World Tibet Network News Tuesday, March 17th, 1998
From: TIBET INFORMATION NETWORK
PROFILE : HU JINTAO
China's new Vice-President, Hu Jintao, is a former Party Secretary of the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) who took a leading role in the crackdown against demonstrators for Tibetan independence, leading to the imposition of martial law in 1989. During his four years in the position, starting in January 1989, he formulated the policy of "opposing separatism on the one hand and carrying out economic construction on the other", which is still the key to central policy towards Tibet. The qualities he demonstrated during this period could well have helped him in his subsequent rapid rise to prominence.
At the age of 55, Hu Jintao is the youngest member of the Politburo Standing Committee and is now seen as ranking fifth in the Chinese Communist Party hierarchy. His election as Vice-President by the National People's Congress on 16 March 1998 is being interpreted, albeit cautiously, as an indication that he could become the "fourth generation" successor to President Jiang Zemin.
Originally from Anhui Province in eastern China, Hu Jintao started his political career in the Communist Youth League, becoming its top leader in November 1984. At the time there were reports that he was considered "rather soft and unforceful, without sufficient trailblazing spirit". However, he apparently made a favourable impression on both the conservative Party elder, Song Ping, and Hu Yaobang, who was considered a moderate. It was with the support of Hu Yaobang and Qiao Shi that he was promoted to full membership of the CCP Central Committee in September 1985. Also in that year, at the unusually young age of 42, Hu Jintao was appointed Party Secretary of Guizhou Province, where he stayed until the post of Party Secretary in the TAR fell vacant at the end of 1988.
In fact the Party may well have been considering a successor to the then Party Secretary in the TAR, Wu Jinghua, for some time. Wu was seen as having loyally implemented Hu Yaobang's policy of reducing Han cadres in the TAR and appointing more Tibetan cadres. But with the demonstrations that took place in Lhasa in September and October 1987 and again in March 1988 there appeared to have been a strengthening of the movement for Tibetan independence - the opposite to what Hu Yaobang had expected. Wu Jinghua suffered a sudden heart attack in June 1988, apparently brought on by the cold, the altitude, the lack of oxygen and overwork and returned to Beijing.
Hu Jintao took up the post of Party Secretary of the TAR in January 1989. There are differing stories about his appointment and it is unclear whether he alone was encouraged to apply or whether the Party invited various applicants, including him. But according to one favourable interpretation of what happened, only he was "fearless" in readily expressing his wish to take up the post. The Hong Kong journal Tangtai described him in December 1992 as "like a soldier asking for a battle assignment". While the appointment was seen by some as a downgrading, it is clear in retrospect that his courage in taking on the position laid a solid foundation for his future career.
Hu was the first leading official in Tibet to come from a civilian background - he was originally a hydroelectric engineer. Some analysts were surprised that China had not sent a tough military leader with orders to crack down on the Buddhist monks and nuns. A Reuters report at the time described him as a "young reformer" while a diplomat said he was "a good, solid humane person, a good choice".
He had not been in the post long before monks began threatening to boycott the "Great Prayer Ceremony", the Monlam Chenmo, which takes place in the first month of the Tibetan lunar year. The 10th Panchen Lama's death on January 28th, soon after Hu arrived in Tibet, led to further demonstrations and demands for independence. It appears that Hu acted both promptly and decisively in implementing specific orders from the centre and the overall policy of "resolutely suppressing nationality independence". A news blackout was imposed; on 5th and 6th March the Armed Police used teargas and bullets on demonstrators and others and a day later, 7th March 1989, martial law was declared.
During this period Hu Jintao seems to have made an increasingly favourable impression on Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping. During the student demonstrations in May and June 1989 in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Lhasa was still firmly under martial law, but when the tanks were sent in on June 4th Hu reportedly sent a telegram to the Party Central Committee expressing his resolute support for the "crackdown policy".
While in Tibet, Hu formulated the policy of "opposing separatism on the one hand and carrying out economic construction on the other". In his speech to a Plenary Session of the TAR Party Committee in December 1989 he described the demonstrations in Lhasa since 1987 as "a severe struggle to split the motherland, to oppose the Communist Party and to undermine the socialist system". He went on to say that "Tibet now faces two prominent problems. One is the grim situation of opposing separation. Supported by international reactionary forces, the Dalai clique creates public opinion on "Tibet independence" ....using all kinds of channels to infiltrate the region and to try to create new riots...... The other problem is Tibet's weak economic base, which has seriously hampered its economic development. Therefore, stabilising the situation is Tibet's first political task."
In the months after the Tiananmen crackdown, the policies of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang were under severe criticism within the Party for what was seen as their weakness towards the threat of "bourgeois liberalisation". The Party still put economic reconstruction at the top of their list of priorities. However, in Tibet, Hu Jintao was earning merit points for himself, particularly among the hardliners in Beijing, by putting the struggle against separatism above everything else. In October 1990 he was appointed concurrently to the post of First Secretary of the Tibet Military District CCP committee.
How much time Hu Jintao actually spent in Tibet during his time in office there is not clear. He appears, like his predecessor, to have had difficulty acclimatising and to have suffered from altitude sickness. In October 1990 he reportedly returned to live in Beijing. In March 1992 he was for all practical purposes replaced by the present TAR Party Secretary Chen Kuiyuan, though Chen was not formally appointed to the post until December 1992. Meanwhile, Hu Jintao had already moved on to higher things. In October of 1992 he was appointed to the Standing Committee of the Politburo at the suggestion of Song Ping and Qiao Shi.
