China's heir apparent begins key visit to Australia
Updated
The man tipped to be China's next premier Li Keqiang has arrived in Australia. He'll be meeting prime minister Kevin Rudd, and sign a series of agreements on illegal logging, educational exchanges and cultural heritage.
But, more significantly, Mr Li's trip is seen as a sign that the frosty Australia-China relationship is now, finally, starting to thaw, following a difficult time for Canberra and Beijing after the arrest of Rio Tinto executives, the tour of dissident leader Rebiya Kadeer and the collapse of major business deals.
Presenter: Stephen McDonell
Speakers: Professor David Kelly,University of Technology of Beijing; Russell Moses, Beijing-based China analyst;
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STEPHEN MCDONELL: Li Keqiang was being groomed to take over the leadership of China - at least that's what many China watchers were predicting before the most recent party congress. He'd been China's youngest provincial governor and, the line goes that, President Hu Jintao wanted him as his successor.
But President Hu just couldn't get the numbers and instead Xi Jinping from the so-called "Princeling" faction got the nod. It now appears most likely that Li Keqiang, who's visiting Australia, will take over the number two position and become China's premier.
But this speculation about China's political manoeuvres at the most senior levels is at best guess work, even by the experts. The Chinese Communist Party simply doesn't leak.
Yet battles do seem to have been going on over the direction of the country and factions do seem to exist. The trick is to try and work out where the key alliances are.
From Beijing, the University of Technology's Professor David Kelly is one of those who sifts through China's politics. He says Li Keqiang fits into one of two powerful factions.
DAVID KELLY: The distinction which really matters in my mind is between the prince-ling and the youth league group.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: And he's in the youth league group?
DAVID KELLY: He's a youth league type group, and there's a balance between these two groups. And the representative of the prince-lings, that is, people who are born into the families of former high party officials, that person is Xi Jinping. And Xi Jinping is seen as, I would say, slightly shading Li Keqiang as a future influence.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: Either way, Li Keqiang is already one of the most powerful people in China. And he wouldn't be making a visit to Australia unless Beijing had decided to call off the argument with Canberra.
Russell Moses is another Beijing-based China analyst who's been watching Li Keqiang.
RUSSELL MOSES: I think Li is going to Australia because he realises that the difficulties in the relationship have piled up and they need to be addressed in a more formal direct way. And I think that what he sees as well as the leadership as a whole is that the relationship, in order not to be stalemated any further, has to confront some of these problems - problems of openness, problems of Chinese companies wanting to buy up Australian firms, and problems as well about what sort of role Australia wants to play in the region at large.
STEPHEN MCDONELL: At the recent 60 year celebrations of Communist Party rule in China, the climax featured the nine member Politburo Standing Committee holding hands with children and dancing in the street. Li Keqiang at least had the decency to look a little embarrassed.
Those who want more reform in China hold great hope that he and others will soon usher in a new-style of leadership here. Over the next two days, Australia's leaders will get a first-hand taste of what Li is really like.
