HU JINTAO'S LAST HURRAH -- AT LEAST, AS GENERAL SECRETARY

HU JINTAO 

REPORTS 

TO THE 18TH PARTY CONGRESS 

HU'S SWAN SONG 

-- as General Secretary 

of the Communist Party of China, at least -- 

November 8, 2012 

On the first day of the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China, Hu Jintao, the outgoing General Secretary, reads the Report ("FIRMLY MARCH ON THE PATH OF SOCIALISM WITH CHINESE CHARACTERISTICS AND STRIVE TO COMPLETE THE BUILDING OF A MODERATELY PROSPEROUS SOCIETY IN ALL RESPECTS" -- their capitals, not mine) from the podium of the Assembly Hall of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, surrounded (as usual, in these events) by flowers.  No one has died; this is the first step, in this Congress, in a choreographed handover of power first officially telegraphed at the preceding (17th) Congress, five years earlier. 

Hu Jintao twenty years earlier, introduced as the most junior member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the 14th 

Congress of the Communist Party of China (1992), here 

Hu Jintao five years earlier, at the 17th Party Congress, here 

Hu Jintao escorting Jiang Zemin off the dais 

of the 17th Party Congress (2007), here