From Financial Times:
A few weeks before the five-yearly Communist party congress, Beijing is awash with lists speculating on the new leadership group that will emerge from the meeting in mid-October to take charge of the country until 2012.
The nine-member leadership inner circle is not revealed until the end of the congress, when the new line-up, in order of seniority, is unveiled with dark, theatrical pomp before the media on a stage in the Great Hall of the People .But Hu Jintao, the president, is showing every sign that he is determined to push through a substantial clean-out of the leadership group, still known according to its Leninist roots as the Standing Committee of the Politburo. [Full Text]