Beijing ? Vice President Hu Jintao took another step toward becoming China’s next leader after he was the only top politician re-elected to the Communist Party’s Central Committee, the government announced Thursday in the most concrete sign yet of his ascent.

Shortly before China’s Communist Party convention closed, delegates also moved to officially approve Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents” theory, adding capitalist-style ideology to the party charter as they work to keep pace with economic reforms and the introduction of the market economy.

The official Xinhua News Agency said current President Jiang Zemin was not on the list, indicating his expected retirement from a formal party role.

“Jiang Zemin, the core of the third-generation leadership of the Communist Party of China, and five of his colleagues in the party’s top decision-making body, are not on a new Central Committee of the CPC elected here this morning,” Xinhua said.

It specifically identified Hu as “the only member” of the last party congress’ Standing Committee to be re-elected. The Standing Committee is the inner sanctum of party leadership :quot; and, by extension, the leadership of China.

Jiang, 76, general secretary of the Communist Party since he replaced Zhao Ziyang in a 1989 purge after the Tiananmen Square democracy protests, will remain president until March. But the party position is the wellspring of his power, and his departure from it makes his retirement as president certain.

The moves, which launch a younger generation of leaders to shepherd China through a period of dizzying economic change, come at the end of the congress, the once-in-five-years meeting of the party that has ruled China since its insurgents took the mainland in 1949.

Hu, 59, was designated as Jiang’s heir apparent by the late senior leader Deng Xiaoping. His ascent has been widely expected, though little is known about him.

He has taken on a higher profile in recent months and traveled to the United States in the spring, a signal that he was being readied to take the reins of power.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin walks past Vice President Hu Jintao, left, and Premier Zhu Rongji, during a session of the Communist Party's 16th National Congress in Beijing. Hu will become the next president of China.

Delegates to the party’s weeklong 16th National Congress also amended its constitution to formally endorse Jiang’s invitation for entrepreneurs to join :quot; an effort to keep the party in control of a fast-changing China.

The principle is known by the ungainly title of the “Three Represents,” language aimed at showing that the party is concerned about all levels of society.

But it is also code for the once-unthinkable idea of allowing capitalist entrepreneurs to join a party whose very identity is based on class struggle :quot; the overthrow of the capitalist system. It has the added benefit of co-opting business leaders in China and claiming their power as the party’s own.

“Persistent implementation of the Three Represents is the foundation for building our party, the cornerstone for its governance and the source of its strength,” said resolution, a copy of which was distributed at the congress’ closing ceremony.

It added: “The implementation of the important thought of Three Represents is, in essence, to keep pace with the times, maintain the party’s progressiveness and exercise the state power in the interests of the people.”

The leadership change appears to be the first orderly transfer of power in the history of communist China. Order, always an obsession of the ruling communists, has taken on new economic importance as the country opens to foreign investment as part of its “socialist market economy.”

China’s rulers say they want to convey a sense of calm so that money from abroad will keep pouring in, raising living standards and keeping people happy or at least unwilling to oppose party rule.