Written by Laurence Brahm - Published by South China Morning Post on 10/30/2007

The foreign media is eager to label the so-called fourth generation of China’s communist leadership. What will they stand for? What reforms will they make? Will they herald a new era of democracy on the back of political and religious reforms? Don’t count on any of this. A look at the past two generations tells us a lot about the present. During the 15th Party Congress in 1997, then president Jiang Zemin sought to characterise his administration as the “third generation” – following in line from Mao Zedong as the first one and Deng Xiaoping as the second. Actually, Deng was one of the early revolutionaries alongside Mao. So Deng’s coterie of leaders were the survivors of the first generation, not the second wave as described in popular myth.

Mr Jiang and former premier Zhu Rongji were the real second generation – the first group of technocrats to rule. But they did share in the revolution as student activists against the Kuomintang, participating in strikes, protests and even riots. Their generation rose to be department heads in the first ministries established under the Soviet model adopted by Beijing in the 1950s. They were tough survivors of the Cultural Revolution.

The current leadership under President Hu Jintao is different: they did not share in the experience of revolution. They were students of post-“liberation” China, products of the system that was created after the struggle. Nor were they decisive figures during the period of reform and transformation throughout the 1990s – when Mr Jiang and Mr Zhu were dismantling the very system they had helped to build in the 1950s under Mao and Deng.

This explains the relative levels of self-confidence. Mao and Deng were hard – even brutal – in addressing crises. Mr Jiang and Mr Zhu pulled no punches, either. Mr Zhu wasn’t afraid to take on the foreign press face-to face.

The ebullient Mr Jiang could play the two-stringed erhu next to former US president Bill Clinton’s saxophone, and chastised Hong Kong journalists openly. These men were self-confident in everything they did, not caring what others thought of them.

President Hu has never granted an interview to the foreign press, and is not expected to during the next five years. Look at the resumés of the current line-up: graduates in engineering, chemistry and geophysics; party secretaries of local regions – products of a system whose rhetoric they speak. They are characterised by a lack of individuality, by an almost eerie similarity to each other. This explains the emphasis at this month’s 17th Party Congress on “developing” rather than “constructing” what is called “socialism with Chinese characteristics” – one-party, state capitalism. The current generation is not about to “construct” anything. They are not going to change anything. Their self-proclaimed mandate is one of maintenance.

This is a generation focused on retaining the status quo. It will not make broad, powerful decisions. Expect no breakthrough on anything – unless it involves breaking journalists’ cameras and bludgeoning their heads when they try to report on the protests expected at next year’s Beijing Olympics.

Many fear the mainland may be at a crossroads of new crises including social instability, environmental self-destruction, the collapse of the health care system and local mafia rule. This generation of leaders has five years to suffer with these problems, then pass the baton on to their successors.

The game plan now is maintenance: imagine a janitor in the Great Hall of the People sweeping dust under the carpet. We can only expect the dust mound to build, and hope nobody will trip on the growing bulge under the rug. But don’t forget, there are over 80,000 riots reported each year on the mainland. That is a phenomenal number by comparison with anywhere else in the world with the exception, perhaps, of the Palestinian-controlled territories. But that will be swept under the carpet too, and bundled up for the next generation. Leave it to the 18th Party Congress. That is, if there is one amid the growing crises.

Laurence Brahm is a global activist, international mediator, political columnist and author. He is the leading advocate of a fresh development paradigm - The Himalayan Consensus - an innovative approach to development.

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