Former president Jiang Zemin gave up the top job in China's military today, handing over
his last post to Communist Party chief Hu Jintao to complete a historic leadership transition to a younger generation.
The party's elite Central Committee accepted the resignation of Jiang (78) on the final day of a four-day closed-door plenum and approved Hu's rise to chairman of the party's decision-making Central Military Commission, the Xinhua news agency said.
Hu (61) who replaced Jiang as party chief in 2002 and as president in 2003, now holds the three most powerful positions in China, rounding out the first orderly succession in Chinese Communist history.
"The Hu Jintao era has started," said a Chinese political analyst who asked not to be identified.
In a sign Jiang's influence is already waning, his closest political ally, Vice President Zeng Qinghong, did not join the military commission. Xu Caihou (61) a member of the military
commission, was promoted as a vice-chairman, Xinhua said.
Jiang's departure was unlikely to result in dramatic changes to domestic, foreign and economic policies, with Hu set to pursue the market-friendly reforms that have transformed China into the world's seventh-largest economy.
A plenum communique reinforced expectations that the former hydraulic engineer would not stray from Jiang's tough stand on using force to recover Taiwan if the self-ruled island formally declares independence - as the plenum communique emphasised.