Hu Jintao faced great resistance. The first crisis of Hu's leadership happened during the outbreak of SARS in 2003. Following strong criticism of China for initially covering up and responding slowly to the crisis, he dismissed several party and government officials, including the health minister, who supported Jiang, and the Mayor of Beijing, Meng Xuenong, widely perceived as Hu's protégé. On 15 November 2002, a new Hu Jintao-led Politburo nominally succeeded Jiang. Although Jiang, then 76, stepped down from the powerful General Secretary and the Politburo Standing Committee to make way for a younger "fourth generation" of leadership, there was speculation that
Orders of precedence in China overall on the leadership protocol hierarchy, immediately after Hu Jintao. At the conclusion of the 18th Party Congress, when Hu Jintao retired as General Secretary, Jiang was ranked 2nd overall, after Xi Jinping, and Hu Jintao was ranked 3rd, after Jiang. Since 2013, judging mostly based on the official obituary notices of various deceased party officials, Jiang and Hu seemed to have progressively moved "lower" on the protocol strata, first below all current members of the Politburo Standing Committee, and as of 2014, behind all members of the sitting Politburo. At major functions, Jiang and Hu sat immediately next to