A scandal in southwest China reflects on a new world order

The latest scandal to hit the Communist Party has highlighted the difficulties faced by the new leadership as it tries to ease itself into power.

Once a decade China stages the most carefully choreographed political show in the word - a generational change in its leadership. The process is just warming up, and will not be complete for three years, by which time the leadership of party, state and army will all have been renewed.

The first sign is the current visit to the US of the Chinese vice president, Xi Jinping, who is expected to be named as Communist Party leader in October. By tradition the new boss has to get to know America, and America has to get to know him.

This time is a bit different. China is not just the place which makes the world's toys but a rising power predicted to soon overtake the US in terms of gross domestic product.

By the time the process is over, there will have been a 70 per cent turnover in senior leaders, who are generally obliged to retire around the age of 67. In March next year, Mr Xi is expected to become president, in place of Hu Jintao, while Premier Wen Jiabao will be replaced by Li Keqiang.

The "Xi and Li" team will be the fifth generation of Chinese leaders since the creation of the People's Republic in 1949. There is a good reason for all this caution and planning: to prevent a recurrence of the one-man rule of Mao Zedong and the mass chaos and bloodshed he unleashed in the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s.

In his dotage, Mao's wishes were all communicated through the medium of young women who acted as his "interpreters" to the outside world and became the focus of all manner of intrigues at the old leader's court.

From the outside, it seems to be a successful model of a self-renewing autocracy.

Certainly the defunct republican dynasties of the Arab world could have learnt some lessons from Beijing. Instead of a smooth transfer of power over the generations, we have a ruling family running out of talent (as in Syria); a country ossified by the refusal of its leader to prepare a succession (as in Egypt); and a state becoming a family business (as in Tunisia).

But recent events in China are proving that there is no perfect system. The leaders of the Chinese Communist Party know that they have no eternal right to rule: the party's revolutionary prestige has long ago run out. They have no democratic mandate.

Some of the coming generation, including Mr Xi, are so called "princelings" - descendants of leaders of Mao's generation. In a one-party state such as China, where the process of political advancement is murky, any whiff of heredity is deeply sensitive. (In democracies it is the opposite: thanks to the importance of name recognition, the Nehru dynasty flourishes in India while Bush and Kennedy are still strong brands in the US).

The Communist Party's justification for staying in power is two-fold: its record of competence at running the world's largest country at a time of hectic social and economic change, and the leaders' ability to put a common front to the world whatever their individual differences.

At a time of a new generation taking over, the caution of the Chinese leadership is typically even more pronounced than usual. All of which makes the events in the provincial city of Chongqing, in south-west China, so disturbing of the careful consensus that the party likes to create.

The flamboyant party boss in Chongqing, Bo Xilai - himself a "princeling" - has made no secret of his ambition to join the politburo standing committee, the nine-man body at the centre of decision-making.He has gained popularity and fame throughout the country with a crackdown on "organised crime" that has targeted not just gangsters but their protectors in the administration.

At the same time he has acquired favour with the old guard by resurrecting old communist symbols. This is most visible in his so-called "sing red" campaign, where all organisations in the municipal area have to sing old Maoist songs.

Mr Bo has inevitably been called China's John F Kennedy for his ease in front of the camera. But his bizarre combination of political populism and cultural reactionism has polarised opinion.

Foreign visitors who find workers singing Chairman Mao is the Sun that Never Sets amid the soaring skyscrapers of China's most vibrant inland city return home scratching their heads. Does Mr Bo embody the new China, where populism replaces the closed-door politics of the past?

In recent days it has begun to look as if Mr Bo's star has shone too brightly. His deputy and police chief Wang Lijun, who oversaw the corruption trials, was shunted aside earlier this month, and last week visited the US consulate in Chengdu, apparently to seek political asylum.

He left after spending a night there, walking into the arms of police who had ringed the consulate - not exactly the type of incident that Mr Xi would want on the eve of his visit to Washington. The police chief is said to be under investigation over allegations of corruption and abuse of power in Chongqing, which must inevitably reflect on his former boss.

Mr Bo has not been summoned to Beijing, although the media consensus is that his ambitions for a top leadership post are finished. The social media are alive with speculation, much of it bounced back into China from sources in the US, on how and why his enemies are taking their revenge.

The affair is not going to sink the Communist Party. But it does highlight the difficulties faced by the new leadership as it tries to ease itself into power. For the first time the leadership has no obvious strongman - Mr Xi is said to be a compromise candidate.

China is changing. Social media mean that the interpretation of signs which used to be the preserve of a few scholars is part of a conversation with thousands of voices and millions of ears. Unless clarity and consensus is restored soon, the new generation will give the impression of weakness and divisions at the top.

On Twitter: @aphilps