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Update-China The big issue in China in the second half of 2002 is "who's next." According to party rules, President Jiang Zemin, 76,is due to step down from his post as head of the Chinese Communist Party, his real base of power. Next year, he will finish his second term as President of the country, and the constitution calls on him to retire at that point. The party leadership has been grooming Hu Jintao, 59, to replace Jiang, and all the signs are that Hu will indeed do so at some point. The critical question is at what point the transition will occur. Hu has, for instance, made some high profile trips abroad, including the United States, a sign that he is indeed slated to take the reins. However, there are even more significant indications that Jiang and other members of the aging current leadership plan to hold onto power in some form whoever actually holds the key offices--much as was the case when Deng Xiaoping held no important official positions but still was the dominant leader by working behind the scenes. The clearest evidence of this came in late August 2002, when the CCP announced that its Party Congress would begin on 8 November, not in early October as is usually the case. Many observers took that as a sign that there was a serious power struggle taking place within the party leadership involving Jiang, Li Peng (the party's second ranking leader), and Prime Minister Zhu Rongji.
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