Once again China is in the midst of political succession. The top leadership will undergo a generational change when the 16th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party convenes this fall and the 10th National People's Congress convenes in the spring of 2003. An estimated 50% of all high-ranking leaders are due to retire, including secretary general of the Party, president and premier of the State, and head of the National People's Congress.

The history of the PRC indicates that leadership change often reflects - and sometimes heralds - broad social, economic, and political changes in the country at large. To a certain extent, the characteristics and worldviews of new Chinese leaders may influence the trajectory of US-China relations.

What is fascinating about China's ongoing leadership succession is its seemingly contradictory trends and paradoxical process. Nepotism in various forms (e. g. school ties, blood ties, regional affiliations, or patron-client ties) has played a very important role in the selection of new leaders. But at the same time, some institutional mechanisms (e.g. age limits for retirement, term limits, inner Party elections, and regional representation) have been adopted as part of the Chinese political system to curtail favoritism and "strong man" politics. The unfolding of these contradictory developments will not only determine who will rule China after 2002, but even more importantly, how this most populous country in the world will be governed for the rest of this decade and beyond.

Cheng Li is Professor and Acting Chair of the Department of Government at Hamilton College, in Clinton, New York.

Dr. Li is the author of Rediscovering China: Dynamics and Dilemmas of Reform (1997) and China's Leaders: The New Generation (2001). He has authored and co-authored about two dozen academic articles that have been published in World Politics, Asian Survey, China Quarterly and elsewhere. He is currently working on two book manuscripts: "Chinese Technocrats: Their Social Origins, Ideological Attributes, and Political Behavior" and "Urban Subcultures in Shanghai".

Dr. Li has recently appeared on programs in the American and international media, such as the PBS News Hour with Jim Lehrer, CNN, C-SPAN, BBC, ABC, and VOA. He has given public speeches for distinguished organizations, such as the Ambassadors' Roundtable, the Distinguished Speaker Series of the Council on World Affairs, the Chautauqua Institution, the Woodrow Wilson Center, the East-West Center, and the National Press Club.

Under the auspices of U.S. government agencies, he has frequently given briefings and seminars on Chinese affairs to senior officials and the U.S. government agencies in Washington D.C. He has also served as a columnist for the new quarterly journal, China Leadership Monitor, published by the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and as an adviser for the School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai.

Born in Shanghai, Li grew up during the Cultural Revolution. He came to the United States in 1985 and later obtained an M.A. in Asian Studies at the University of California at Berkeley and a Ph.D. in Political Science at Princeton University.

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