poor Guizhou and then in Tibet, where he oversaw a crackdown on pro-independence protests in 1988-1989.

Few personal details were known about him, save that he liked dancing and ping-pong, had a photographic memory and had a son and a daughter.

Mr Jiang, now 81, handed Mr Hu the top Party job in November 2002, the presidency in 2003 and the military commission post in 2004, completing the country's first smooth generational leadership change since the 1949 Communist revolution.

An early test for the new leader came with the deadly outbreak of Sars (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) in the spring of 2003, which was filling hospital beds in Beijing despite government claims it was under effective control.

Surprising many of his critics with his decisiveness, Mr Hu ordered the government to end the cover-up and sacked the health minister and the Beijing mayor.

He also staked out a clear policy shift from his predecessor, Mr Jiang, who courted the capitalists who had become players in society and brought them under the Communist Party's wing.

Mr Jiang's tenure also brought uneven economic growth, a widening gap between the richer coastal areas and the backward countryside, environmental degradation and growing social unrest.

Acquainted with poverty as the Party boss of two of China's poorest regions, Mr Hu has championed the have-nots, eased the tax burden and education costs of poor farmers and sped up health care reform to raise living standards and curb unrest.