There’s videos going around of Hu being removed from the summit as he’s talking with Xi. They claim it’s because he voiced objections to Xi taking a 3rd term or something? I generally support Xi and the direction the CPC has been going but idk much about Hu and what he did. My “China bad” deprogramming only started a few years ago and I haven’t really read much about the CPC before Xi yet.
I don’t trust anything the western media says for obvious reasons. I do however trust your all’s insight into these matters. I’m just bad at finding sources on this stuff that is outside of the western sphere of influence.
Edit: Fixed CCP ➡️ CPC
My understanding – and any Chinese comrades of course feel free to correct me – is that Hu Jintao is seen as something of a political nonentity in China, with his time in office being pretty much just an extension of the Jiang era. (There is apparently a saying about Hu, that he was “in office for ten years, and in power for zero days”). Under Hu, certain negative trends that had existed under Jiang (ideological degeneration, growing power of the private sector, corruption in local governments) were allowed to continue, and Xi’s administration had to do some pretty drastic housecleaning.
For me personally, I was just too young to actually have an opinion. I only saw his face in the news and all I knew was “hey that’s our leader”. Only a few years after Xi Jinping’s ascent to power did I mature enough to consider what Xi is doing right and doing wrong. Given that many of those online are rather young (plus the internet is a relatively new concept in China anyways; bilibili was founded 2009, 3 years before Hu Jintao’s retirement), they might share my sentiment; for us Hu Jintao just kinda existed, and we don’t know enough to have any opinions; only for Xi Jinping did we actually see his policies in action and actually have opinions on what he is doing.
Good to hear an actual “on the ground” perspective on this – thanks! Honestly, my understanding of the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao eras is probably skewed, not only by my being 6,000 miles away, but also by the fact that back when they were in office, I was sitting in the worst depths of online Hoxhaism. No, I am not proud of this.
Jiang and Hu were good. They both carried on Deng’s plan of developing China’s economy and not standing up to the Americans until China was ready to stand up to them.
There was nothing flashy about their time leading the politburo but that was the whole point. They laid the foundations that are allowing Xi’s China to reach out to the world through the belt and road and literally pull the global south out from under America’s feet.
I’ll admit I’m biased because I carry a lot of guilt remembering the attitude with which I watched Jiang’s 60 minutes interview as a liberal-headed teenager. There was nothing Jiang could have said or done in that interview that would have kept me from thinking he was an evil bad guy just like I was supposed to. I had him so wrong back then and that interview is one of my go-to reminders not to trust anything that comes out of US Media. Ever.