The Chinese media Duowei, an online news publication that the Chinese government sponsors, published an article stating that China’s political “Beidaihe time” is nearing completion. The current incumbent high-level Chinese Communist Party leaders and many political veterans will also end this rare summer vacation model.
The article predicted that China’s politics today has basically gotten rid of the shackles of the “veteran politics” as compared to before the CCP’s 18th Congress when Communist veterans were the heavy weights and played an important role in decision making. The article particularly singled out Jiang Zemin as a bad example of “veteran’s political intervention.”
The article said, “The most typical case of Jiang Zemin’s “political intervention” was that during the 2008 Wenchuan earthquake in China, the PLA senior officials said that they would like to consult the ‘old leadership’ and refused to listen to the directives of Premier Wen Jiabao who represented Hu Jintao and went to the disaster area as the commander-in-chief. Behind this embarrassing phenomenon was the influence of Jiang Zemin, who was in the position of Chairman of the Central Military Commission for an extra two years, and the long-term existence of the ‘Jiang Zemin Office’ until the CCP’s 18th Congress. It hindered Hu Jintao’s leadership.
“Jiang Zemin’s ‘political intervention’ meant that he didn’t want to let go of power while the country’s political situation was stable, and he interfered with the high-level personnel arrangements of the Chinese Communist Party when he should not have.”
Source: Duowei, August 14, 2017
http://news.dwnews.com/china/news/2017-08-14/60006885.html