The rumor was triggered by a Press Trust of India report that interpreted a comment by Wen -- saying that his closing press conference would be his last -- as meaning not just the last of the NPC session, but his last as premier. While there is little that seems to confirm this interpretation, numerous rumors have been swirling around China's top leadership of late. The Communist Party of China (CPC) is preparing for its annual session near the end of the year -- at which time President Hu Jintao is expected to tacitly identify his chosen successor.

The way in which power is transferred in China has gone through several evolutions: from the single-man rule of Mao Zedong and the not-so-smooth transition to Deng Xiaoping to Deng's anointing of Jiang Zemin and, at the same time, tagging Hu as Jiang's eventual successor. How the transition to the next generation of leaders, to follow on after Hu, will take place is not so clear. Hu's place in line after Jiang was known in 1989 or 1990, a decade before he actually became president. Hu has no such clear successor.

The continuity that Deng established in choosing both Jiang and his successor, Hu, was not repeated by Jiang, who never rose to the level of power and control his predecessors enjoyed. The days of Mao and Deng are gone, and consensus rules China. But consensus also leads to uncertainty as factions compete for a place at the top.

The CPC congress in September or October is expected to bring shifts in the Politburo that will do more to clarify who Hu's successor will be. This process will be formalized with the naming of a new vice president, expected at the NPC session in 2008. That vice president would then ascend to the presidency in 2012 and take on the leadership of the CPC and the Central Military Commission.

But there are rumors that Hu is having trouble within the Party in choosing a successor and in promoting the successor to the Politburo standing committee. Although Hu has made a show of strength in striking at the political elite of Shanghai -- the base of support for Jiang and the center of opposition to Hu's economic policies -- he hasn't been able to gain enough support to fully promote his own economic experiments. His power is limited.

This year's congress will strike out through uncharted territory and could set a precedent for how new Chinese leaders will be chosen. Inside the CPC there are calls for more intra-party democracy (though there is no support for elections or a multi-party system in China as a whole).

As the excitement over the new laws and policies passed last week begins to settle, more and more predictions about China's fifth generation of leaders will surface. Different views and interpretations will proliferate -- but rather than focusing on difficulties faced personally by Hu, it will be more critical to note how a new framework for selecting China's top government officials is shaped. This, in turn, will be crucial for identifying the direction China's next decade of strategic policy decisions will take.