CAMBRIDGE, England -- Bits of the jigsaw are beginning to fall into place. Chinese Vice President Hu Jintao, the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping's preferred candidate to take over from President Jiang Zemin, is beginning to show the confidence that suggests his position as the new party secretary general is secure. This was almost certainly negotiated at the party leaders' traditional summer retreat at the seaside resort of Beidaihe last month.

It is also beginning to become a bit clearer what Jiang demanded as his price for reining in his supporters who were pressing for him to be allowed to continue in office. The date of the party congress has been put back to the unusually late date of Nov. 8. This means that Jiang can go to the United States at the end of October as head of state as well as party leader. He enjoys the limelight of state visits and was keen to go out on the crest of a state visit to the U.S., including a weekend at U.S. President George W. Bush's Texas ranch.

The party leaders at Beidaihe also agreed that Jiang's mantra, The Three Represents, would be written into the party constitution. This was perhaps even more important to Jiang than the state visit to the U.S. as it gives him a sense that he is up there in the Communist Party of China pantheon along with Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.