"Analysis: China's succession pressures stoke security overdrive"

(Reuters) - Make money blog - China has embarked on a tough security drive aimed at extinguishing threats before a leadership succession, placing iron control at home well ahead of any worry about foreign criticism.

In recent weeks, security forces have stepped up detentions of dissidents, tightened censorship and threatened to revoke visas of foreign reporters who don't heed new reporting limits.

Online calls for Middle East-inspired pro-democracy gatherings are their immediate reason for alarm. But with the coming power hand-over from President Hu Jintao to heir-apparent Xi Jinping and his comrades in late 2012, the jitters about order will persist.

"The tightening-up now is directly related to the Middle East," said Liu Junning, a Beijing political thinker purged in a past pre-succession crackdown. "In the longer term, I think all of this, including the ideological crackdown, is related to the succession."

Liu spoke from personal experience. In 2000, he was dismissed from the state-run Chinese Academy of Social Sciences because of his outspoken advocacy of democratic reform.

Many Beijing intellectuals at the time said Hu Jintao, then a Vice President being groomed for the top job, pushed out Liu and other dissenting scholars to show that he too could act tough.

Now, as Hu and his cohort prepare to step down, Xi and other likely successors face similar pressure to prove their resolve.

That could make human rights a persistent point of tension with the United States and other Western governments that have voiced dismay about recent attacks on foreign reporters trying to cover the site of the proposed protests, which never happened.

"The pressure to protect stability is growing and growing," said Liu. "They'll keep it up as long as they can, even longer."

UNHAPPY MEMORIES

source: reuters.com

Leaders have deep memories of the elite splits and popular protests against Party rule that erupted in 1989, ending in troops shooting down hundreds of protesters in central Beijing.

Now, with the annual session of the National People's Congress, China's parliament, opening on Saturday, they fear even small gatherings could blemish their show of unity.

China's capital has mobilized 739,000 police officers, officials, security guards and residents recruited into local patrols to guard against mishaps during the parliament, reported the official China News Service.

"The succession has started, and that is generally a period when the Party is particularly keen on projecting a picture of social harmony and popular content," said Nicholas Bequelin, a senior researcher in the Asia division of Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group.

Party leaders are also jumpy about inflation, which fueled public discontent before the 1989 pro-democracy protests, as well as the Middle East unrest, said Murray Scot Tanner, a researcher who studies China's domestic security policies.

Posted in: Analis