In the first orderly transition of China's political leadership since the Communist party took power in 1949, Mr Hu Jintao was appointed this week as chairman of its central military commission. This gives him control of the state, party and military organs of power in the single- party system ruling over 1.2 billion people in the world's most dynamic developing economy.
The departing Mr Jiang Zemin, who had a similar position since the Tiananmen Square crisis in 1989, presided over China's transition from pariah status to its current buoyant international role. Having relinquished supreme control of the party and state leadership to Mr Hu over the last two years he has agreed to complete the military transition. Chinese and other commentators make much of the voluntary and orderly succession of power, given the disruptive and contested ones of previous years, when Mao Zedong was succeeded by Deng Xaoipeng. It is all the more important because of the profound, if uneven changes faced by China socially and geographically raising fears that a single-party state will be unable to contain developments over the coming generation.
The indications are that Mr Hu's new collective leadership along with the premier, Mr Wen Jiabao, will concentrate on addressing this unevenness between the rich eastern seaboard where most economic development has taken place and the vast western interior where 800 million people remain afflicted by rural poverty. Exploitation and protest have been central features of the dramatic economic transition to greater wealth in the last decade, as well as the fact that an estimated 250 million Chinese people have been lifted out of absolute poverty. A huge new middle class has been created, whose consumption stimulated world markets, just as have the huge flows of investment in Chinese industrial capacity.
Tackling corruption and local, regional and city government reform will also be major priorities of the new leadership. Although Mr Hu is associated with limited democratic reforms they are not expected to be much extended nor are media freedoms. The large question of whether such restrictions are compatible with the effective functioning of such a complex and sophisticated society is likely to loom large for the new leadership in coming years. That is why stability is such a mantra; but innovation will also be needed to steer such a volatile mixture of social and economic change.
Together with its growing impact on the international economy this makes the story of China's contemporary development one of the most compelling in the world today. The same applies to its impact on Asian and world politics. Rising powers have historically broken the mould of existing international balances mainly through wars and revolutions. It remains to be seen whether China's development will follow that course. Under Mr Hu's leadership China is likely to bide its time on major issues, especially by not provoking the United States, and to consolidating closer relations with its Asian neighbours.