CHINA: The Chinese leader, Mr Jiang Zemin, bowed out after 13 years at the close of a 16th Communist Party congress that welcomed capitalists into ranks and brought a younger generation into power.
The line-up in the new politburo standing committee will become known today but it will be headed by the enigmatic Mr Hu Jintao, who is already deputy president and deputy general secretary.
Retiring with Mr Jiang are five others, including the hardliner Mr Li Peng, the blunt premier Mr Zhu Rongji and Mr Jiang's rival, Mr Li Ruihuan. All those retiring are over 70, except for Mr Li Ruihuan (68), the only relatively liberal figure in the leadership, whose retirement comes as a surprise. The official Xinhua news agency headline said "Jiang wins respect for absence in new central party committee", lending credence to rumours that Mr Jiang had struggled hard to hang on to power as long as possible but had failed at the last moment. Mr Jiang was unexpectedly picked for the job 13 years ago by
Mr Deng Xiaoping after he dismissed Mr Zhao Ziyang for supporting the student protests. After an uncertain start, Mr Jiang steered China doggedly towards free-market policies.
The closing resolution at the congress said the party's constitution had been amended to include the "important thought of 'Three Represents' as its guiding ideology that the party must uphold
for a long time".
However, it failed to credit its author, Jiang Zemin, by name so that he is not ranked alongside Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Marx and Lenin. Mr Jiang's theory means the party now formally welcomes not only workers, farmers, soldiers and intellectuals but also any "advanced element of other social strata" into its ranks, a key step in changing it from secretive revolutionary party committed to violent class struggle into a more conventional ruling party.
In the new Central Committee, according to Xinhua, 180 out of its 356 members are new faces and more than 20 per cent are under 50. This demonstrates "the advancement of political civilisation in China", Xinhua said.
In his closing speech, Mr Jiang said this vote shows the "party's central collective leadership has realised the smooth transition from the old to the new".
Among those retiring is Mr Hua Guofeng, who briefly ruled China after Mao's death in 1976 when Deng and a group of generals arrested the Gang of Four and started China on its economic reforms.
Although some hope the generational switch will open the door to political reform, the ritualistic proceedings took place as before.
Voting was held behind closed doors but state television later showed Mr Jiang and other leaders queuing up and dropping red-andpink slips into a ballot box in front of a giant hammer and sickle.
The voting is public but the counting is secret. There were 10 more names on the list of candidates for the Central Committee than the 198 seats available.
Afterwards, the press was admitted into the Great Hall of the People in time to see the 2,000 delegates lift their arms in quick succession to show their approval of the amended party constitution and two policy speeches.
"Opposing votes?" asked Mr Jiang, but there was not one. Mr Jiang remains as China's head of state until next March when the National People's Congress meets to vote on government posts. After that he may retire to a villa in Shanghai, which standsm waiting for him.
It is still not clear whether he will retain his final key position as chairman of the Central Military Commission, a post that Deng Xiaoping held on to after he had given up his other formal titles.
The new line-up of the 11-man military commission has not been revealed but two of its most powerful figures, Gen Zhang Wannian and Gen Chi Haotian, have retired from the Central Committee, as they are both over 70.
How much power the retiring leaders will wield after this meeting is open to speculation. In the 1980s, a retired coterie of octogenarians was powerful enough to ignore party rules and throw out several party leaders.
Yet the collective retirement of a whole generation of leaders, while they are still in good health, is unprecedented. The message is that a new leaf is being turned and the incoming leadership will have a free hand.