Publication

This brief analyzes the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) on the eve of its entering the final phase of the transition of power to its new leadership in November 2012. The process has been neither transparent, nor smooth and free from sometimes dramatic intra-party struggles. The paper takes stock of the procedural aspects of the periodic change of guard within the CCP’s core of power and influence, and confronts them with the known and alleged factional strife to offer an early forecast of the prospects for China’s internal political development and its foreign policy in the coming decade.