Generational Transition in China

The generational transformation under way in contemporary China continues a process that began in the 1980s of promoting younger and better-educated leaders to senior political positions. In some ways, one might argue that the major divide during this time was between the Deng Xiaoping generation—the revolutionary generation—and the Jiang Zemin generation. The revolutionary generation—whether led by Mao Zedong or Deng—had extraordinary self-confidence derived from years of political activity across a full spectrum of issues and from the widely accepted belief that victory in the revolution legitimized their rule. Thus, even when the leaders were disastrously wrong (Mao more often than Deng), they were supremely confident in their own political authority and hence their ability to control events.

A successor generation never has the luxury of such self-confidence (or, as some might term it, hubris). Indeed, Jiang and his cohort of leaders had careers that were nearly diametric opposites of their revolutionary predecessors. Rather than "overturning heaven and earth" in their effort to remake the social order and propel China into the modern world, the successor generation ascended by rising through the bureaucracies and by not offending people. This process has limited their experience, personal contacts, and authority, forcing them to adopt a more cautious style of politics that puts greater weight on consensus building (which they do not always achieve). Better educated and more technocratic than their revolutionary predecessors, Jiang and his generation have sought to craft policies and govern an increasingly complex polity rather than to strike out in bold new political directions.

The generational change that China is about to undergo—symbolized by the apparent intention to promote Vice President Hu Jintao to general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at the Sixteenth Party Congress in September—is really a continuation of the changes in elite recruitment that resulted in the promotion of Jiang and his generation. One could refer to the transition as the "Technocratization of the Chinese Leadership, Part Two." Although Jiang's generation and Hu's generation share some significant characteristics, particularly in terms of their members' technical training and their promotion through the bureaucratic ranks, some important differences are evident. The most significant difference, though perhaps the most uncertain in terms of its impact, is the simple fact that Hu's generation will be the first generation of leadership in the People's Republic of China (PRC) with no significant personal memory of pre-1949 China. Jiang, born in 1926, had substantial grounding in China's classical literature (which he shows off with recitals of Tang and Song poetry) before studying engineering during China's civil war days, when he would skip classes to organize students in the Communist underground. He also had significant knowledge of English and, to his regret, of Japanese.

Hu and his generation were the first in modern China to grow to maturity during relatively peaceful times. The young Hu, born in Shanghai in 1942 and raised in Taizhou, not far from Jiang's hometown of Yangzhou (in Jiangsu Province), was apparently able to devote himself to his studies and thus pass the entrance examination for China's most prestigious technical school, Qinghua University. In the 1950s, science and technology were a way for a boy from a relatively poor class background (Hu's father was a merchant) to make his way, but it was also a time when Mao's "red sun" shone brightly on the cultural landscape; neither Hu nor his age cohort would have devoted much time to traditional learning. Moreover, courses in foreign studies did not compensate for these students' lack of a traditional education or exposure to the complex reality of pre-1949 China. Although many of this generation would later learn English (some remarkably well), their personal exposure to the "capitalist West" was nonexistent until the country was opened to the outside world in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Similarly, the Sino-Soviet dispute limited this generation's familiarity with the socialist culture...