CHINA: The leader of China's Communist Party, Mr Hu Jintao, ruled out the prospect of multi-party democracy on the eve of a crucial meeting of the party's ruling elite, but the Chinese president renewed his calls to support reform.
The Communist Party's 198-member Central Committee meets for a four-day plenum to tighten the party's grip on power. Much attention will focus on whether former leader Mr Jiang Zemin, who remains as head of the army, will resign at the meeting.
The gathering is vitally important, analysts say, as its outcome will give a clearer idea of the direction which the world's most populous - and increasingly one of the most most powerful - countries is headed.
The Communist Party is betting on economic growth to maintain its grip on power. But President Hu made clear that its efforts to swell the economy would not include embracing parliamentary democracy.
"History indicates that indiscriminately copying Western political systems is a blind alley for China," Mr Hu told a gathering to mark the 50th anniversary of the founding of the National People's Congress, or parliament.
Sometimes living in post-modern Beijing, with its skyscrapers, big cars and Chanel and Gucci shops, it is easy to forget this is the capital of one of the world's last remaining communist countries.
But the president's speech, quoted on the official state news agency Xinhua, was full of the rhetoric familiar from the hectoring ideological tracts of the Soviet era.
"It is a must to completely overthrow the political system of the exploiting class and establish a brand new people's democratic political system under which the people act as the master of the country," he said.
China's existing people's congress system had "vitality and superiority integrating the basic principles of Marxism with the actual conditions of China," Mr Hu said.
Top of the meeting's agenda will be reformist Mr Hu's vision of perpetuating Communist Party rule through good governance - basically partyspeak for more transparency and official checks and balances, the central planks of his reform policies.
The Communist Party, founded in Shanghai in 1921, has ruled with an iron fist since it came to power after the revolution in 1949. But it has experimented with modest reforms in recent years.
The plenum agenda will feature policies close to Mr Hu's heart, including calls to "govern for the sake of the people". Mr Hu has made strong efforts to put himself forward as a man of the people, publicly championing the rural poor and even visiting AIDS patients.
But in a sign of the tussle at the top of the party, the agenda also includes pro-Jiang elements, including a nod to the former leader's philosophical treatise known as the Three Represents.
Mr Jiang (78) is trying to retain power and influence against the Mr Hu (61), who replaced him as party chief in 2002 and as president in 2003.
Mr Jiang held on to leadership of the party's powerful Central Military Commission (CMC), however, giving him control of the military.
Some China-watchers say Mr Hu is gaining the upper hand in this murky battle of attrition, as his reformist ideals prevail over those of Mr Jiang. But others say the wily Mr Jiang is still the top dog - running the army, he has his finger on the trigger.
"The political manoeuvrings in Beijing aren't exactly a 'power struggle'," John Tkacik, a former US diplomat and intelligence officer in Taiwan and China, wrote in the Asia Times.
"Chairman Mao Zedong's dictum was 'All power flows from the barrel of a gun', and thus, as CMC chairman, Jiang is commander-in-chief of the military - which ultimately trumps Hu's titles as national president and party general secretary," he said.
Mr Jiang is said to be unhappy with Mr Hu's handling of the economy and he and his allies in the country's economic powerhouse Shanghai are blamed with blocking reforms. They are also seen as hardline on Taiwan and Hong Kong. The former president is also keen to secure his political legacy alongside the great leaders of Chinese communism, which means he may not step down just yet.