Chinese politics in the Hu Jintao era: new leaders, new challenges

Introduction: the rise of Hu Jintao and the traits of the fourth-generation leadership

The crisis of legitimacy: Hu Jintao's search for a perennial mandate of heaven

The communist party vs. peasants and workers: will Hu Jintao's "new social contract" work?

The scourge of governmental stagnation: the price of holding up political reform

The fourth-generation leadership's ambitious foreign-policy agenda

The challenge of nationalism, and other ideas and trends for the new century

Conclusion: where is the new thinking?