Chinese congress begins

Delegates expected to select new leadership

? China’s Communist Party Congress convened today amid tight security, drawing 2,000 delegates together on fabled Tiananmen Square to steer the nation through breakneck changes and introduce a new generation of leaders who inherit a society in the throes of change.

The National Party Congress, which meets once every five years, was called to order under a giant hammer and sickle in the Great Hall of the People.

It convenes in a particularly challenging era for China ” one of convulsive change and the search for a political system that will stimulate enough economic growth to maintain stability.

“The 16th National Party Congress begins now,” said Li Peng, head of China’s legislature, convening it. Moments later, the Chinese national anthem echoed through the hall.

This congress is widely expected to herald the retirement of Jiang Zemin, the party’s general secretary and China’s president. Most expect Jiang, 76, to be succeeded as Communist Party chief by Hu Jintao, 59, who is widely assumed to also be replacing Jiang as president next year.

Security on the streets of Beijing was heavy, with agents deployed every 20 feet ” including uniformed police and plainclothes officers from at least a half-dozen security agencies. Red flags flew over buildings on Changan Avenue, the broad boulevard that runs across Tiananmen Square.

Despite the scarlet-saturated pageantry, secrecy has prevailed. Though state-run media have taken a valedictory tone in recent weeks about Jiang and his generation, there has been no open discussion about the details of succession ” or any talk of succession at all.

People’s Daily, the party newspaper, today called the meeting “a very important congress convened at a time when China has entered a new development stage of building a society in an all-round way in which the people can lead a fairly comfortable life and accelerating the socialist modernization drive.”

Party officials have pledged to modernize once-doctrinaire ideology to keep pace with a fast-changing, increasingly capitalist society.

Security is tight in Beijing as the 16th Chinese Communist Party Congress begins. Military police marched Thursday in front of the Great Hall of the People, where the congress opens today.