NEWS: The Doctored Photographs That Hint At A Chinese Power Struggle.

Photographs released in different sections of the Chinese press appear to point to a power struggle within the Chinese Communist party.Mr Hu,a prominent member of the Chinese politburo and an economic moderniser distributed a doctored photograph of the former president Mr Deng shaking hands with him.The released photograph explicitly deleted former president Mr Jiang Zemin,a traditionalist who remains in control of China's military.The dispute is thought to be over whether Mr Jiang should retire and withdraw from government and over economic policy.


On August 11th, 2004: Hong Kong newspaper Wen Wei Po released this photograph of former leader Mr Deng and Mr Hu shaking hands, with a dark background.The caption explained that that Mr Hu had donated this photograph to the newspaper which is a supporter of Hu.

Then on August 16th, 2004 the official Xinhua news agency ran the same photograph but with an audience behind.Again Xinhua is a supporter of Mr Hu.

Finally,on August 19th, 2004: The Oriental Liaowang ,a supporter of former president Mr Jiang who is still head of the military, published the picture with Mr Hu and Mr Deng in the same posture as in other two photos but with a background that included Mr Jiang Zemin in between taken at a party conference in 1992.



I don't know much about Chinese politics.I don't know for instance what the views of the men are on an issue like Taiwan.

[edit on 10-9-2004 by John bull 1]

Hummmmm. change in communism is usually a good thing, when talking about younger more modernistic leaders replacing older hardliners, and that seems to be what is happening here.
If china wants its economy to keep growing, then a more modernistic global approach would probably require them dropping the taiwan issue.

I personally believe that things are only looking up for China. They've been taking steps (slowly but surely) to catch up to the modern world and at least partially embrace Western ideals (at least economically). I think that this is a good sign. We should expect China to start playing a larger role in the global communtity in the next 10-15 years. Hooray! Maybe WWIII can still be averted. Perhaps when all of this is said and done, they'll help us with North Korea lol. Wouldn't that be ironic lol?

...or the photograph could just be a Photoshopped enhancement to the picture itself, just for asthetic reasons...

Well I guess now that they have internet they have also photo shop too

obviously the three photos are tampered with and who knows may be they just like to recycle photos.

Or they are hidding something.

Its an old Soviet tactic. You look at some of the pictures of Stalin over the years and the smae photos will show people who are out of favor being airbrushed out of existance. However, in this case, I think someone was just being lazy and reused the same pic to save some time. All media outlets have stock footage that they use all the time.

Looks like you were right John Bull. The story is from Quayle's site, but the article is from the New York Times.

BEIJING, Sept. 19 - China's president, Hu Jintao, replaced Jiang Zemin as the country's military chief and de facto top leader on Sunday, state media announced, completing the first orderly transfer of power in the history of China's Communist Party.

Mr. Hu, who became Communist Party chief in 2002 and president in 2003, now commands the state, the military and the ruling party. He will set both foreign and domestic policy in the world's most populous country, which now has the world's seventh-largest economy and is rapidly emerging as a great power.

Hu takes full power in China