In mid-October the Chinese Communist Party will hold its 17th National Congress. Convened every five years, the CCP National Congress is one of the most important events in China’s political events. Insofar as basic policies are concerned, there should be little surprise - most of them have already been proclaimed many times on various occasions. What people should watch closely is the “elections” that will take place at the meeting.

The seemingly most important election of all , the one in which the General Secretary of the Party is chosen, is not actually all that critical. Why? Because it is 180% certain that the current general secretary, Hu Jintao, will be reelected. This is a foregone conclusion.

Does this make Hu a dictator? Not really. The way Chinese politics goes nowadays, no one single leader holds absolute power. The Party is very much a kind oligarchic structure in which various factions representing different trends in the Chinese society negotiate with one another to make major decisions and to choose the leaders to serve in the Chinese government. Hu has served one five-year term as the head of the CCP; he has not committed any serious errors; so there is a widely accepted consensus that he should serve another five-year term, which is allowed by the Party’s constitution.

But by the same constitution, Hu cannot serve a third term. So the real significant decision to be made at the 17th CCP National Congress is whom the Party will choose to groom as the future leader so that he can succeed Hu when he retires five years fro now.

Who was the man to watch then? The name that has been mentioned most frequently is Li Keqiang. At the age of 52, Li Keqiang was the youngest high-level Party and government officials in China. Currently the party head of Liaoning Province, Li was a native of Anhui. He graduated from Beijing University in 1982, with a law degree, and then rose quickly through the hierarchy of the Communist Youth League, a mass organization controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. The CYL at the time headed by Hu Jintao, so evidently Li enjoyed Hu’s trust. He subsequently served as a provincial leader in Henan before he was re-assigned to Liaoning. It is widely believed that Li will be promoted from the CCP Central Committee to the CCP Politburo as well as the Standing Committee of the Politburo. This would be a two-rank promotion done in one deal. If this happens at the 17th Congress, it is almost certain that Li has been chosen to lead the world’s most populous country when Hu steps down in five years.

Before Li attended Beijing University from 1978 to 1982, he had spent four years in a small village in Anhui Province - he was one of the China’s urban youth who, by the instruction of Chairman Mao, sent to countryside to work alongside Chinese peasants to be “re-educated.” At the age of 21, Li began serve as the head of the Party organization in the village. So, Li is relatively young as a high level official in China, but he has already had a long political career. Good for him. If the CCP actually selects him as China’s future leader, the man will need all the experience he can get to meet the daunting challenge ahead of him.