SENIOR members of the Chinese Communist Party meet this week to choose a new leadership for the world’s most populous nation, and to usher in the most important era of political change since the purge that came after Tiananmen Square and the student protests of 1989.

The long-awaited party congress, which opens on Friday beneath the ornate chandeliers of the Great Hall of the People, is a coronation, an election and an inauguration all in one.

More than 2,000 congress delegates will endorse a radical redistribution of power in the Chinese system of government negotiated behind closed doors in recent months.

Every significant post in the Communist Party will change hands and the country’s most powerful figures of the past five years will all step down. The present septuagenarian leadership will collectively hand over to a group of cadres mostly in their late 50s.

“Imagine the arrival of the youngest ever Prime Minister in Downing Street, a new King at Buckingham Palace and a reshuffle of both Houses of Parliament in the same week,” one Beijing-based diplomat said.

But even that comparison does not fully encapsulate the significance of the event. On top of the biggest personnel change in more than a decade, the Communist Party is also considering far-reaching ideological changes.

Political reforms are back on the agenda for the first time since 1989. In a first step, the admission of capitalist entrepreneurs will be written into the party constitution in the next few days. Over the coming five years, reformers hope to establish democratic elections as the main means for choosing local governments across the nation of 1.3 billion people.

But perhaps the most remarkable aspect is the fact that the leadership change is taking place at all. During 5,000 years of dynastic reign, China has not seen a peaceful and voluntary transfer of power. Rulers have been displaced only by rebellion or death in office.

Even Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, who claimed to be breaking with divine rule, remained the most powerful political figures after they stepped down from their official posts. They continued to approve all important decisions until they died.

When Jiang Zemin hands over to Hu Jintao as General-Secretary of the party next week, the situation will be very different. Mr Jiang will offer advice to the new leadership, but many observers believe that he will rapidly lose influence after he steps down. One Western diplomat said: “Jiang will soon be a lame duck.”

The peaceful and voluntary transfer of power marks a great leap forward for China’s reforms. By organising an orderly transition from one leadership to the next, the Communist Party is showing itself to be much more capable than in the days of Mao or Deng.

The 2,120 delegates, who nominally represent the party’s 60 million members, will elect a new Central Committee of 300 members, plus 250 “alternate” or junior members. The Central Committee comprises the governing elite of China. It will appoint a new General-Secretary, new heads of the party apparatus and, most importantly, a new politburo of 20 to 25 people.

The politburo, in turn, will appoint a seven-member standing committee. Of all the appointments to be made, this is the most significant. Hence, all eyes will be on the make-up of the new committee, which may not yet even have been finalised.

On the last day of the congress, seven men will line up in front of the Great Hall of the People. Only then will it be known whether a peaceful and voluntary transfer of power has really taken place.

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