The Oh, Hello and

welcome to Behind the News my name is Doug Henwood

two guests today first in moments

Isabel Hilton looks at China as its ruling Communist Party conducts its

quinquennial Congress.

And at the bottom of the hour, Alex Vatale looks at the awfulness of American policing and what needs to be done about it.

Before that, a few words.

Thursday, October 19 marks the 30th anniversary of the great 1987 stock market crash.

When it happened I thought it was 1929 all over again.

That it wasn't made me rethink all the disaster instincts I'd picked up for marching political economy.

Perhaps that rethink made me too skeptical of disaster scenarios.

But what I've said ever since is that if you can't find a good critique of capitalism

and it's working reasonably well, you shouldn't hope for it to go off the rails as a dais ex-Machina deliverance.

As we've seen over the past few years, crises aren't always a gift to the left.

They're often a gift to the right.

And now China.

Every five years, the ruling Communist Party gathers in a Congress during which major decisions

around personnel and policy are made.

This time around, word is that leader Jeun-P Ping is looking to consolidate his power and transform himself into one of modern China's major leaders.

Here's Isabel Hilton, editor of China Dialogue.net with more.

The Party Congress is obviously a big deal happens every

five years but who is it and what is the Congress's role in the Chinese

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