HONG KONG – Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua was once overlooked for promotion by President Xi Jinping, but through deft maneuvering and intra-Communist Party alliance-building, the 57-year-old is fast emerging as the paramount leader’s most likely eventual successor.
His emergence comes at a time when many question if Xi’s eight-year rule as Communist Party General Secretary-cum-President is as unassailable as it seemed just six months ago, before the global pandemic hit China’s turbocharged economic growth, tensions with the United States hit a fever pitch and Yangtze River floods deluged several key southern provinces.
By any measure, 2020 has stress-tested Xi’s rule as never before, to the extent that some observers and analysts have sharpened their focus on who might be next in line. Such
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