Hu Jintao

Hu Jintao (2011)

Hu Jintao ( Chinese  胡錦濤  /  胡锦涛 , W.-G. Hu Chin-t'ao ; born December 21, 1942 in Jiangyan , district-free city of Taizhou ) is a politician of the People's Republic of China . From 2003 to 2013 he was President of the People's Republic of China . From 2002 to 2012 he was General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and, as Chairman of the Central Military Commission, the Commander-in-Chief of the People's Liberation Army and thus " Outstanding Leader " (of the party, state and army) of the People's Republic of China. In March 2013, he was replaced as President by Xi Jinping .

Origin, advancement in the party

Hu Jintao was born in Jiangyan, Jiangsu Province in 1942 . The house where he was born is now directly behind the high-rise of the Taizhou Industrial and Commercial Bank. His father was a tea merchant who was later denounced during the Cultural Revolution . Since his mother died when Hu was seven years old, he was raised by an aunt as a half- orphan. In 1959 at the age of 18 he left Jiangyan and studied at the Tsinghua University in Beijing until 1965 . During this time, he joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1964 . At the university he also met his wife Liu Yongqing, with whom he has two children. After completing his engineering studies of hydraulic engineering, he worked from 1968 in a residential Brigade in the province of Gansu . From 1969 to 1974 he worked as an engineer for the Sinohydric engineering office number 4. In 1974, also in Gansu, he became secretary of the commission for investment construction . The next year he became vice-chief there. During this time he met his future sponsor Song Ping , the first secretary of the Gansus Communist Party Committee.

His political rise began in the 1980s. In 1981 he attended the Central Party School in Beijing. Here he made contacts with Deng Nan , the daughter of Deng Xiaoping , and Hu Deping , the son of Hu Yaobang . In 1982 Hu became secretary of the Gansus Communist Youth Association. That same year he became secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Youth Association in Beijing. In 1983 he became chairman of the association. At that time he accompanied Hu Yaobang, the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, on trips around the country.

Party secretary in Guizhou and Tibet

In 1985, Hu became Party Secretary of Guizhou Province . He treated the student protests that broke out there in 1987 with caution. In 1988 he took over the office of Party Secretary of Tibet and in 1989 was responsible for the violent crackdown on protests and the imposition of martial law.

Member of the Politburo

The Standing Committee of the Political Bureau heard Hu on since 1,992th He headed the party school of the Central Committee from 1993 as its president. He also worked in the Secretariat of the Politburo, which was concerned with its day-to-day politics, as well as in the media sector, where he was responsible in particular for the representation of the President in public. When the members of the so-called second generation of leaders of the Communist Party, e.g. B. Deng Xiaoping, who prepared the handover of power to the next generation, was also discussed about the next but one change of power. As early as 1992, Deng selected Hu as the future party leader at the suggestion of Song Pings. Not least thanks to Hu Yaobang's support, Hu Jintao's political career actually led to the highest offices in the People's Republic.

In 1998, Hu became Vice President of the People's Republic of China. Because then President Jiang Zemin wanted Hu to take a more active role in foreign policy, Hu often spoke out in 1999 about the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade .

Presidency

Hú Jǐntāo visits the then US President George W. Bush

On November 15, 2002, Hu Jintao was elected as the new General Secretary of the Communist Party of the People's Republic of China . In March 2003 the National People's Congress elected him President and from November 2004 he took over the supreme command of the People's Liberation Army . As a result of the successor in these three offices, Hu Jintao became the new Paramount Leader (leader of the party, state and army) of the People's Republic of China and is considered more of a “ hardliner ” than a reformer .

For the first time in ten years, a Chinese president, Hu Jintao, visited neighboring India at the end of 2006 .

In his programmatic speech at the start of the 17th  Congress of the Communist Party on October 14, 2007, Hu Jintao announced a more equitable distribution of wealth and more environmental protection . He acknowledged that China's economic growth is "unreasonably high" and has a negative impact on the environment. He said verbatim to the 2,200 delegates: “We will set up a system that commits to saving energy and reducing emissions.” He affirmed the central leadership role of the Communist Party and committed himself to the one-party system . Within this political framework, he promised moderate reforms.

On March 15, 2008, the 11th National People's Congress confirmed Hu in his office as president with 99.7% of the votes. As usual, there were no opposing candidates.

On October 1, 2009, the People's Republic celebrated the 60th anniversary of its founding on Tiananmen Square . On this occasion, Hu held a troop parade and gave a speech on the state of the nation that China would stick to its successful version of socialism in the future. Hu performed these appearances in a tailor-made, modernized version of the Sun Yat-sen suit . In 1949 , Mao proclaimed the People's Republic in the same official costume.

Hu Jintao was declared the most powerful person in the world by Forbes Magazine in 2010 , replacing US President Barack Obama , who was awarded the title in 2009. A year later, however, he was only placed third on the Forbes list of the most powerful personalities, with US President Obama again taking first place and Russian President Vladimir Putin coming in second.

