Cheng Li, the William R. Kenan Professor of Government, was quoted internationally on the retirement of China's former president and chairman of the central military commission Jiang Zemin. Li was interviewed on BBC radio, VOA radio and quoted in articles that appeared in the Washington Post, Reuters, Yahoo!News, PolitInfo.com, and the Australian, among others.
According to the Washington Post article, "With Transition, New Uncertainty for China's Authoritarian System," Li said the rivalry between Hu's allies and a camp that supports Jiang will probably continue. As Jiang fades from the scene, his top lieutenant, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, is expected to replace him as the leader of that camp, and the group will serve as a check on Hu's power, Li said.
"Neither faction can defeat the other one... Instead, decisions result from negotiation and compromise," he said. "In a way, Chinese politics has changed from strongman politics into a system with two competing camps... For the near future, that makes the system more stable, because it limits the power of any one individual."
Li said the two camps represented only slightly different policy programs, with the Jiang camp advocating a bolder economic development strategy that emphasizes the booming coastal cities and the Hu camp supporting a more balanced development strategy that focuses on poorer regions. Both camps have rejected democratic reforms that might shake the party's monopoly on power.
Li said the two groups might evolve over the next decade into formal factions that openly compete against each other within the framework of the one-party system, sowing the seeds of democratic reform in China.
