VOR DEBATE - China opts for change?

Beijing is a city on high alert - with thousands of extra police officers deployed and vehicle checkpoints set up across the capital. It’s all because China is about to see momentous change. More than two thousand two hundred delegates from all the country have gathering for a Communist Party Congress that will see a new leader anointed. The Congress itself will play little part in deciding on who that will be. But Xi Jinping, the son of a former comrade of Mao Tse-tung, is universally expected to replace President Hu Jintao at the top of the ruling Communist party. His accession to the post has been decided upon by the party elite, while he’s expected to assume the Presidency in March next year. So who is Xi Jinping – and will he take China in a new direction? VoR’s Hywel Davies discusses this with Joseph Cheng, Professor of Political Science at the City University of Hong Kong; Zhengxu Wang, Associate Professor of Contemporary Chinese Studies and Politics; Merlene Emerson Chair of the Chinese Liberal Democrats; and Rod Wye, Associate Fellow at the think-tank Chatham House.