Some Hong Kong media have leaked that Hu Chunhua is likely to replace Li Keqiang as Premier of the State Council.
During the two sessions of the National People’s Congress (NPC), the NPC Standing Committee considered a bill that would allow the NPC Standing Committee to decide on the appointment and removal of Vice Premier and other State Council members. The move was seen as a move by Xi Jinping to hollow out Li Keqiang. However, some analysts believe that this provision is intended to guard against Hu Chunhua, the CCP’s vice premier.
On March 11, the Communist Party of China (CPC) National People’s Congress (NPC) voted to adopt the draft amendment to the Organic Law of the National People’s Congress, which includes “improving the NPC Standing Committee’s power to appoint and remove personnel,” emphasizing that the power to appoint and remove the leadership of the State Council will be expanded, namely the power to appoint and remove Vice Premier and State Councillors.
Wang Chen, vice chairman of the Communist Party of China (CPC), said the NPC Standing Committee can decide on the appointment and removal of other members of the State Council based on the nomination of the Premier of the State Council; it can also decide on the appointment and removal of other members of the Military Commission based on the nomination of the Chairman of the Central Military Commission; and it can also decide on the removal of other individual members of the State Council and the Military Commission.
This is widely seen as a power-cutting, or overriding, move against current Premier Li Keqiang. But Sun Daluo, author of the book “A History of Xi Jinping’s Power Tactics,” argues that this provision is intended to guard against Vice Premier Hu Chunhua.
Previous Communist Party law required that vice premiers and state councilors be nominated by the premier, approved by a majority vote of the NPC deputies, and then appointed by the president. In other words, the power of approval used to be in the hands of the NPC deputies, but now it is transferred to the chairman of the committee. And the chairmen of the NPC Standing Committee can remove the vice premiers and state councilors at any Time.
According to Sun Daluo, this amended law is not to guard against Li Keqiang, who retired at the 20th National Congress, or vice premiers Han Zheng, Sun Chunlan and Liu He, who will also retire next fall, and Xi Jinping has no need to bring them down at this time.
Pictured is Hu Chunhua, member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and Vice Premier of the State Council.
Current affairs commentator Situ Jian also published a commentary in Voice of Hope that this provision is mainly Xi Jinping’s way of laying out the layout for his next re-election, not targeting Li Keqiang, but possibly pointing to Hu Chunhua.
Xi Jinping’s two sessions in 2018 have broken the limit of the President’s re-election by amending the constitution, but retained the rule that the Premier of the State Council can serve a maximum of two consecutive terms. Apparently, Li Keqiang, who has already served two consecutive terms and will be over 67 in 2022, is basically unlikely to be re-elected as premier. According to the Chinese Communist Party‘s usual practice, Li’s successor should come from the Vice Premier of the State Council.
According to Situ Jian, Xi’s amendment is mainly a mechanism to prepare the weakest premier for his own unsuspecting re-election in the next term, so that he can easily manage. After all, during the Xi-Li cooperation, Li Keqiang has repeatedly beaten Xi’s face in the dark fighting episodes, so that Xi’s face is not shiny, quite unhappy inside.
So who will be the weakest premier that Xi prepared? Stuart Jian believes that it should be Hu Chunhua. Hu Chunhua will become the weakest premier of the Chinese Communist Party in the past 40 years. There are four main reasons for this.
One, Xi Jinping to get the support of the party, eliminate murmurs smooth re-election, need to find a non-“own” as a partner. Hu Chunhua is the premier, and there is basically no major opposition from the various factions.
The first is that the company has a lot of people who are interested in the company.
The first thing you need to do is to get a good idea of what you are doing. The authorities have previously investigated 20 years of corruption in Inner Mongolia; at the two sessions, Xi Jinping emphasized the “total account” of mining corruption in Inner Mongolia. Hu Chunhua, who served as secretary in Inner Mongolia, is difficult to exonerate. This pigtail is in the hands of Xi, who will use it as a threat to keep Hu Chunhua from being used by party forces against Xi.
Fourth, Hu Chunhua is good material for backstabbing. Xi Jinping needs a premier to take the blame for his occasional failures. And Hu Chunhua has already taken two major black pots for Xi.
For example, on November 1 last year, the Chinese Communist Party’s Ministry of Water Resources and the National Development and Reform Commission suddenly announced that the Three Gorges Project had recently completed all procedures for overall completion and acceptance. The person who carried out the inspection was supposed to be Hu Chunhua, who succeeded Wang Yang in charge of water conservancy.
Another one is that Hu Chunhua took the blame for the South-North Water Transfer (launched by Jiang Zemin in 2002). On October 23 last year, the wholly state-owned China South-North Water Diversion Group Ltd. was officially inaugurated, and Hu Chunhua attended the inaugural meeting and spoke.
Hu Chunhua has taken these two big black pots, which is why he may be rewarded as the weakest premier in history, said Situ Jian.
Hu Chunhua is seen as Hu Jintao’s next-generation designated “successor” and was a popular candidate to join the Standing Committee before the 19th Communist Party Congress. The purge of Sun Zhengcai, Jiang Zemin’s successor, brought uncertainty to the “inter-generational designation” succession system and greatly affected Hu Chunhua, who was eventually promoted to vice premier from his post as secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee.
On the eve of the 2020 Beidaihe Conference, a pro-communist Hong Kong media outlet said that Hu Chunhua would likely succeed Li Keqiang as Premier of the State Council. Although the truth of the news is hard to discern, it is believed to be a warning from Xi Jinping’s faction that Li Keqiang will leave his post.
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