Analysis: Will Jiang go?

Inscrutable: China is waiting for Mr Jiang's next move

By Rupert Wingfield-Hayes BBC correspondent in Beijing

As he strolls on the beach or bobs in the ocean this week at the seaside resort of Beidaihe what is going through the mind of Chinese President Jiang Zemin?

What to do with his looming retirement perhaps - or perhaps not.

For, if the rumour mill in Beijing is to be believed, retirement is suddenly very far from President Jiang's mind.

One diplomat said he would be more concerned if there were no pro-Jiang propaganda barrage. Then he would really worry a power struggle was under way

At 73 and with more than a decade as China's leader under his belt, it is time for China's president to step down.

Under a plan agreed in secret by China's top leadership, Mr Jiang was due to relinquish his post as leader of China's Communist Party this autumn and as state president early next year.

He would be replaced by Hu Jintao, China's 59-year-old vice-president: a younger, more vigorous man, more in tune with the needs of reforming China's economy and political system.

Or so went the theory.

Now, if the rumours are correct, all that is up in the air.

Waiting in the wings: Hu Jintao has all but been announced as the new leader

President Jiang is intent on staying in power as Communist Party chief and head of China's powerful military.

The rumour mill is being fuelled by a barrage of propaganda in the state-run media hailing President Jiang for his visionary leadership skills.

"Comrade Jiang Zemin has stood at great heights and has seen far in to the distance," trumpeted the official Xinhua news agency on Thursday as China marked Army Day.

"He has advanced military thinking to bring our military construction in to a new era."

Reading tea leaves

In China, where politics takes place in deep secret behind high walls and where spin doctors are yet to be invented, it is all a bit like reading the tea leaves. What does it all mean?

Some interpret the barrage of pro-Jiang propaganda as a clear sign that a serious power struggle is under way.

President Jiang and his cohorts, they say, are trying desperately to hang on.

Mr Jiang has led his country for more than a decade

But others are less flustered.

One well-informed diplomat told me he would be more concerned if there were no pro-Jiang propaganda barrage.

Then he would really worry a power struggle was under way.

Careful process

The fact is that China's leadership transition has been under way for at least two years already.

A carefully managed process in which the profile of Vice-President Hu has been gradually raised to prepare China's people for the formal handover of power.

Right now there is no clear sign that process has been derailed.

What is clear though, is that President Jiang Zemin is intent on securing his own legacy, and making sure he retains enough power to be able to influence the new leadership once he does step down.

One way of doing that is to make sure key allies are appointed to the all powerful politburo at the 16th Party Congress this autumn.

Another is to make sure he himself remains chairman of China's Central Military Commission (CMC), the powerful body that controls China's 2.5 million-strong army.

As long as he can do that, he should be willing to relinquish his other posts without a fight.

But in the murky world of Chinese politics, few leaders have ever gone willingly.

The transition from one generation to the next has almost always been marked by vicious power struggles and sometimes bloodshed.

And so the rumour mill keeps turning.