Hu Jintao's Failures and His Extremely Conservative Stance on Political Reform
This article analyzes the limitations and political conservatism of Hu Jintao's administration. It points out that the failure of housing price control, loss of control over local authorities, and rampant corruption were not things Hu Jintao alone could determine. At the same time, it explores his extreme rejection of political reform in events such as internet censorship, the construction of the Great Firewall, the suppression of the Jasmine Revolution, and the treatment of Liu Xiaobo's Charter 08.
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Many people still criticize the rampant corruption, the unbridled tyranny of corrupt officials, and the soaring housing prices during the Hu-Wen administration. However, I believe these were not matters that Hu Jintao could decide on his own. For example, regarding the housing issue, the central government successively issued the "Eight Measures" in 2005, the "Six Measures" in 2006, and the "Ten Measures" along with mortgage restriction orders in 2010 to control housing prices, but the results were quite worrisome. At the time, public opinion mocked this as "nine adjustments in ten years, and the more they adjusted, the higher prices rose." Yet, the problem lay primarily not in the direction of the policies, but in Hu Jintao's actual lack of control over local governments. As for the issue of illegal detention facilities by police, the notorious black prisons and Re-education Through Labor system in Beijing at the time were actually beyond Hu Jintao's ability to intervene; these were completely controlled by Zhou Yongkang and Luo Gan, functioning as their personal fiefdoms. Even if Hu Jintao wanted to interfere, he could not reform them. Regarding corruption, Hu Jintao himself did not have much that could be faulted.
Naturally, if he wanted to crack down on corruption, he couldn't touch Jiang Zemin's sphere of influence, and the only thing he could do himself was to engage in less corruption. Indeed, as revealed by the later Panama Papers, a large number of high-ranking officials in the CCP were involved, and Jiang Zemin's family in particular made a fortune. However, there were rarely any mentions of Hu Jintao's family. Of course, the Hu Jintao era was not without problems, but Hu Jintao only knew how to blindly seek stability and pursue the Golden Mean. Imbued with this mindset, Hu Jintao was extremely resistant to political reform, blindly pursuing only political stability. For instance, in terms of internet public opinion, the decade of Hu Jintao's rule coincided with a surge in Chinese netizens from 50 million to 560 million, and official control over the internet during this stage was clearly discernible.
Starting around 2004 and 2005, internet management regulations began to be issued intensively, and the Golden Shield Project and the Great Firewall began to be continuously heightened. Following the July 5th riots in Xinjiang in 2009, Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube were permanently blocked in China. In 2010, Google withdrew from China unable to bear the censorship. In 2011, after the Wenzhou train collision, public opinion on Weibo spun out of control, and the central government began implementing real-name registration for Weibo, using the pretext of combating rumors to manage public opinion. During Hu Jintao's tenure, Liu Xiaobo also drafted Charter 08, and ultimately, Liu Xiaobo was sentenced to 11 years in prison for inciting subversion of state power. The Jasmine Revolution also broke out in China in 2011, and Hu Jintao suppressed it through iron-fisted means. Throughout Hu Jintao's tenure, political reform and democratic experiments remained an absolute red line. Ironically, perhaps the greatest display of courage and the largest democratic experiment during Hu Jintao's tenure was his own promotion of Li Keqiang, but the result ended in failure. One act of courage was traded for a lifetime of self-imposed seclusion.