CHINA:China's Communist Party leadership is busily setting out the order of business for its five-yearly congress next month, and the politburo said yesterday that a key item on the agenda would be changing the party constitution to include the ideas of Chinese president Hu Jintao.
The politburo has decided to revise the party's charter to include Mr Hu's "scientific concept of development", which has formed the basis for the campaign against a widening gap between the urban rich and rural poor, as well as efforts to stamp out corruption, which is seen as potentially destabilising the party's grip on power.
The change in the charter is a sign of how the president is working to consolidate his grip on the reins of power in China.
In the absence of direct elections, many of the changes in the politburo and other key leadership organs happen after arcane negotiations and secret deals behind closed doors. Provincial strengths carry weight, as does influence within key elements of the party structure - a major element of Mr Hu's power base is in the Communist Youth League.
China has undergone fundamental changes in the past 25 years and the ruling Communist Party has shown remarkable flexibility in marrying market forces to socialist ideology. However, the language of how the party operates is unchanged from the days when the Iron Curtain divided Europe and Mao Zedong held sway over a China largely closed to outsiders.
The revision of the constitution places the president, who is also party leader and head of the army, in the pantheon of Chinese leaders by enshrining his ideas alongside Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and Jiang Zemin's "Three Represents" doctrine, which paved the way for the Chinese version of capitalism.
The revision is aimed at reflecting "the latest development of the localisation of Marxism in China", according to a Xinhua news agency report.
The "political catchphrase" neatly sums up Mr Hu's stated aims as leader of the world's most populous nation and "stresses people-centred development that is comprehensive, co-ordinated and sustainable", Xinhua reported.
"It refers to co-ordinated development between urban and rural areas, among different regions, between economic and social development, between the development of man and nature, and between domestic development and opening up to the outside world," the report added.
Beijing is being prepared for the 17th party congress, which begins on October 15th and is China's biggest political event in five years. As well as setting out the country's political goals for the next few years, it will offer a chance for the 64-year-old president to consolidate his position and possibly name a successor.
A priority for Mr Hu is to shake off the residual influence of his predecessor, Mr Jiang (81). The president replaced Mr Jiang as general secretary of the Communist Party's central committee at the 16th congress in 2002. He then replaced him as state president in 2003 and military chief in 2004, completing China's first smooth transition of leadership since the 1949 revolution.
But Mr Jiang, whose power base is in Shanghai, has continued to wield power behind the scenes through allies in key positions.
Mr Hu has to juggle the demands of his reformist backers and the conservative old guard, who are unhappy at market reforms and the introduction of controversial laws they see as betraying socialist principles.