In China, Hu is the Man to See

As the Communist Party prepares to meet, China's Hu Jintao consolidates power

Zenshui / Sigrid Olsson / Getty

Chinese president Hu Jintao swears in Hong Kongs chief executive Donals Tsang and cabinet to new five-year term during the inaugural ceremony in Hong Kong on July 1, 2007.

About once a month, a stream of black sedans with heavily tinted windows snakes through the gates of Zhongnanhai, the sprawling headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party, which occupies the southwestern corner of Beijing's Forbidden City. The limousines bear the 22 members of the party's Political Bureau, or Politburo. In legend, Communist Party meetings are endless, but since 2002, when Hu Jintao became General Secretary of the party (he became President of China the next year), Politburo sessions have been quite brisk. Typically, they are over by lunchtime, and then two top academics are ushered in to brief the assembled leaders...

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