Delegates at a Congress of the Chinese Communist Party
President Hu Jintao opened the 18th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party this week with a stark warning that systemic corruption could spell disaster for China's future. China's ruling Communist Party (CCP) is headed up by a standing committee of nine. The ruling elite is currently handing over the reins of power to a new committee - behind closed doors and without the benefit (or complication) of a people's vote. However, popular antagonism has grown alongside the Chinese economy in recent years because of abuses of power by the Party faithful - a select echelon of society that is seen to exercise privilege at the expense of everybody else. Corruption Chinese-style made world headlines recently, when high-ranking leader Bo Xilai was removed from office following his wife's implication in the murder of a British businessman and amid revelations of the family's dubious financial dealings. Now Hu Jintao is stating that corruption is a threat to China's future stability (and thereby of importance to the rest of the world), but just how seriously does the regime take this threat, what can it do about it? Here, Dan Hough, Reader in Politics in the School of Law, Politics and Sociology at the University of Sussex and Director of the Sussex Centre for the Study of Corruption , gives his analysis of President Hu Jintao's speech and describes the kinds of problems Chinese politics and society face in tackling corruption. Q America's Presidential elections have hogged the limelight this week - but how is China's president making headlines?
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