China’s President Hu Jintao was possibly hugely embarrassed on Tuesday during a meeting with US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates in Beijing.
Robert Gates and Hu Jintao on Tuesday (VOA)
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) conducted a major test of a stealth fighter on Tuesday. That alone would be a big signal to both Hu and Gates, given that it occurred just before their meeting.
But even worse, Hu appeared not to be even aware that the test had occurred when Gates asked him about it, according to the Wall Street Journal (Access).
Hu later acknowledged that the test flight had occurred, and assured Gates that the test was not directed at the U.S. The sequence of events indicates that hawkish elements in the PLA are taking control of military policy, overriding Hu’s civilian control.
During their meeting, Gates also said that within five years, North Korea will likely have a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile capable of reaching the United States, according to VOA. Gates asked Hu for help with this situation but, not surprisingly, no such help was offered.
According to an analysis in the Washington Post, the surprise flight test incident illustrates the weakness of Hu as a leader:
“The bizarre drama that Gates – a former U.S. intelligence chief who has dealt with China for decades – witnessed highlights a significant trend in Chinese politics as the fourth handover of power in communist China’s 62-year history approaches: the increasingly assertive voice of the People’s Liberation Army in the country’s foreign policy.Throughout the past year, the PLA has been a catalyst in a series of national security crises. Chinese fishing vessels have clashed with Japanese and South Korean coast guard cutters near disputed islands in the Western Pacific. PLA officers have engaged in verbal fisticuffs with senior American officials from Singapore to Beijing.
And PLA officers have appeared on Chinese state television, enunciating, much to the chagrin of China’s senior diplomats, what appears to be an ever-expanding list of China’s core interests. …
To that end, the PLA has found a perfect foil in Hu – considered the weakest leader in communist China’s short history, said Andrei Chang, editor of Kanwa Asian Defense magazine. Chang said Hu’s apparent ignorance of the test was part of a “soap opera” that is unfolding as China changes leaders. Hu is slated to step down, and China’s vice president, Xi Jinping, who met with Gates on Monday, is expected to succeed him.”
Calling Hu “the weakest leader in communist China’s short history” is an interesting statement, but one that I fundamentally disagree with in the form stated.
A more accurate description is that Hu is a fine leader but an anachronism, someone who would have been more successful ten years ago.
Hu, born in 1942, is a member of China’s “Artist generation,” having been born and raised during China’s last crisis war, Mao’s bloody Communist Revolution that climaxed in 1949. As such, he is like America’s Silent Generation — people who are mediators and conciliators and implementers, but not decision makers. (See “Basics of Generational Dynamics.”)
Hu would never lead China’s central committee to declare war on the U.S., but once such a decision were made, he would implement it ruthlessly, as I described in my 2006 report, “Eerie similarity: Chinese President Hu Jintao and Donald Rumsfeld.”
Four years have passed since I wrote that report, and since that time, China’s “Nomad generation,” like America’s Generation-X, have moved powerfully into middle management positions throughout society. And just as the West’s Generation-X perpetrated the massive fraud in real estate securities that led to the global financial crisis (which is far from over and has barely begun), China’s new middle managers are exhibiting similar nihilism and destructiveness in their increasingly hegemonistic military policy. Unlike Hu, they are almost oblivious to the consequences of launching a war, and they would not hesitate to do so.
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