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- <text id=93TT1268>
- <title>
- Mar. 29, 1993: Primacy of the Party
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Mar. 29, 1993 Yeltsin's Last Stand
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 14
- WORLD
- Primacy of the Party
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>Reversing a separation of power, China gets a dual-role President
- </p>
- <p> In the 1980s China's Reformist leadership tried to keep top
- posts in the ruling Communist Party separate from those of the
- government. That campaign reversed a tradition established by no
- less a figure than Mao Zedong, who served simultaneously as
- party chief and head of state from 1954 to 1959. Now the
- pendulum seems headed back toward the direction of double
- dipping--and a reconsolidation of official power in party
- hands.
- </p>
- <p> At the close of the 17-day National People's Congress now
- under way, Jiang Zemin, 67, the current party general secretary,
- is scheduled to become the fifth President of the People's
- Republic. Some observers expect that example to spread down the
- ranks. Coincidentally, when Jiang takes over from retiring Yang
- Shangkun, 86, it will mark the first postrevolutionary Chinese
- government without a single prominent veteran of the famed
- 1934-35 Long March led by Mao. The passage of time has made that
- separation at last irreversible.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-