China taps new head for helm of Hu's power base

BEIJING, Dec 6 (Reuters) China has appointed one of the deputy Communist Party chiefs in restive Tibet, where President Hu Jintao cut his political teeth, as new head of the influential Communist Youth League, the government said today.

The post was once held by Hu himself, and the Communist Youth League, known as the party's ''helping hand and reserve army'', is still seen as the president's power base and a grooming ground for new leaders.

Former hotel manager Hu Chunhua, who was working in Tibet when Hu Jintao was party secretary in the remote and restive Himalayan region, will take over from Zhou Qiang, who was appointed in October as governor of the southern province of Hunan.

''Recently, the Communist Party has decided to appoint comrade Hu Chunhua as First Secretary of the Communist Youth League, replacing comrade Zhou Qiang,'' the government said on its Web site (www.gov.cn) in a brief statement.

Hu Chunhua, 43, is a native of the central province of Hubei, and first started working in Tibet in 1983, according to his official biography. He worked as a manager of a state-run hotel in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, from 1985 to 1987.

A graduate of the prestigious Peking University's Chinese department, he became one of Tibet's party secretaries in 2003.

Hu Chunhua's appointment is the latest in a series of provincial leadership reshuffles for the president, who has been juggling positions in the run-up to the 17th Party Congress, a five-yearly Communist Party meeting to be held in late 2007.

The congresses are seen as opportunities for leaders to consolidate power and dictate the course of the party for the next five years, and Hu is widely expected to ease out top members of the old guard of Jiang Zemin, his predecessor.

Recently he named a political ally, former Agriculture Minister Du Qinglin, as Communist Party boss in the southwestern province of Sichuan, the fourth of his allies to be given a job with a rank equivalent to cabinet minister this year.

Li Keqiang, the party boss in the northeastern province of Liaoning who is tipped as a front-runner to succeed Hu Jintao in 2012, is also a former head of the Communist Youth League.

Reuters SRS VP0752