Hu Jintao a leading candidate to succeed Jiang, he had exercised a great deal of political skills between 1992 and 2002 to consolidate his position, and eventually emerged as Jiang's heir apparent in his own right. Hu also benefited from the slow but progressive institutionalization of power succession within the CPC, something his predecessors lacked entirely. Since the early 1980s, the People's Republic of China has been marked by progressive institutionalization and rule by consensus, and moved away from the Maoist authoritarian model. Although a western-style legal institution and rule of law remain to be put in place, Hu's power succession was
Hu Jintao whether or not he was as ill as he had claimed. Martin Seiff of United Press International commented on Putin and Hu, "Both are tough and able authoritarians who had extensive experience of repressing dissent on their rise to the top." Before the opening of the 14th National Congress of the CPC in 1992, senior party leaders, including Deng and Chen Yun, were to select candidates for the Politburo Standing Committee to ensure a smooth transition of power from the so-called second-generation leaders (Deng, Chen, Li Xiannian, Wang Zhen, etc.) to third-generation leaders (Jiang Zemin, Li Peng, Qiao Shi etc.).