Split Tests Chinese Leader’s Clout

In a rare display of opposition that caused nervous murmurs Friday in the Great Hall of the People, one-third of China’s national Parliament failed to support a handpicked candidate of Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin for a senior post in the government.

But the candidate for the post of vice premier in charge of agriculture, Jiang Chunyun, still carried the day, winning election with 63 percent of the vote.

Meanwhile, another candidate, Wu Bangguo, a close ally of Jiang Zemin from Shanghai, was elected handily as vice premier in charge of industry, with only 13 percent of the 2,757 delegates voting against him or abstaining.

Western diplomats viewed Friday’s vote on the two vice-premierships as a critical test of Jiang Zemin’s political support going into the succession battle that is expected to follow the death of ailing senior leader Deng Xiaoping.

As general secretary of the Communist Party Central Committee, state president and chairman of the Military Affairs Commission, Jiang Zemin, 69, holds the three top posts in China. But the former Shanghai mayor lacks the military experience normally expected of Chinese leaders and has been attacked recently for creating a “Shanghai clique” at the center of government.

The key test Friday was expected to be the vote on Wu Bangguo, 53, the powerful Communist Party secretary in Shanghai since 1991. Independent Hong Kong newspapers portrayed the vote as a showdown on the “Shanghai Gang.” Four of the 20 members of the ruling Politburo hail from Shanghai.

But the main surprise was the large number of negative ballots and abstentions in the vote to elect former Shandong Province governor Jiang Chunyun, 64, to direct the country’s agriculture programs.

Several delegates interviewed after the vote said Jiang Chunyun was “too old” to assume such an important post. Others said Jiang Chunyun, who never attended university, lacked the education necessary to serve in a government where formal education is increasingly valued.

A People’s Liberation Army delegate said he voted for Jiang Chunyun but interpreted the negative votes as a signal from the interior provinces that they were concerned by the increasing dominance of leaders from the “coastal provinces.”