Amid Calls For Reform, China Waits For New Leaders
The slogan "Long Live the Great Communist Party of China" is emblazoned on the wall outside the Beijing compound where the country's leaders live and work.
But now that party is under pressure to change as it prepares for a once-in-a-decade transition of power, which starts at a party congress scheduled to begin Nov. 8.
Change could be in the air in China, as the country's leaders wrestle with the fallout of a damaging scandal encompassing murder, corruption, abuse of power and sex.
Even a staid party publication is warning it faces a dead end if it doesn't move to change its political and social system.
High oxblood walls ring the leadership compound, punctuated by cameras above and policemen beneath. Very few people are party to the intense power struggles that may be playing out inside these walls.
But outside the walls of power, there's growing criticism of the legacy this generation of leaders has left after a decade in power.
"I don't think these 10 years will be seen as having achieved all that much for China," says Susan Shirk, a former State Department official during the Clinton administration and China expert at the University of California, San Diego. "There's tremendous criticism inside China of the way this administration has made a U-turn and set China back."
Discontent From Many Quarters