China's Jiang Yields Control Of Army to Successor

Beijing - A long struggle at the heart of China's communist leadership was settled last night when the former president Jiang Zemin, who was paramount leader for a decade, relinquished his last lever of state power.

Mr Jiang's retirement as head of the armed forces was announced after a meeting of the Communist Party central committee. It ended two years of in-fighting that had threatened to become public and which, one diplomat said, was"fluid" to the end.

The hold Mr Jiang's position gave him over his successor as party general secretary and state president, Hu Jintao, was never clear in the secretive world of Chinese politics. But, as Mao Tse-tung said, power comes from the barrel of the gun, and his agreement to hand over control of the People's Liberation Army should remove the last doubt as to his anointed heir's grip on authority.

Mr Hu is now likely to press ahead with internal party reform, in the hope of reducing the corruption that remains the greatest risk to its rule. But political openness is not on his agenda.

Mr Jiang, 78, was plucked from relative obscurity to lead the party after the Tiananmen Square massacre 15 years ago. At first he seemed a short-term choice, lacking in charisma, but he was politically astute at home and impressed leaders abroad with his command of English and an unexpected common touch, such as public renderings of Elvis Presley songs.

Mr Hu spent long years in backward parts of the country during his rise to power. The only hint of colour in his official biography, a place in his university ballroom dancing team, was removed when he became party general secretary two years ago.

Since then he has had to work in the shadow of Mr Jiang, who used his military office and a clique of supporters in the politburo to exert a veto over policy. He could still try to pull strings, but is considered to lack the necessary respect, or fear, engendered by Mao or Deng Xiaoping.

Mr Jiang is now said to be concerned above all with preserving his legacy for future communist historians.

He has presented himself as a paramount leader in the mould of Mao and Deng, with propaganda posters showing the three of them in heroic poses. He invented a political philosophy to follow Mao Tse-tung Thought and Deng Xiaoping Theory, which all cadres must study.

His"Important Thought of the Three Represents" may not have the same ring, but could be just as significant: it demands that the Party represent all sectors of society: businessmen as well as workers and intellectuals.