BEIJING (Reuters) – Retired leaders in China’s Communist Party used a last-minute straw poll to block two pro-reform candidates from joining the policymaking standing committee, including one who had alienated party elders, sources with ties to the leadership said.

Two sources said the influential retirees flexed their muscles in landmark informal polls taken before last week’s 18th party congress, where the seven–member standing committee, the apex of China’s power structure, was unveiled.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Retired leaders in China’s Communist Party used a last-minute straw poll to block two pro-reform candidates from joining the policymaking standing committee, including one who had alienated party elders, sources with ties to the leadership said.

Two sources said the influential retirees flexed their muscles in landmark informal polls taken before last week’s 18th party congress, where the seven–member standing committee, the apex of China’s power structure, was unveiled.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s commerce minister was surprisingly blocked from a spot on the ruling Communist Party’s elite body during a conclave this week, sources said, a rare snub for an official that could raise questions about trade policies during his tenure.

The failure of Chen Deming to secure a seat on the 25-member Politburo marks one of the few surprises to emerge from the party’s five-yearly congress that wrapped this week with the anointing of a new slate of top leaders who will run the world’s second largest economy.

BEIJING, Nov 15 (Reuters) – China’s seven-man Politburo
Standing Committee, a group whose reformist credentials are few
and far between, was in the spotlight on Thursday as it paraded
before the world to cap a secretive Communist leadership
transition.

But the 18 other people who make up the Politburo -
including two who have exhibited relative openness to political
experimentation and two who were born in the 1960s – will be in
on all major policy decisions for the next five years.

HONG KONG/BEIJING (Reuters) – As China’s Communist Party opened its 18th Congress in Beijing, outgoing President and party chief Hu Jintao was the first senior leader to enter the Great Hall of the People, greeted by thunderous applause from over 2,000 delegates as he walked to his front-row seat.

Hu was followed closely by a man who hasn’t held a formal position of power in China for a decade.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s outgoing leader and his likely successor are pushing the ruling Communist Party to adopt a more democratic process this month for choosing a new leadership, sources said, in an attempt to boost its flagging legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

The extent of the reform would be unprecedented in communist China where elections for the highest tiers of the party, held every five years, have been mainly exercises in rubber-stamping candidates already agreed upon by party power-brokers.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s outgoing leader and his likely successor are pushing the ruling Communist Party to adopt a more democratic process this month for choosing a new leadership, sources said, in an attempt to boost its flagging legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

The extent of the reform would be unprecedented in communist China where elections for the highest tiers of the party, held every five years, have been mainly exercises in rubber-stamping candidates already agreed upon by party power-brokers.

BEIJING (Reuters) – China’s outgoing leader and his likely successor are pushing the ruling Communist Party to adopt a more democratic process this month for choosing a new leadership, sources said, in an attempt to boost its flagging legitimacy in the eyes of the public.

The extent of the reform would be unprecedented in communist China where elections for the highest tiers of the party, held every five years, have been mainly exercises in rubber-stamping candidates already agreed upon by party power-brokers.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Outgoing Chinese president Hu Jintao is keeping the nation and the rest of the world guessing over whether he will seek to hang on as armed forces chief, sources said, highlighting a potentially serious weakness in Beijing’s succession planning.

The question of when Hu will hand over the reins as chairman of the Central Military Commission, the supreme decision-making body for the armed forces, is one of the biggest uncertainties surrounding China’s current transition to a new administration.

BEIJING (Reuters) – Outgoing Chinese president Hu Jintao is keeping the nation and the rest of the world guessing over whether he will seek to hang on as armed forces chief, sources said, highlighting a potentially serious weakness in Beijing’s succession planning.

The question of when Hu will hand over the reins as chairman of the Central Military Commission, the supreme decision-making body for the armed forces, is one of the biggest uncertainties surrounding China’s current transition to a new administration.