Top China leader Hu Deping calls democracy crucial and seeks for far reaching election reforms inspired by a warning on stability of current corrupt system

China reformer seeks limits on Communists’ power

AFP – A top Communist reformer has called for change in China on the eve of a 10-yearly power handover, saying that reining in the ruling party’s unchecked power is the only way to modernise the nation. Hu Deping, son of former party head and reformer Hu Yaobang — whose death in 1989 sparked the Tiananmen protests.

Most Chinese see the widening income gap as the country’s main problem over the next decade, according to a survey published Tuesday which highlighted a key challenge confronting the incoming leadership. Some 75 percent of respondents polled by the official China Youth Daily cited “serious rich-poor” tensions.

Beneath the hype: What, actually, will China’s party Congress do? (+video)

Christian Science Monitor

Amid all the hype surrounding Thursday’s opening of the ruling Communist Party’s 18th Congress, the headlines declaring it “crucial” to China’s future and the crush of more than 1,000 foreign reporters accredited to cover the confab, it is sometimes hard to remember that the weeklong meeting