The Forbidden City Reveals Its Secrets

This is a global election year (Russia, France, Egypt, Iran, Korea, and many other countries), but media attention is focused on the US presidential elections in November, while other electoral events receive less coverage.
Yet, this fall the political leadership of China, the second global power, will be elected. In its 18th National Congress, the Chinese Communist Party will bring to power the fifth generation of leaders succeeding Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao (and historical figures such as Mao and Deng). This important assembly, held every five years, has traditionally been the occasion for China to present its new leaders to the world. In the past, the selection was made behind closed walls, sheltered from unwanted eyes and ears, according to a ritual more in line with Chinese imperial tradition than Leninist dictates. The debate between the various factions of the communist party could be very fierce (just think about the issue of Mao's succession), but only the final outcome made it to the outside world; even the political preferences of certain high-level leaders remained mysterious. Only political refugees and clandestine documents out of Hong Kong made the West aware of intra-elite arguments and clashes.
Seven out of the nine members of the Politburo's Permanent Committee will be substituted by the congress. The successors will not be known with certainty until a few months before their actual appointment. The new party secretary is likely to be Xi Jinping (one of the two members that would be confirmed), who visited the US last February to get to know and make himself known to the first world power.
Traditionally, the two major factions of the communist party are rooted in urban centers and rural areas. The urban faction is mostly composed of well-off people, the children of old cadres, and has reformist tendencies; the rural faction voices the demands of peasant classes, which have not benefited from economic growth, and has strong redistributive instincts. The future ruling group will be less homogenous than in the past; it could well not find an agreement on the reforms to be adopted to avoid a sharp reduction in economic growth and attendant social tensions. The recent China 2030 report drafted by the World Bank with important Chinese agencies, highlights critical points and solutions.
This political stalemate seems to be the reason behind the reform announcements made during last year by the expiring leadership; usually, it's the new leadership charting the new path for reform.
The most surprising fact was the removal and arrest of Bo Xilai, party secretary in Chongqing (one of country's five autonomous municipalities, with more than 35 million inhabitants) and the temporary disappearance of his wife, Gu Kailai, power lawyer and powerful manager, involved (as main culprit?) in the murder of a British consultant. Power, sex, death: more Hollywood than Beijing, that's for sure... Bo Xilai was the leading exponent of the neo-maoist current, advocate of redistribution policies, campaigner against corruption and organized crime. The accusation brought before him is that he used illegal methods in the repression of citizens whose only fault was being his political adversaries. This was probably about removing a major obstacle to the succession already approved by the majority. The surprise comes from the ample publicity given to these events: technology defeated politics, and text messages made the whole world know facts that should have stayed confined behind the walls of the Forbidden City.