China : key Communist congress to last a week

China's ruling Communist Party said Wednesday its highly anticipated congress would last a week, as it signalled that Vice President Xi Jinping had moved closer to taking the reins of power. Xi was tapped for a key post overseeing the five-yearly congress that opens Thursday. At the meeting, he is expected to replace President Hu Jintao as party chief in a once-a-decade power transition. "The preparatory meeting passed the appointment of Comrade Xi Jinping as secretary general of the congress," said party spokesman Cai Mingzhao, adding that the next set of leaders would be unveiled at the end of the meeting. The move likely signals that Xi's much-expected move toward the country's top leadership post is on track. Xi, 59, has been number two to Hu since 2008. His likely appointment to head the all-powerful party will set the stage for his promotion to president of the world's most populous nation, expected next March. Xi and the rest of the future leadership take the reins amid growing pressure for the party to reform to curb rising corruption and spur economic growth, which recently slowed to its lowest quarterly rate since 2009."(The congress) will be one of great importance, when China is in a crucial stage of building a modern and prosperous society in all respects, taking on reform and opening up, and accelerating the transformation of the growth pattern," Cai said at a press briefing. He added that the congress would close on November 14. The party had not previously said how long the sensitive meeting would last. Eight out of 10 Chinese want political reform and two-thirds feel the government should face greater public scrutiny, according to a survey of residents of major cities published Wednesday in the state-run Global Times newspaper. Elements in the ruling party are widely believed to favour some form of political reform to bolster its legitimacy, but the exact nature of any internal debate remains unknown due to the secrecy surrounding its affairs. Preparations for the congress have been rocked by the months-long controversy over former senior leader Bo Xilai. Bo, the former party boss in the central mega-city of Chongqing, was once seen as a candidate for promotion to the party's top echelons. But he was brought down earlier this year by murder allegations against his wife.Preparations for the closed-door power handover come as Americans re-elected President Barack Obama in the full glare of the world's media, prompting pungent comment by Chinese Internet users at their own lack of democracy. "Why has the Chinese people's interest in the US presidential election reached a new high? Because the Chinese people have given up their own affairs... they are not allowed to handle them!" said a posting on a microblog service run by Internet giant Tencent. Americans "did not dispatch a single soldier, did not ban knives, did not ban photocopies, did not recruit more than a million volunteers", said Er Hei Xi Fu, in reference to extensive security preparations for the Beijing meeting. China has witnessed explosive growth in Internet usage since the last Communist Party transition in 2002, with the online community of 538 million posing a huge challenge to the party's attempts to shape public opinion.