In Graft Inquiry, Chinese See a Shake-Up Coming

By Joseph Kahn *The New York Times*
Otober 04, 2006

When Shanghai’s party boss was detained in an anticorruption probe last week, Chinese were rattled by news of the first purge of a high-ranking Communist Party leader since 1995. But the investigation’s scope and its ultimate goals are wider, as the party’s two most powerful officials aim to shake up the leadership and wipe out resistance to their policy agenda, party officials and analysts say.

The investigation, the largest of its kind since China first pursued market-style changes to its economy more than a quarter-century ago, was planned and supervised by Zeng Qinghong, China’s vice president and the day-to-day manager of Communist Party affairs, people informed about the operation said.

They said Mr. Zeng had used the investigation to force provincial leaders to heed Beijing’s economic directives, sideline officials loyal to the former top leader, Jiang Zemin, and strengthen Mr. Zeng’s own hand as well as that of his current master, President Hu Jintao.

Aside from frightening officials who have grown accustomed to increasingly conspicuous corruption in recent years, the crackdown could give Mr. Hu greater leeway to carry out his agenda for broader welfare benefits and stronger pollution controls, which may prove popular in China today.

Some critics fear that it may also consolidate greater power in the hands of a leader who has consistently sought to restrict the news media, censor the Web and punish peaceful political dissent.

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