China's next leader is earmarked

The man expected to be China’s next leader became the only top politician re-elected to the Communist Party’s inner sanctum today, the most solid sign yet of Hu Jintao’s ascent to the acme of Asia’s largest, fastest-growing country.

As China’s National Party Congress ended in Beijing, party delegates also approved President Jiang Zemin’s Three Represents theory, adding once-unthinkable capitalist ideology to their party charter as they work to keep pace with economic reforms and the introduction of the market economy.