BEIJING, Dec. 2 -- Younger officials' accession to provincial-level Party secretaries, especially the emergence of the two youngest Party chiefs in history, could be the initial move for future senior leadership selections, and some nominees could rise to the country's top positions, analysts said, following a major official reshuffle Monday.
The reshuffle came three years ahead of the 18th Communist Party of China (CPC) Congress, when incumbent Party leader Hu Jintao, 67, finishes his second five-year term in 2012, the maximum tenure according to Party rules, and the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau will have a new make-up, based on the Party's conventional practice.
Monday's Party-secretary appointment in five provinces involved officials all born after the founding of the New China in 1949, with an average age of 54. The oldest are new Henan Party chief Lu Zhangong, 57, and Liaoning Party chief Wang Min, 59.
Another highlight is Sun Chunlan, 59, who became the first female provincial Party secretary in more than two decades. She replaced Lu Zhangong as secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee.
"The reshuffle could be seen as a preparation for the rejuvenation of the party's leadership in the run-up to the 18th Party Congress in 2012,"Zhang Liangui, professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the CPC, told the Global Times Tuesday.
According to the Party's latest policy, leaders of provincial and ministry-level departments should have an average age of around 55, and at least one to four top officials should be younger than 48.
What impressed the public most is the appointment of Hu Chunhua and Sun Zhengcai, both 46. The two have now been crowned the youngest provincial party chiefs following their nomination as Party chief of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region and Jilin Province, respectively.
As minister-level offcials can work until the age of 65, the two are believed to have ample time and space to rise up.
Hu rose to stardom after he was appointed the youngest provincial governor of northern Hebei Province last year.
When he was acting governor of Hebei, his tackling of the high-profile tainted-milk scandal that caused illness in nearly 300,000 children and killed six others last year won wide applause from the public.
Just days ago, two people involved in the case were executed for selling tainted food.
The other rising star, Sun, was appointed minister of agriculture in 2006 at the age of 43, a surprisingly young age for a ministerial-level official.
Both Hu and Sun received much publicity in State media as young examples of officials born in the 1960s.
These younger and better-educated faces have become the pillars in China's political arena, Mao Shoulong, a professor at Renmin University of China, told the Global People magazine recently.
Hu Chunhua is now on the fast track to being China's future leader, Bo Zhiyue, of the East Asian Institute in Singapore, told the Strait Times Tuesday.
A graduate majoring in Chinese from the prestigious Peking University, Hu worked in Tibet for nearly 20 years as an official with the Central Committee of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC), and later as a Party official.
President Hu Jintao was the Party chief of Tibet, from 1988 to 1992, and served in the CYLC from 1982 to 1985.
Unlike previous practice that senior officials, especially those in the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, were largely selected from among officials with experience in developed regions such as Guangdong and Shanghai, professor Zhang said, top officials promoted in recent years have experience in posts in remote areas of hardship such as Tibet.
"This shows the change of mindset in high-level staffing. Posts in areas of hardship help train officials faster and cultivate their sense of responsibility and pioneering spirit,"he said.
After almost three decades, the market economy has gained its firm foothold in China and has great adaptability to changes, therefore officials who excel at economic management appear less needed than before, he said.
"What is much more urgent is to promote officials who are determined to lead a clean government and combat corruption so as to improve the image of government officials and win people's hearts,"he said.
Ex-agriculture minister Sun Zhengcai has also enjoyed a speedy rise.
Sun graduated with a master's degree in agriculture from the Beijing Academy of Agriculture and Forestry Science in 1987. He was later appointed Party secretary of Shunyi District in 2002, a suburban district of Beijing, where agriculture plays a bigger role in the economy.
"Sun invigorated the district's agricultural development in his post by implementing his broad knowledge and extensive experience in this area,"a staff member in the Shunyi District government was quoted as saying by the Beijing Times Tuesday.
Jilin boasts rich grain resources and the State Council has drawn up a plan to accrue 5 billion kilograms of grain in five years, with an investment of 26 billion yuan, Sun's nomination is a perfect choice, the newspaper Ta Kung Pao said.
(Source: Global Times)
