Tao Jingzhou/COURTESY OF TAO JINGZHOU – A rare photo from late 1981 shows Li Keqiang with classmates during his student days at Peking University, where he became exposed to concepts of constitutional law and made friends with many pro-democracy reformers.
By Keith B. Richburg,
Nov 10, 2012 05:16 AM EST
BEIJING — Li Keqiang, the man slated to become China’s next premier, is described by several former classmates and associates as a cautious political climber who moved up slowly through the Communist Party’s bureaucracy while quietly maintaining friendships with pro-democracy advocates.
Li’s ties to known reformers have given some people here hope that once installed in the Chinese government’s No. 2 position — a promotion that is expected to be formalized at the conclusion of the party congress next week — he might become an inside advocate for changing the country’s autocratic, Leninist system.
Graphic
China primer: Key players in the leadership transition
Keith B. Richburg
After recent scandals, Communist leader warns Chinese congress that corruption must end.
The Washington Post asked influential thinkers in China and the United States for their advice to Xi Jinping and others in China’s next generation of leaders.
William Wan
Leadership transition, rich with pageantry, security and secrecy, comes at critical moment for nation.
China is gearing up for a once-a-decade change of top leaders that will determine the country’s direction for years to come.
But friends and former associates also said that Li was always reticent when speaking, rarely revealing much about his personal views — leaving them to only guess that he shares the reform agenda. “He’s the kind of person whose mind you can’t really read,” said Dai Qing, a democracy activist who was jailed for nearly a year after the 1989 student protests.
China’s outgoing premier, Wen Jiabao, also was seen by many here as a reformer who in recent years began publicly advocating for more accountability and less corruption in China’s Communist-run government. But without allies, Wen became an increasingly isolated voice for reform, unable — or unwilling — to push through his agenda. Some of Li’s friends and associates now wonder if he will suffer the same fate.
Li is described as an extremely intelligent self-taught speaker of English and a loyal Communist Party member who gave up a rare opportunity to study abroad when the party asked him to stay in China to work organizing students at Peking University as a top official in the Communist Youth League. It was at the university that Li made friendships with many outspoken pro-democracy advocates, some of whom were jailed or went into exile after the 1989 military crackdown at Tiananmen Square.
But some said he is not ruthless enough for the party’s internal maneuverings — a fact that some colleagues said may have relegated him to the No. 2 job, and not the presidency, which will go to the current vice president Xi Jinping.
From student to party leader
Unlike Xi, a so-called princeling whose father, Xi Zhongxun, was a Mao-era military hero and later a governor and vice premier, Li comes to the top of China’s power structure without a revolutionary pedigree.
Li’s father was a mid-level county official — “a small potato,” said one classmate — in Anhui province, one of China’s poorest areas. And unlike Xi and the other princelings, whose upward path was eased by family connections, Li was admitted to Peking University on the basis of his scores on the national entrance exam, or “gaokao,” when it was first reinstated in 1977 after being suspended during the Cultural Revolution.
Li entered Peking University, China’s most prestigious, in February 1978. Yang Baikui, who was an international politics student there, worked with Li for one year while at the school, translating an English book, “The Due Process of Law,” by British jurist Lord Denning. The book was brought to China by a professor, Gong Xiangrui, then one of China’s few British-trained lawyers, who inculcated his students in the ideas of Western-style liberalism and constitutional law.
By Keith B. Richburg,
Nov 10, 2012 05:16 AM EST
BEIJING — Li Keqiang, the man slated to become China’s next premier, is described by several former classmates and associates as a cautious political climber who moved up slowly through the Communist Party’s bureaucracy while quietly maintaining friendships with pro-democracy advocates.
Li’s ties to known reformers have given some people here hope that once installed in the Chinese government’s No. 2 position — a promotion that is expected to be formalized at the conclusion of the party congress next week — he might become an inside advocate for changing the country’s autocratic, Leninist system.
Graphic
China primer: Key players in the leadership transition
Keith B. Richburg
After recent scandals, Communist leader warns Chinese congress that corruption must end.
The Washington Post asked influential thinkers in China and the United States for their advice to Xi Jinping and others in China’s next generation of leaders.
William Wan
Leadership transition, rich with pageantry, security and secrecy, comes at critical moment for nation.
China is gearing up for a once-a-decade change of top leaders that will determine the country’s direction for years to come.
But friends and former associates also said that Li was always reticent when speaking, rarely revealing much about his personal views — leaving them to only guess that he shares the reform agenda. “He’s the kind of person whose mind you can’t really read,” said Dai Qing, a democracy activist who was jailed for nearly a year after the 1989 student protests.
China’s outgoing premier, Wen Jiabao, also was seen by many here as a reformer who in recent years began publicly advocating for more accountability and less corruption in China’s Communist-run government. But without allies, Wen became an increasingly isolated voice for reform, unable — or unwilling — to push through his agenda. Some of Li’s friends and associates now wonder if he will suffer the same fate.
Li is described as an extremely intelligent self-taught speaker of English and a loyal Communist Party member who gave up a rare opportunity to study abroad when the party asked him to stay in China to work organizing students at Peking University as a top official in the Communist Youth League. It was at the university that Li made friendships with many outspoken pro-democracy advocates, some of whom were jailed or went into exile after the 1989 military crackdown at Tiananmen Square.
But some said he is not ruthless enough for the party’s internal maneuverings — a fact that some colleagues said may have relegated him to the No. 2 job, and not the presidency, which will go to the current vice president Xi Jinping.
From student to party leader
Unlike Xi, a so-called princeling whose father, Xi Zhongxun, was a Mao-era military hero and later a governor and vice premier, Li comes to the top of China’s power structure without a revolutionary pedigree.
Li’s father was a mid-level county official — “a small potato,” said one classmate — in Anhui province, one of China’s poorest areas. And unlike Xi and the other princelings, whose upward path was eased by family connections, Li was admitted to Peking University on the basis of his scores on the national entrance exam, or “gaokao,” when it was first reinstated in 1977 after being suspended during the Cultural Revolution.
Li entered Peking University, China’s most prestigious, in February 1978. Yang Baikui, who was an international politics student there, worked with Li for one year while at the school, translating an English book, “The Due Process of Law,” by British jurist Lord Denning. The book was brought to China by a professor, Gong Xiangrui, then one of China’s few British-trained lawyers, who inculcated his students in the ideas of Western-style liberalism and constitutional law.
