CHINA:China's 17th national party congress got down to the nitty gritty of behind-door power-broking yesterday as the two men widely considered to be the next generation of leaders were put on display.
Outside China the questions being asked are: will the next leadership be a tolerant, open reign; could China's Gorbachev be in the offing; or will the present mix of economic openness, obsession with harmony and a politically hardline approach favoured by President Hu Jintao and prime minister Wen Jiabao continue?
Inside China, the questions posed are more concerned with stability and whether the current economic growth model can be sustained long enough for the country to take its place as an Asian superpower.
The presentation of Li Keqiang, the 52-year-old party head of the industrial province of Liaoning, and Xi Jinping, the 54-year-old party chief in China's financial capital Shanghai, was perfectly orchestrated.
The Chinese love symmetry and there was great balance and harmony in the way the industrial problem solver, Li Keqiang, and the representative from the commercial megalopolis, Xi Jinping, presented themselves to the rank-and-file and the foreign and state-run Chinese media.
Both are children of the revolution - the Cultural Revolution, that is, the period of paranoid political upheaval and chaos orchestrated by Chairman Mao Zedong between 1966 and 1976. This period saw the careers of many ambitious communists destroyed in a flurry of anti-rightist campaigns and crackdowns on "capitalist roaders". Both also bore witness to the battle for China's soul between the old guard and the reformists, as well as the bloody crackdown on the democracy movement in Beijing and other cities in 1989.
The "fifth generation" of leaders will most likely follow closely in Mr Hu's footsteps, focusing on stability and consensus within the party itself, not yielding an inch on broader democracy but aiming for conformity and unity.
Li Keqiang is seen as a front-runner to succeed Mr Hu, his political mentor who also hails from the immensely influential Communist Youth League, Mr Hu's main power base.
"My main mission at present is to work, but also to learn while working," said the grey-suited Mr Li, who is widely believed to have a strong chance of landing one of the nine seats on the politburo standing committee. He was a law student at the elite Peking University after the Cultural Revolution and is well aware of the damage this kind of political excess can unleash.
Mr Li rose to the top of the party's youth wing, earning a doctorate in economics along the way, before taking the reins in Henan in 1998. He showed his managerial ability in the central province in the way he dealt with scandals such as the Aids crisis created by tainted blood transfusions.
In 2004 he moved to Liaoning, rustbelt home to the cities of Shenyang and Dalian which faced the task of converting decrepit state-owned industry into something the private sector could use. Under his stewardship, Liaoning lured foreign investment from large firms such as Intel and BMW.
Xi Jinping is the son of a veteran revolutionary, one of the "princelings" of the party's political dynasties, which means he is a good compromise candidate within the apparatus. Mr Xi earned his stripes when he dealt with a smuggling scandal in southern Fujian province and presided over remarkable economic growth in the eastern province of Zhejiang, which is effectively Shanghai's hinterland.
He took over the position in Shanghai earlier this year after his predecessor Chen Liangyu was felled in a corruption scandal, the most senior cadre to fall foul of the current crackdown on corruption.
Mr Xi's performance in Shanghai will go a long way in deciding his political future. When Mr Hu went to Shanghai during the National Day holiday this year, it was read as a sign that his star was in the ascendant.
"We have yet to achieve everything the centre has required of us," said Mr Xi, modestly.
Both Mr Xi and Mr Li were originally expected to join the politburo at the 2002 congress, but Mr Hu could not unseat the close allies of his predecessor Jiang Zemin. This time Mr Jiang has less influence and the way should be clear for them.
Anointment as successor in Chinese Communist Party politics is a mixed blessing. Two of Chairman Mao's successors were killed - Liu Shaoqi while in the custody of Red Guards in Henan province in 1969, and Lin Biao, in a mysterious plane crash in 1971.
This fate is unlikely to befall the current heirs to the leadership, whose immediate political fates should become clear on Sunday or Monday, when the congress closes and Mr Hu makes a brief presentation of the new leadership to the media.