Party leaders also said at the conclusion of the four-day plenum that they would continue to pursue "relatively fast" economic growth and promote peace with self-ruled Taiwan, while still favouring the country's "reunification".

Xi, 57, was named vice chairman of the Central Military Commission, which under current politics makes him the likely successor to Hu Jintao, who is due to step down as party chief in 2012 and as China's president in 2013.

Xi -- the son of a revolutionary hero -- was promoted to the powerful nine-member standing committee of the party's political bureau in 2007 and was named China's vice president the following year.

Analysts say the announcement of Xi's appointment is important partly because the commission serves as China's most potent tool of political power.

"The Communist Party still follows the old Mao Zedong tradition that 'the power comes from the barrel of the gun'," Willy Lam, a political analyst at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, told AFP.

"Now that Xi Jinping has become the vice chairman, his succession is secured. That means he definitely without a doubt will become the (party) general secretary in 2012... and then state president in March 2013."

The plenum of roughly 300 top party members vowed to "actively and safely advance" the process of political reform -- an issue that has been in the global spotlight since jailed dissident Liu Xiaobo won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Communist leaders also stressed that they would be the "fundamental guarantee" for the nation's development over the next five years, according to a statement released by Xinhua news agency.

The reaffirmation of the party's supremacy follows several high-profile and unusual calls for political reform last week ahead of the plenum.

On Friday, when the meeting began, more than 100 Chinese scholars, activists and lawyers signed a letter calling for democracy and the release of Nobel laureate Liu along with all other political prisoners.

As of Sunday night, the number of signatories had jumped to more than 600.

And in a separate appeal earlier in the week, 23 former communist officials and media leaders issued their own bluntly worded open letter to the government calling for freedom of expression to be protected.

Even Premier Wen Jiabao has waded into the fray, saying this month in an interview with CNN that calls for "democracy and freedom will become irresistible", echoing remarks he made in an August speech.

On the economic front, party leaders concluded that the next five years would be a "critical stage for China to build a moderately prosperous society", underlining concerns about the wealth gap between rich and poor.

They also said they hoped to achieve a "major breakthrough in economic restructuring" as policymakers maintain measures aimed at boosting domestic demand.

Beijing has pledged to restructure the economy to make it less reliant on exports and investment and, instead, make domestic consumption a bigger driver of growth.

China is now the world's second-largest economy, having overtaken Japan in the second quarter of this year.

On Thursday, the government will release key data that is expected to show economic growth continued to slow in the third quarter, as Beijing stepped up efforts to rein in property prices and curb bank lending.

After a blistering 11.9 percent increase in the first three months of 2010, growth slowed to 10.3 percent in the second quarter and most economists expect to see growth in the high single-digits in the third quarter.

earlier related report
Xi Jinping, Chinese 'princeling' who is close to top job
Beijing (AFP) Oct 18, 2010 - Xi Jinping, the son of a communist revolutionary hero with a celebrity wife, looks set to become the next leader of rising superpower China after he was appointed to a key military commission.

Xi, 57, was promoted on Monday to vice-chairman of China's Central Military Commission -- a position that confirms him as the clear front-runner to succeed current President Hu Jintao in 2013.

Widely expected to be named to the commission in 2009, Xi's profile has been boosted over the past year with state media giving in depth coverage of his meetings with visiting dignitaries and his trips abroad.

Appointed vice president of China in 2008, Xi has an impeccable communist pedigree that makes him one of a group of elite politicians known as "princelings."

China's princelings are those who can thank their family lineage for at least part of their success, and Xi's father was Xi Zhongxun, a communist guerrilla who fought alongside revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

Xi's father later fell victim to one of Mao's infamous political purges and spent 16 years in jail, before rising again under the new leadership of Deng Xiaoping to hold positions of power.

Xi's early years were also marked by some hardship. Like so many other Chinese youths, he was ordered to the countryside in the late 1960s during the chaos of the Cultural Revolution.

The native of northern Shaanxi province began his steady rise up the communist ladder shortly after, joining the party in 1974 a year before studying at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University.

Over the next 30 years he gained recognition as an experienced manager, culminating in the leadership of two key economic provinces, Fujian and Zhejiang, before moving to Shanghai's top spot.

In the fractious and secretive world of Chinese politics observers find it hard to pin down Xi's political allegiances, and his political views have been kept a closely-guarded secret.

Some say he is most closely aligned to former president Jiang Zemin and his faction known as the "Shanghai gang".

Others say his background and central government experience as a secretary for former vice premier and defence minister Geng Biao in the late 1970s made him acceptable to current President Hu Jintao.

However the ordinary person on the street in China may know the portly figure best for his long-time marriage to Peng Liyuan, a famous singer who is also an officer in the nation's military.

earlier related report
Norway minister denies exerting pressure in peace prize pick
Oslo (AFP) Oct 18, 2010 - Norway's foreign minister denied Monday reports he tried to pressure the Nobel Committee against awarding the peace prize to a Chinese dissident but acknowledged passing on Beijing's concerns to its head.

"I would like to clearly reject allegations that I tried to 'pressure' the head of the committee," Jonas Gahr Stoere wrote in a column in Norwegian paper of reference Aftenposten.

Norwegian media reported at the weekend that Stoere last month met committee president Thorbjoern Jagland right after talks with his Chinese counterpart who had reiterated Beijing's opposition to the prize going to a Chinese dissident.

During their meeting, on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly in New York, about two weeks before the October 8 announcement, Stoere had reportedly warned Jagland of the consequences of giving the prize to a Chinese dissident.

The Norwegian foreign minister said Monday he had by chance run into Jagland, who was in New York in his capacity as the head of the European Council, right after his meeting with his Chinese counterpart.

"Jagland was coincidentially the first person I met on the sidewalk outside the UN building," Stoere wrote.

During their conversation, which lasted a few minutes, "I mentioned the meeting (with the Chinese foreign minister) in passing, and that much of the conversation was about China's concerns about this year's Nobel Peace Prize," he said, pointing out that this was the same message Chinese authorities had been trumpeting for months.

"I never 'warned against giving the peace prize' to a Chinese nominee or to anyone else," Stoere insisted, adding that "that was not what our short exchange on the New York sidewalk was about," Stoere wrote, pointing out that Jagland too had denied allegations that any pressure had been exerted.

Liu Xiaobo, a 54-year-old former university professor serving an 11-year sentence for subversion, was awarded the peace prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China."

Chinese authorities, who warned the choice would "harm the Sino-Norwegian relationship," have since the announcement cancelled a number of official delegations to Norway, as well as official ministerial meetings and Norwegian cultural events in China.

Norway, which aims to become the first European country to clinch a free trade deal with the Asian superpower, has meanwhile stressed that the government has no say in the peace prize pick.

The five members of the Norwegian Nobel Committee are appointed by parliament but are independent of the Norwegian government and the house.

"In the meetings I have had with Chinese leaders in 2010 ... I have stressed the Nobel Committee's independence," Stoere wrote Monday, pointing out that he had repeatedly "rejected that (the prize choice) is something the Norwegian government wants or can raise with the committee."

"If attempts to influence (the choice) had any effect at all it would be the opposite" of what was intended, he said.

del.icio.us	Digg	Reddit
YahooMyWeb	Google	Facebook

Memory Foam Mattress Review

SPACE MEDIA NETWORK PROMOTIONS Solar Energy Solutions Tempur-Pedic Mattress Comparison ... Newsletters :: SpaceDaily :: SpaceWar :: TerraDaily :: Energy Daily XML Feeds :: Space News :: Earth News :: War News :: Solar Energy News