China Likely to Replace Its President
Chinese President Yang Shangkun is due to be replaced when Parliament meets next month, a Beijing-controlled newspaper reported Monday.
Yang’s name is not on the list of delegates to the National People’s Congress, Hong Kong’s Ta Kung Pao daily said. Also dropped is the current Congress chairman, Wan Li.
“Observers believe they will not accept nomination to these leading positions,” according to the newspaper, which is used by Beijing to leak sensitive information.
The 2,977 delegates elected from local congresses will vote for top state posts during the session.
The decision to drop Yang, 85, had been widely expected. Western diplomats believe the man most likely to replace him is Communist Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin, who will serve in both positions concurrently.
Jiang has been named by 88-year-old supreme leader Deng Xiaoping as the “core” of the political succession. Elevating him to the largely ceremonial position of president would give him an international role denied him in his current party position because of the collapse of the Communist Bloc.
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