An Intimate Look Inside the \'Eighteenth Big\'

BEIJING - Under a soft, blue sky, a no. 82 public bus rumbled past Tiananmen Square at 7 a.m. on Thursday morning, windows taped shut. The vast square in the heart of Beijing was sealed off to the public as uniformed security and sniffer dogs prowled. Inside the Great Hall of the People, where the 18th Communist Party Congress began at 9 a.m., a security official ran bomb detection equipment over an emergency stretcher â€" two of the 2,270 appointed delegates to the congress representing China's 83 million communists had died and the oldest living delegate was 97. No one was taking any chances with death, natural or unnatural.

Welcome to Beijing on the morning of the “shiba da,” as it's know here, the “eighteenth big,” the meeting of China's top communists that next week will appoint the country's new leaders for the next decade, as my colleague Ian Johnson wrote.

It's not an American-style election, for sure â€" more a selection, with hardly a detail l eft to chance. For those who'd like to follow it, check out this government Web site.

Inside the hall, overseas and Chinese reporters were barred from sitting in the front two rows of the balcony where we were ushered (these were occupied by black-suited security officials who kept their hands on their thighs the entire time, in a posture of rigid alertness.) From there we watched as the former President, Jiang Zemin, and the current President, Hu Jintao, walked onto the red-and-gold festooned stage punctually, at just a couple minutes past 9 a.m.

Above us, a giant red star shone down from the ceiling. Red wall-to-wall carpeting contributed to the image of a giant hall drenched in red, the color of communism. A giant hammer and sickle and sculptured, red “curtains” formed the backdrop to the VIP stage. Many male delegates wore red ties.

The event was theatrical; even the couple of dozen young women distributing hot water for tea moved along the rows of VIPs on the stage in tightly choreographed lines, like swimmers at an Olympic synchronized swimming contest.

Then an announcement called for everyone to stand and we did: heads bowed, a moment of silence was observed for deceased Communist greats such as Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping. The national anthem was sung.

Hu Jintao took the podium to deliver a shortened version of his work report, speaking for about an hour and forty minutes.
The report, which summed up his last 10 years as President, was unsnappily titled: “Firmly March on the Path of Socialism with Chinese Characteristics and Strive to Complete the Building of a Moderately Prosperous Society in all Respects.”

And as the title suggested, it touched on all the mainstays of party thought and was encrusted with the characteristic jargon.

We must persistently build a moderately prosperous society, Mr. Hu said. We must persistently implement scientific development. We must per sistently hold on to the leadership of the party.

From time to time his voice spiked and he shouted to emphasize a point: “We must build a complete, moderately prosperous society,” he said, adding in a yell: “We must STRUGGLE!”

In fact, if one word stood out, it was “jianchi”: persist, insist, persevere.

Everything was to be done persistently, insistently, perseveringly, from maintaining party leadership to developing the economy to building national glory. “We must have complete confidence in the system!” Mr. Hu added for good measure.

The party must make good use of the law “to turn the party's propositions into the will of the state,” Mr. Hu said. But in a nod, perhaps to voices in society and the party that are calling for reform, he called for oversight of power: “It is important to put power, party and government” under institutional checks, “and uphold people's right to stay informed about, participate in, express view s on, and oversee party and government operations.” Corruption was a problem not easily solved, he warned. (This New York Times article reports on corruption at the top.

Then, suddenly, it was over. We streamed out. A very few delegates had ventured out too, into the mob of reporters hungry for anything different, anything that had a spontaneous touch.

Zhao Guangjun, 35, a delegate from Guangdong province, was one.

What did he think of the chances of the reformist Guangdong party boss, Wang Yang, who recently made a strong call for political and economic changes, making it onto the standing committee of the politburo, the all-important, inner circle of power whose membership is being hard fought-over at the top? No one knows for sure, but current guesses are that Mr. Wang will not be appointed.

Delegates do not get to choose the new members of the Politburo. Instead, next week, they will rubber stamp the list that the top leaders produce after backr oom negotiations that have been going on for many months.

“Haha, that's just too big for me,” said Mr. Zhao, suddenly appearing nervous. “But I do welcome you all to come to Guangdong to see for yourselves what we've been doing there,” he added, obliquely.

It was almost as if he was saying, “I wish.”