On November 14th, 2012, Hu Jintao announced his resignation from the party leadership at the CCP Congress. He was also no longer elected to the party's central committee. He also resigned the chairmanship of the Central Military Commission with immediate effect. On March 14, 2013, Xi Jinping was elected as his successor by the National People's Congress as the new president.

In the retrospective towards the end of his reign it was said that Hu's presidency was characterized by a modest and cautious leadership style. His tenure was characterized by collective leadership and consensus-based rule. These characteristics contributed to Hu's enigmatic public image. His way of governing relied more on technocratic competence than on a strong personality cult .

Private

Hu Jintao is married with two children. In January 2014 was due to research by the Center for Public Integrity ( " offshore leaks known") that the family of the former president of his nephew Hu Yishi money by setting up offshore - brass plate companies has relocated abroad.

literature

• Wu-ueh Chang and Chien-min Chao: Managing Stability in the Taiwan Strait: Non-Military Policy towards Taiwan under Hu Jintao , In: Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 3/2009, pp. 99–118, ISSN  1868-1026 .
• Jean-Pierre Cabestan: China's Foreign-and Security-policy Decision-making Processes under Hu Jintao , In: Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 3/2009, pp. 63-97, ISSN  1868-1026 .
• Heike Holbig: Remaking the CCP's Ideology: Determinants, Progress, and Limits under Hu Jintao , In: Journal of Current Chinese Affairs 3/2009, pp. 35-61, ISSN  1868-1026 .

Web links

Commons : Hu Jintao  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

 Wikinews: Hu Jintao  - on the news

• Important speeches and reports on his political activities on the English website of the Renmin Ribao
• Willy Lam: Hu Jintao's 'Theory of the Three Harmonies' . In: Jamestown Foundation's China Brief, via UCLA Asia Institute, Jan. 3, 2006
• Promotion of human rights and building a harmonious world (Chinese Embassy, ​​Berlin, November 28, 2006)
• China's leader shows his stripes by Tim Luard, BBC ,Jan11, 2005
• Requiem for Reform? by Matthew Forney and Susan Jakes, TIME , Jan 31, 2005
• Who is Hu and who is Whom? A new Beijing dual leadership leads China on the way to becoming a world power by Johnny Erling, Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung , PM 423, February 2005 (PDF file; 118 kB)
• Machiavelli in Beijing by Urs Schöttli, Cicero , November 11, 2005

Individual evidence

1. ↑ People's Congress: Xi Jinping is the new President of China at Spiegel Online , March 14, 2013 (accessed March 14, 2013).
2. ↑ Beijing Rundschau of September 27, 2009: 60 Years of the People's Republic of China - 2000–2008. Retrieved November 13, 2011 . 
3. ^ N-tv : Party conference in Beijing - China wants to get cleaner , October 15, 2007
4. ↑ Tages-Anzeiger : Hu and Xi at the helm of China from March 15, 2008.
5. ↑ Cabinet reform passed: China's president remains in office. n-tv.de
6. ^ President Hu Jintao delivers speech for PRC 60th anniversary; translated. on Youtube.
7. ↑ Johnny Erling: How the Mao suit 2.0 is supposed to conquer the world . In: welt.de. Die Welt , February 4, 2012, accessed June 12, 2018 . 
8. ↑ Obama no longer the most powerful person in the world: Krone.at: Obama no longer the most powerful person in the world . Last accessed: November 5, 2010
9. ↑ Hu is the most powerful person in the world: Wiener Zeitung: Hu is the most powerful person in the world . Retrieved November 5, 2013
10. ↑ Obama loses status as the most powerful man in the world: Welt Online: Obama loses status as the most powerful man in the world . Last accessed: November 5, 2010
11. ^ Forbes list 2011 Powerful people
12. ↑ Hu Jintao clears the way for the successor , BaZ online, November 14, 2012
13. ↑ Simon Elegant: In China, Hu is the Man to See . In: Time . October 4, 2007, ISSN  0040-781X ( time.com [accessed October 2, 2019]).
14. ↑ The Mysterious Hu Jintao. Retrieved October 2, 2019 (American English). 
15. ^ Deng Changchun: Chinese leadership: The challenge in 2012. In: East Asia Forum. July 10, 2011, accessed October 2, 2019 . 
16. ↑ Tricky deals from China's power elite ( Memento from January 22, 2014 in the Internet Archive ), Tagesschau.de, January 21, 2014.
17. ↑ Leaked Records Reveal Offshore Holdings of China's Elite , icij.org, January 21, 2014.
18. ↑ Tax havens: China's powerful people allegedly made fortunes in the Caribbean , Süddeutsche Zeitung, January 21, 2014.
19. ↑ China's princelings storing riches in Caribbean offshore haven , The Guardian, January 21, 2014.

predecessor	Office	successor
Jiang Zemin	General Secretary of the Communist Party of China 2002–2012	Xi Jinping
Jiang Zemin	President of the People's Republic of China 2003–2013	Xi Jinping

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Hu is the family name here, Jintao is the first name.