Younger, stronger boss, same old problems

"Of course, Jiang Zemin will stay in charge of the armed forces," said the man in a leather jacket on the Avenue of Everlasting Peace. "He will have to keep an eye on Hu Jintao.

"Didn't Chairman Mao say that power grows out of the barrel of a gun? If Hu makes a mess of things, Jiang will simply pull him down again."

Whether it is true or false, this is not the sort of political speculation to be found in the Chinese media. Every newspaper and television station was unfailingly flattering yesterday about Mr Jiang who has resigned as general secretary but stayed on as chairman of the military commission.

On the avenue, inside a glass propaganda showcase near Tiananmen Square, lay the frontpage headline of the Beijing Youth Daily. It read: "Triumphant conclusion to the 16th Communist Party Congress." By a strange coincidence the tabloid Beijing Xinbao ran the same headline, too, though with fewer Chinese characters.

The man in the leather jacket spoke like a typical Beijinger, one who knows his mind. He would have said more but two policemen approached and I retreated quickly. I hope he convinced them that I was just a stupid foreigner.

The official line yesterday was that the leadership has handed over power to the next generation, and that Mr Jiang's "important thinking" will guide China's future.

Others on the avenue were quite positive about the generational shift.

"Hu is all right," said a man in a newspaper kiosk. "He's younger and he has got more strength." The newsagent raised both arms with clenched fists to emphasise the point.

But there is much less certainty about whether the party can tackle the problems ahead.

Long-time city residents are more likely than those from the countryside to approve of an economic strategy which has boosted urban development across China but has widened the gap between rich and poor.

In the Xinhua Bookshop on the main shopping street of Wangfujing, several people were browsing at a display of books about the party's history and policies.

Most people in China know more about politics than they are sometimes given credit for. At least having only one party to follow makes it simpler.

A young man picked up a volume with a hammer and sickle on its cover. He pointed at the sickle: "I think our government has forgotten about the peasants," he commented. "They are only interested in the hammer now."

Not surprisingly, he came from a peasant family himself. By dint of hard study he had migrated from north-west China to work in a Beijing advertising agency.

"I can be a good son now and send back money to my parents," he explained. "They couldn't manage otherwise: life is too poor in our village."

While politics is immune from media criticism, some interesting comments on the economy are easier to find.

The 21st Century Business Herald published a sharp criticism yesterday of the government's failure to reform state industries.

There were still too many state-owned companies - more than 46,000 - operating in 39 different branches of the economy, an economist on the comment pages said.

The Economic Observer ran a commentary tracing China's efforts to modernise back over the last 150 years and warned that it is still a long and tortuous path.