Relations with Russia are China's foreign policy priority, Vice-President of the People's Republic of China, Xi Jinping, assured Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin yesterday. Putin assured Xi of full Russian support for China over the Taiwan issue (mainland China regards the Taiwan government as separatist.) Xi Jinping's first visit to Russia was at the invitation of the prime minister. He discussed the issues of trade with Putin, stressing the need to combat illegal immigration and urged the need to get rid of grey schemes in the work of the customs service. The visit was also a party-related event, said Konstantin Kosachev, Chairman of the Duma International Relations Committee. Xi opened the meeting of the representatives of the United Russia and the Chinese Communist Party, which was focused on discussing the role of governing parties in times of crisis. China's performance during the crisis has been different, Kosachev notes. It has interesting experience in combating corruption, providing incentives for innovative programmes and the party cadre career path.
The Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party, Xi Jinping, is thought to be one of the two main contenders for the position of the Chinese president, which will become vacant in 2012, when the term of the current president, Hu Jintao, expires. Xi, 56, has been widely known in and outside China since 2007, when he was elected member of the standing committee of the CPC Central Committee's Politburo. In 2008, Hu appointed him his deputy. Xi Jinping belongs to the generation of "Party princes": his father was the vice-premier under Mao Zedong, and was a victim of reprisals. The vice-president supervised the preparation for the Olympic Games and managed to complete all the Olympic facilities on time after rooting out corruption.
The successor has not yet been chosen, says Professor Andrei Ostrovsky of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Far Eastern Institute. The other contender for the post of the PRC chairman is Li Keqiang, also a member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee. Xi is in charge of domestic and foreign policies, and Li is responsible for the economy, though his official rank is lower. To claim the position of president, Xi must become a member of the Central Military Council of the CPC Central Committee. This did not happen at the March Congress of People's Representatives, which means that the struggle continues, Ostrovsky says.
Polina Khimshiashvili
http://www.vedomosti.ru/newspaper/article/2010/03/24/229021
