China opens party meeting on 'cultural development'

China's top Communist Party leaders on Saturday opened a four-day meeting which will be devoted to the country's "cultural development", state media reported. Analysts say the meeting is largely to strengthen the party's tight control over the media and the Internet, while a new generation of leaders must take over the reins of power within a year. On September 26, the party's Political Bureau, which has 25 members, discussed a report on a draft resolution of the Central Committee regarding cultural reforms, Xinhua news agency said. The document "embodied the wisdom of the entire CPC and other groups and will become the guidance for accelerating the country's cultural reforms and development", according to unnamed analysts quoted by Xinhua Independent analysts say reform of the cultural system has to do with ensuring the media serve the party's goals and will mean even tighter control of freedom of expression, especially online. With more than half a billion Internet users and over 200 million users of microblogging sites, authorities are increasingly concerned about the power of the Internet to influence public opinion in a country that maintains tight controls over its traditional media outlets. The communist regime has also recently strengthened its control over some reformist newspapers. The location of the closed-door meeting and discussions of the plenum, which brings together all the members of the Central Committee, who number just over 200, are as usual being kept secret. The results of the plenum will be carried by the official media on Tuesday evening. President Hu Jintao will end his second five-year term as party head next year. Premier Wen Jiabao and his government will also resign in 2013 and analysts said this weekend's meeting would provide one of the last opportunities for the exiting regime to leave its mark on the direction of the party. Vice President Xi Jinping is widely expected to take over Hu's posts as head of the party and head of state, while Vice Premier Li Keqiang is tagged to be the next prime minister. But the allocation of other positions within the party and government are still the subject of power struggles at the highest levels, analysts said. China's Communist Party is the largest political party in the world with more than 80 million members. The top party posts, collectively known as the Politburo Standing Committee which currently numbers nine, will be settled about three months before next October's party congress, but not made public until it concludes, analysts say.