What Hu Jintao Leaves Behind

Now that the U.S. presidential election has concluded, the world’s attention is turning to China. November 8 marked the opening of the 18^th Party Congress, China’s version of a political convention at which all the top Communist Party leaders will be announced. While we won’t be treated to the sight of hundreds of millions of Chinese turning out at their local schools and senior citizen centers to vote—although the American Embassy in Beijing did host an invitation-only mock U.S. election for Chinese citizens—the suspense is almost as great. True, we already know that Xi Jinping will be the next president and Li Keqiang the next Premier, but we don’t know who will occupy the other five to seven seats within the top-level Standing Committee of the Politburo. For that, we will have to wait. The Communist Party is savvy enough to know that once the leadership lineup is revealed, no one will pay much attention to the rest of the week-long Congress. No matter what Xinhua says, the world is not waiting for an elucidation of the country’s cultural policies.