Army shapes Jiang into 'Maoist' cult figure

Jiang is urging his people to 'liberate thoughts, seek truth from facts, and progress with the times.'

(CNN) -- The Chinese army is building a Maoist-style personality cult around President Jiang Zemin, an indication he may remain commander-in-chief for a few more years.

For the past few weeks, different divisions of the People's Liberation Army have held special sessions to study the president's speeches and pronouncements.

Thursday's edition of the Liberation Army Daily carried a lengthy commentary saying Jiang's "Theory of the Three Represents" was an important dictum that would "steer and guide" army construction into the future.

The theory, which says the party should be representative of the best productive and cultural forces, has been touted as a guiding light not just for professional soldiers but also teachers, doctors and engineers working in the forces.

In ideological indoctrination classes, representatives from army departments and the quasi-military People's Armed Police also swore allegiance to the principle of the party's "absolute leadership" over the gun.

In a throwback to the days of the Cultural Revolution (1966-76), the army media have described in detail how visits by Jiang to different regions of the country have worked wonders for these places.

Economic leaps and bounds

In another Liberation Army Daily piece, a factory manager in Tibet recalled how instructions that Jiang had given during a 1990 tour of Lhasa was responsible for the leaps-and-bounds growth of the local economy.

Similarly, residents in a poor village in Sichuan Province told the paper how Jiang's visits in 1991 and 1999 had engendered a near-miraculous face-lift of the locality.

Military analysts said while Jiang, 75, was expected to step down from his position as party general secretary at the 16th party congress this autumn, he would likely hang on to the position of chairman of the party's Central Military Commission (CMC).

There are no retirement regulations governing cadres serving on party units in spite of the general consensus that 70 should be the retirement age for senior cadres.

New premier

Meanwhile, the prospects for Vice-Premier Wen Jiabao becoming premier next year seem to have improved.

This is despite the fact that while Wen is a protégé of incumbent Premier Zhu Rongji, Jiang is pushing for another vice-premier, Wu Banguo for the position of head of government.

On Wednesday, Wen, 59, met with a visiting delegation of Japanese parliamentarians.

And late last month, he held talks with a senior government delegation from the United Kingdom.

Diplomatic analysts in Beijing said since Wen's portfolio is finance and agriculture, his taking on diplomatic functions was an indication that he was about to be given wider responsibilities.