CHINA: The man tipped to take over the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party is an engineer whose years in poor remote areas have made him a firm supporter of reform, according to colleagues. Jonathan Ansfield profiles Hu Jintao
When Hu Jintao first visited this backwater of Kaili in south-west China in 1983, he made a point of plucking seeds from trees planted by then Communist Party chief Hu Yaobang 25 years earlier and re-sowing them.
It was a simple gesture back then, made on a field trip to dirt-poor Guizhou province as head of the Communist Youth League, but seems prophetic now as he prepares to take over as party chief after the 16th party congress which opens today.
Hu's gesture, promoting a reafforestation campaign while doffing his cap to his ultimate boss, sheds some light on how he climbed the greasy pole of Chinese politics by balancing local responsibilities with deference to his elders in Beijing.
But it also raises the question: will the low-key Hu lead by example or continue to play follow the leader? It is a query clouding the succession due to take place at the congress, with party boss Jiang Zemin expected to keep pulling strings from the curtains after he retires from the post.
Cadres in Guizhou saw several brands of leader in Hu, who went on to serve as the province's party boss from 1985 to 1988.
He struck them as being part model comrade, part take-charge reformer, with a charming sense of humour to boot. Their tales clash with the lifeless recollections of many in the province. Some only remember a young party prodigy passing through to du jin or "gild the gold" of his portfolio.
In Kaili, a senior official reminisced about Hu's expedition to the minority-dominated area in 1983, the year after he became the party Central Committee's youngest member at 39.
"When he heard Hu Yaobang had been there, he made a point of picking seeds from the old trees," one official said. "It gave me a very deep impression."
Later at a banquet, Hu chatted up a Youth League colleague from a local county. "He said, 'Little Yang, are you married'?" the Kaili official said. Little Yang, a cadre about Hu's age, said he was single.
According to the official, Hu turned to that county's party boss and cracked a smile: "Your work covers the whole county, yet your Youth League man isn't married! As party secretary, shouldn't you do something about this?"
Hu's official biography says he is a man of the people. It says he "left his footsteps" in all 86 Guizhou counties when he returned there as provincial head in 1985.
Guizhou was the first of two straight hardship posts for Hu, who was transferred to Tibet in January 1989. The hydrological engineer was also shipped out west to construction sites in beleaguered Gansu province during the Cultural Revolution.
"Long years of work in remote and poor areas inhabited by ethnic minorities have tempered Hu's character as well as made him a staunch supporter of the policies of reform and door opening," the official biography says.
Critics say Hu is a party climber who lacks big ideas, let alone the political clout to implement them.
Kaili remembers him as a wily operator who gets things done. When Hu assumed control of Guizhou, a dearth of roads was crippling post-Mao agricultural reforms a decade after the chairman died, even as coastal areas were building entire highway networks.
True to official legend, Hu met farmers and surveyed roads in Kaili and explored ways to pump in outside investment and expertise, according to Shen Tinggao, the principal of an elementary school in rural Longchang County.
Hu also wanted to make the isolated mountain region more self-sufficient. His government awarded a road contract to a local state-owned construction firm on the brink of bankruptcy, said Shen. The risky move panned out.
"After he came, it changed from a company with everyone eating from the same pot into a company turning losses into profits," said Shen, "and it carried a lot of other companies in Kaili along with it."
Hu's recommendations brought higher quality cross-bred rice to an area in the throes of chronic shortages and a fertiliser plant which moved to Kaili from elsewhere in the province.
"He was very practical," said Shen. "By 1987 or 1988, all the peasants in this very poor place at least had food to eat."
In Kaili, a spiffed-up enclave of 200,000 people encircled by hills mired in poverty, young and old are high on the prospects of Hu becoming party chief.
"His mind was strong and he made a lot of visits," said Long Deli (82), former party disciplinary chief of the prefecture.
Students at one of the city's top high schools predicted China's much-ballyhooed campaign to develop lagging western regions would finally kick into high gear under Hu.
"He definitely should make an already rising China develop even better," said Deng Youping (16), a Youth League member.
In the provincial capital of Guiyang, however, where people say quality of life is five to 10 years behind the pace of urbane south-western peers Kunming and Chengdu, people shrugged upon mention of the town's one-time top dog. "He came here to hang his hat for a couple years," said Lao Yan (60), an aviation worker selling cigarette lighters from a street stall. "Other cities around us were opening up and developing fast, but here the doors were still closed."
Ma Xianning (55), selling toothbrushes a few stalls over, was also sceptical. "He was just here to gild the golden record," said Ma. "Once they get into power, it doesn't matter so much where they were before."
Guiyang is no Kaili, where Hu Jintao lore may even corroborate rumours he has a photographic memory.
The official's story of Hu and Little Yang picks up again in 1987, when the two crossed paths at a party meeting in Guiyang.
Hu said: "I remember you. Married yet?" Yang responded: "Thanks to the luck you gave me, I am."