NEWS ANALYSIS : With China’s Premier Ill, President Tightens Control

With Premier Li Peng sidelined by illness and senior leader Deng Xiaoping increasingly frail, President Jiang Zemin has in recent weeks taken a series of steps aimed at strengthening his power base.

In a signal to the nation of Jiang’s growing authority, the official People’s Daily and other major newspapers Tuesday gave prominent page-one display to a ceremony led by Jiang giving six key military officers promotions to full generals. The officers, all Jiang associates who already held senior positions, were the first to be promoted to this rank since 1988, the official China Daily said.

Jiang, 66, who is also chairman of the Central Military Commission and general secretary of the Communist Party, holds by far the most powerful collection of titles in China. But his real strength has long been suspect, for until recently he lacked a strong network of personal supporters in the army or government. That may be changing.

Jiang, a political hard-liner and economic reformer, recently has given a series of well-publicized speeches on a wide range of topics, including economic affairs, which had not previously been a key focus of his public responsibilities.

Collectively, the men promoted Monday exert enormous influence over China’s armed forces, a key foundation of political power here. The promotions fit into an effort by Jiang, who has no military background except his chairmanship of the Central Military Commission, to assume greater real authority over the army.

Jiang’s actions come while Premier Li has been out of public view since April 24, hospitalized apparently from a mild heart attack. Officials at first said Li was suffering from a cold. In May, a Foreign Ministry spokesman dropped all explanation except to say that Li “is recovering” from an unspecified illness and that “his doctors have advised that he still needs some time to rest.”

Since then, the government has declined to make any new statements about Li’s condition. Well-connected Chinese have been saying for weeks that Li, 64, had really suffered a heart attack, something the Foreign Ministry has refused to either confirm or deny.

Analysts are watching to see whether Li reappears to meet his Malaysian counterpart Mahathir Mohammed, due here this week.

One of the most hard-line members of the successor generation of Chinese leaders, Li is widely unpopular both at home and abroad because of his prominent role in advocating the use of force to crush the 1989 Tian An Men Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing. Many Chinese believe that while Li’s illness is real, it also is being used by other powerful leaders to reduce his power.

When the Foreign Ministry announced in May that Li was resting on the doctor’s instructions, a half-serious joke quickly spread that the orders came from “Dr. Deng.”

“Deng is trying to get rid of his enemies--and one of them is Li Peng, because he knows that Li is considered foolish and is hated by the people,” said a Chinese man with family connections high in the party. The source said he believes Li really did have a heart ailment but that Deng was determined to use the illness against him. Such comments reflect the atmosphere within fairly senior party circles more than any genuine knowledge of Deng’s actions and motives.

Deng himself has not appeared in public for months, and there have been rumors that he suffered a mild stroke this spring. Deng, 88, played a key role in elevating Jiang to be the official “core” of the successor generation of leadership and presumably continues to serve as his key protector.

Li’s role in the government is being filled in his absence by Vice Premier Zhu Rongji, one of the most reformist members of China’s top leadership and a man with a favorable reputation in the West.

One of the key problems still facing the Chinese leadership is how to deal with continuing anger, at home and abroad, over the June 4, 1989, massacre that ended the Tian An Men Square protests. If Li, the most prominent symbol of the crackdown, can be removed from power for genuine illness, that could provide a way to partially refurbish the government’s image without admitting wrongdoing.