In an analysis by China’s Mingpao newspaper, Zhong Guoren signals the potential loss of public trust in President Hu Jintao’s “Three Principles for the People,” claiming that Hu is “miles away from the average Chinese man’s expectation of him.”

The origination of power, a key issue in Chinese modern society, is highlighting a greater gap between Hu and his predecessors, an older generation of introspective leadership with a more top-down approach towards power and control of the people.

Hu proposed the “Three New Principles of the People” at the beginning of his leadership with a focus on power, concern and benefit for the people, a proposal which caused a happy stir throughout China.

Zhu Houze, the former Propaganda Department of the CCP, thought that the “Three New Principles of the People” would be better with the added phrase that “power is given by the people.” Zhu’s comment published in Phoenix Satellite TV’s monthly magazine revealed a previously unseen side of Hu, who ordered a retraction of the article. Hu’s advice was to “be careful of someone who is against the Chinese Communist Party by amending the constitution.” He also ordered a thorough investigation of the incident.

Zhong Guoren also raised concern of the differing understanding between Hu and citizens about China’s current regime. The Chinese people are still concerned about the socialist system having the power to conceal such a grave health situation and practice fraud, as displayed in the handling of the SARS outbreak in 2003.

The CCP forbid media to tell the public the truth of the outbreak, hoping that hiding the serious epidemic would build a more favourable social atmosphere for the CCP’s 16th National Congress. As a result, SARS was allowed to spread abroad. It wasn’t until Dr. Jiang Yanyong exposed the government’s duplicity that officials started to take action. Hu didn’t acknowledge this as a problem, instead claiming “superiority of the socialistic system to fight against SARS internally.”

Many regret Hu’s continued commitment to a false representation of the June 4, 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, which he expressed recently after meeting with the president of France. Zhong sees the June 4 incident as a threshold that the CCP hasn’t overcome. Without correcting this mistake positively, the incident will quite possibly become a much heavier burden on the legitimacy of the regime.

Hu Jintao came into military power last month at the fourth plenary session of the 16th central committee of the Chinese Communist Party. He is now the leader of the CCP and has gained its executive, legislative and judicial powers.

Although China’s media is controlled by the state, Zhong’s article was said to have been published with the aim of preventing Chinese and foreigners living in China from having unrealistic expectations of their new leader.