Beijing Heavyweights Warm To Issue Of Succession

China is facing some big challenges over the next 12 months or so, not the least of which is the generational change in political leadership set to occur at the Chinese Communist Party's 16th congress in late 2002... Most of the signals which have emerged from the Zhongnanhai leadership compound over recent years would suggest that the core of the new generation will be China's current Vice-President Hu Jintao... According to Cheng Li, a professor of government at Hamilton College in New York and an expert on China's generation of leaders, Hu has three main shortcomings... They might seem like major disadvantages but, according to Li, such shortcomings will probably end up working in favour of Hu's candidacy for China's presidency on the retirement of Jiang Zemin.