Generations of Chinese Leadership - Fourth Generation

Fourth Generation

2002 saw the first orderly transition of power in the Communist Party of China in accordance with rules on term limits. The new leaders were elected to the Communist Party's Politburo in 2002, and took up their governmental positions in 2003, while the most prominent of their "third generation" predecessors stepped down at the same time.

Thus, the era of the "fourth generation" is officially regarded to have begun in 2003, and lasted until 2012, when the next election for the party leadership occurred. The prominent leaders included Hu Jintao (as General Secretary), Wu Bangguo, Wen Jiabao, Jia Qinglin, Zeng Qinghong and Li Changchun. It is also known as the "republican generation" or the Hu-Wen Administration. These were promoted to top leadership at the 16th Party Congress and remained in power until the 18th Party Congress in 2012. This generation of leaders, born mainly in the World War II years from 1939 to 1944, represented a new technocratic style governance and a less centralized political structure. The majority of this generation of leaders were engineers whose academic lives were disrupted by the Cultural Revolution and, unlike both their predecessors and likely successors, have spent very little time overseas. The dominant political ideology of this era was Hu's Scientific Development Concept and a goal for a Harmonious Society.