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China's Communist Party opened its 18th National Congress in Beijing on Nov. 8. Outgoing Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡锦涛) is expected to hand over control of the world's most populous country to Vice President Xi Jinping (习近平) and a new generation of Communist leaders.

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Chinese President Hu Jintao opened the Communist Party Congress with a speech in which he warned about the dangers of corruption and urged Communist leaders to continue to push for reforms. Citing the Bo Xilai (薄熙来) scandal as an example, Hu Jintao told the 2,000-plus hand-picked delegates that a lack of political integrity "could prove fatal to the party."

There should be little drama during the weeklong session. The decisions are made behind closed doors and are announced in a tightly choreographed fashion. Both Xi Jinping and premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang (李克强) were anointed to head the new leadership team years ago.

While some other parts of the world — ahem America — were boisterously slathering their social media sites with political opinions and urges for followers to vote, China's government was busy blocking individual bloggers and netizens on China's version of Twitter, Weibo.