Ten years ago China was in the midst of what was being touted as a remarkably predictable and peaceful transfer of power—proof that its authoritarian system of government was capable of implementing term limits and an orderly succession from one top leader to another. Chinese President and Communist Party Secretary Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao were about to step down after two terms, just as Jiang Zemin and Zhu Rongji had done a decade earlier. Stable leadership—the elusive goal of Chinese politics for the past century—seemed to have arrived.
Beneath the surface, however, China was facing its biggest political crisis since the 1989 Tiananmen massacre. As the year unfolded, senior officials were purged and their families’ debauchery and corruption exposed. Within five years, seemingly secure institutions had broken down as the new top leader, Xi Jinping, turned out to be an ambitious strongman who sought to remake the political system and expand his power. At the Chinese Communist Party Congress in mid-October he will almost certainly be reelected to a third term as head of the party.
