China Communist Party to open key meeting mid-Oct

BEIJING, Aug 28 (Reuters) China's Communist Party will open a critical meeting on October 15, state media said today announcing a congress at which president and party chief Hu Jintao is expected to consolidate power with a leadership reshuffle.

The biggest political event in five years, the party congress is expected to set the booming country's priorities for the coming years and may see Hu tap an heir-apparent from the ranks of a younger generation of leaders.

Almost five years into his mandate, Hu, 64, will seek to further consolidate power at the closed-door meeting of about 2,000 delegates -- the 17th since the party was founded -- and shake off the waning influence of predecessor Jiang Zemin, 81.

Even if Hu emerges from the meeting strengthened, the new leadership faces daunting challenges.

The government has been trying to check rising prices, stabilise the roller-coaster stock market, ensure grain supplies, curb official corruption, tackle environmental pollution and deal with rising protests spawned by a yawning wealth gap.

Rising international concerns about food and product safety in the world's number-three exporter have been another headache.

On top of all that, safety issues would have to take a back seat if rival Taiwan approves a planned referendum seeking UN membership next March, five months before the Beijing Olympics.

China, which regards the island as part of its sovereign territory, would be forced to respond, perhaps militarily.

Jiang has passed the top jobs in the party, government and military to Hu since 2002, completing the country's first smooth generational leadership change since the 1949 Communist revolution.

But before retiring, he stacked the party's all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee with proteges. Hu, the first among equals, has had to share power with peers and consult his predecessor on crucial matters in the past five years.

At this year's congress, expected to last about a week, Hu will try to promote his allies to the elite group.

One key test of his growing confidence will be whether he succeeds in ousting Jiang loyalists like Jia Qinglin, head of an advisory body to parliament, from the standing committee, which currently has only eight members.

Whether he is able to name a protege as his fifth-generation successor -- after Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang and Hu himself -- will be another barometer of his clout.

WANING INFLUENCE? The official Xinhua agency announced the dates in a bland story, steeped in Communist jargon, which paid careful tribute to Jiang and the ''Three Represents'' theory that is touted as his main contribution to Communist thought.

''The congress will hold high the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, be guided with Deng Xiaoping Theory and the important thoughts of 'Three Represents', and thoroughly carry out the scientific concept of development,'' Xinhua said.

But the former paramount leader has seen his influence wane, with the sacking of one protege, Shanghai's disgraced party boss Chen Liangyu, the death of another, Vice Premier and Standing Committee member Huang Ju, and the arrest of Huang's former secretary.

Jiang suffered a further political blow this month when his son and security chief were left out of the running for seats in the party's elite Central Committee, which has 198 full and 158 alternate members.

REUTERS LPB BST1933