INNER SANCTUM (20): Secretive advisers behind China's key policy campaigns - Asahi Shimbun

Editor's note: This is the final in a series of articles on Zhongnanhai, the seclusive political enclave in central Beijing, and the power struggles that have transpired within the Communist Party there.

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Top leaders in the Chinese Communist Party have always sought the best brains from the more than 85 million party members to enhance their ability to govern a country of 1.3 billion people.

Two of them in the Xi Jinping administration, which represents China’s fifth generation of leadership, stand out.

One of them, Wang Huning, has been working within Zhongnanhai, the walled compound in Beijing where leaders of the Communist Party make their policy decisions, for 18 years.

The 57-year-old Wang is a member of the Communist Party Politburo and director of the Central Policy Research Center, which studies important policy issues under instructions from the party general secretary.

In the 1980s, when he was a professor of international politics at the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai, Wang won the favor of Jiang Zemin, a rising star who had moved through fast-track jobs, such as party chief of Shanghai.

Following the bloody crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators at Tiananmen Square in 1989, Wang drew the notice of top leaders by supporting the party’s claim that the protesters were rioting, according to an acquaintance who knew him well back then.

Wang did not join the academics who showed sympathy for the students who were calling for democracy.

Jiang was promoted to the top party post of general secretary after his response to the Tiananmen crackdown won the praise of Deng Xiaoping, then the paramount leader. In 1995, Jiang recruited Wang, who was dean of Fudan University’s law school, to head the Political Affairs Division of the Central Policy Research Center, a position that brought Wang into the Zhongnanhai compound.

Wang has since served as a top policy adviser for three successive presidents: Jiang, Hu Jintao and now Xi.

Wang lives in a courtyard house of traditional Chinese style called “siheyuan” near the People’s Liberation Army 305 Hospital, which faces the North Gate of Zhongnanhai. However, he often stays overnight in facilities within the Zhongnanhai compound, according to a friend who has known him since their school days.

Wang accompanies the general secretary on almost all his overseas trips. When Xi spoke at a news conference during a summit of emerging economies in Durban, South Africa, in March, Wang was seen sitting just behind Xi, reading A4-size documents on a black leather bag placed on his knees and occasionally taking notes.

Wang is also said to be a speechwriter for Xi and, according to several party insiders, a key architect of his signature “Chinese Dream” campaign.

Another person Xi often turns to for advice is Gen. Liu Yuan, according to a senior executive at a state-run publishing company. Liu is the son of Liu Shaoqi, who was China’s president from 1959 to 1968. Liu Yuan spent his early childhood in the area within Zhongnanhai, which was also Xi’s sphere of life.

Both Xi and Liu are members of the generation “hong er’dai,” or the “second-generation reds,” as the sons and daughters of old revolutionaries are often called.

For four days from June 22, Xi held an unusually long meeting of Politburo members at the Huairentang Hall in Zhongnanhai to discuss measures to staunch endemic corruption.

“Efforts to maintain strict discipline must start at the Politburo,” Xi declared at the meeting.

Some party insiders say Xi’s remarks reflect the fact that Liu last year lifted the lid on a corruption scandal involving Gu Junshan, who was sacked as deputy director of the People’s Liberation Army General Logistics Department.

'POLITICAL NERVE CENTER'

At Zhongnanhai, China’s political nerve center, work is under way to secure rooms for people who don’t regularly work or live there.

Although last year’s Communist Party Congress decided to remove Jiang’s office from the compound, many retired members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the country’s supreme decision-making organ, want a “base” within this inner sanctum of the party leadership.

In an interview with The Asahi Shimbun, one researcher quoted a party insider as saying that having a room within Zhongnanhai is one of the privileges given to party elders who were once in power.

Even if they don’t actually use their rooms in the compound, failing to offer one would evoke their displeasure, the insider told the researcher.

Some organizations are being forced to relocate their facilities from Zhongnanhai.

The Communist Party’s Central Office for Foreign Affairs, which handles administrative work for the Central Leading Group for Foreign Affairs, a body responsible for making important foreign policy decisions, was moved to a hotel north of Zhongnanhai until this spring.

A large new gate has been built across the street to the west of Zhongnanhai. There is no nameplate on the gate.

Behind the gate, a huge housing area was flattened and 29 large buildings were built on the land. The whisper among residents in the neighborhood is that these buildings are being used to house offices and party leaders’ residences relocated from Zhongnanhai.

Zhongnanhai is surrounded by walls painted reddish-brown, while the walls around the new compound are painted gray. Security guard units closely monitor traffic around both building complexes.

Even the house of an Olympic gold medalist located within the area has been forcibly relocated, according to neighbors.

There has, however, been no official announcement about who will use the new buildings or for what purposes.

The inner sanctum of power in China keeps expanding without revealing its real face.

(This article was written by Atsushi Okudera and Nozomu Hayashi.)

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The previous installments of this series are available at:

(1): At secretive Zhongnanhai, decisions are made that can change the world ^[1]

(2): For top party officials, decisions must be unanimous ^[2]

(3): There are no ties in Standing Committee votes ^[3]

(4): No one knows for sure what lies beneath Zhongnanhai ^[4]

(5): Zhongnanhai swimming pools the source of rumors about top leaders ^[5]

(6): Party controls law enforcement as well as politics ^[6]