Generations of Chinese Leadership - Terminology

Terminology

While in English the chronological leadership groups are commonly referred to as "generations of Chinese leadership", there is no exact equivalent expression in Chinese. The usual term in official discourse for such a group is a "leadership collective", which are counted in generations. Thus, for example, the "first generation" of leaders identified below are labelled as "the first generation leadership collective". In official discourse, they are also not viewed as leaders of the state (the People's Republic of China), but rather leaders of the party (the Communist Party of China). In the Communist Party's official discourse, the "generational" division and identification of the "core leader" for each of the first, second and third generations was set down during the leadership of Jiang Zemin. This division and identification was not uncontroversial at the time, since the party had hitherto regarded his immediate predecessors as the party's general secretary, Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang, as its leaders, and regarded Deng Xiaoping as the "power behind the throne" rather than a formal leader. Jiang's successors have maintained this generational division, but have retreated from identifying a "core leader" in the fourth generation, and the succeeding general secretary Hu Jintao has never been identified in official announcements as the "core" of the fourth generation.

The "leadership collective" at any one time usually, but not always, correlates with the members of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, with the leader of the party (the Chairman or, after 1983, the General Secretary) often, but not always, the leader of this leadership collective.