That leaves some observers wondering what they should call Hu Jintao since, during his five years in power, China has sometimes resembled a rudderless ship.

"Hu Jintao's style tends to be management of crises rather than an overall political vision for the country," said Russell Leigh Moses, a Beijing-based analyst.

Hu's political programme will become clearer after the 17th Communist Party Congress, which opens in Beijing on October 15 and will chart the course for the world's most populous country for the next five years.

It is also an opportunity to look back at the five years that have passed since the 16th Congress and look at what the Hu team has achieved.

It is a mixed scorecard, according to Mao Shoulong, a public policy expert at Beijing's Renmin University.

"The overall economy is probably better now than at any time in history, as the effects of China's entry into the World Trade Organisation in 2001 are now coming into play," he said.

"(But) the problem of social inequality is still quite serious and will probably remain a focus of government policies."

Both WTO membership and income disparity are legacies of the previous government, and while the Hu leadership has benefited from the former, it has still to take effective steps to cope with the latter.

Last year, the average Chinese city dweller earned 3.28 times as much as his fellow citizen in the countryside, up from 3.21 times in 2004, according to data from the agriculture ministry.

This partly reflects deep economic forces at work in China, such as the concentration of wealth along the industrialised east coast, which has prospered for more than a generation due to its proximity to world shipping routes.

Even so, the party Congress is likely to address ways to mitigate the problem, according to Sidney Rittenberg, an American scholar who has had ties with China since the 1940s.

"The most important, and popular, measures that may come out of the Congress for ordinary citizens will be further steps to close the shocking and still-growing income gap between town and country, coast and hinterland," he said.

While few doubt that the economic reform agenda will continue during Hu's last five years in office, the jury is still out on whether he plans changes in the political system.

"Before he took office, everyone was whispering, Hu Jintao is a reformer. Then he got into office, and he didn't do any reform. A lot of people were very, very disappointed," said Joseph Fewsmith, a China expert at Boston University in the United States.

That has motivated some observers to put Hu in the "technocrat-cum-autocrat" mould, but others have pointed out that in a much-cited speech delivered in June this year, he called for "thought liberation."

"Authoritarianism doesn't jive well with liberating your thought. So you get these hints that he may try to move in different directions," Fewsmith said.

Russell Leigh Moses, the Beijing-based analyst, argued more is needed.

"I'm not sure Hu is the right person for China for the next five years. In one sense he has been leading China forward, but I think quite frankly he has been starting to lead China sideways," he said.

However, Rittenberg voiced more optimism, saying that Hu would be able to implement greater reforms now that he had strengthened his grip on power and laid a political framework that should bring wayward provincial officials more into line.

"I expect to see Hu Jintao continue to push his agenda for 'scientific development in a harmonious society,' and probably with greater effect," he said.

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