Chinese Vice President, Xi Jinping who has been widely rumored to succeed the president has mysteriously disappeared days before the president is supposed to step down.
Jinping was last seen in public 8 days ago on 1st September and has cancelled at least four meetings since then including those with the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Singaporean Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.. Speculations about his whereabouts have started flying around.
Mr Xi is supposed to inherit the leadership of the Communist Party from President Hu Jintao at the 18th Communist Party congress. In addition to assassination rumors, the Party has failed to confirm a date for the Congress.
“There is a taste in the air that an era is coming to an end,” said intellectual Chen Ziming, who was an influential government adviser until the protests of 1989. “We had 30 years of Mao and 30 years of Den. It feels now like the latter days of Mao’s dictatorship.”