Secrecy and Power in China BEIJING - Secrecy suffuses Chinese politics, and Wang Xiaofang, a former government official who writes novels about the lives of officials, says he knows why - it's an essential part of having absolute power and is rooted in the despotic traditions of Chinese history. But that raises a crucial question: Can China, which craves modern power, attain it by operating old notions of power? It's the subject of my Letter from China this week. As Mr. Wang, the author of "The Civil Servant's Notebook" (just out in English with Penguin), explained recently by telephone, the basic attitude of power holders in China today is: "You don't need to know anything. Because if you know something then you threaten my power. "Hence all the secrecy that we see around us, including in the 18th Congress," Mr. Wang continued, referring to the crucial Communist Party meeting that will take place starting on Nov. 8th to choose new leaders for the country. The secrecy that always surrounds the date of the congress illustrates the problem perfectly. For months, academics, business executives, diplomats and ordinary people in China and overseas tried to figure out when China's top power holders would convene and choose new national leaders. Reliable reports put the date at mid-October - after all, hotels that host the 2,300-odd delegates to the congress were told to hold rooms empty; there were notices from the government to organizers of the Beijing marathon, originally set for Oct. 14, that it might be postponed, and a security exhibition was delayed, as Reuters reported. Early in September word grew stronger - people who had just met ministers said an internal announcement had been made for mid-October; people who hobnobbed with mandarins in the powerful anti-corruption apparatus said the same. But there was no official word. A kind of paralysis gripped parts of the powerful state-owned economic sector, with major decisions postponed, since many senior managers will probably fall or rise depending on who is promoted at the congress. Then, like a bolt from the blue, late on Friday, Sept. 28, the party announced the congress would be held later than most expected, on Nov. 8th. The South China Morning Post, based in Hong Kong, said the date was a "surprise postponement" and attributed the decision to the party's desire to punish a top former official, Bo Xilai, before the meeting convened. The article is behind a paywall but can be seen here. The newspaper could be right. We just don't know. For many - business executives, diplomats, academics and, yes, journalists - the routine, extreme secrecy is challenging. "Never, in 30 years of reporting from five continents, have I found it so difficult to be a journalist," Peter Ford, a veteran correspondent for The Christian Science Monitor, wrote in March. The article was about reporting in the restive regions of Tibet and Xinjiang, but could easily have applied to heartland politics in Beijing. There has been much talk about the Asian century, led by China, and about how China's authoritarian model is leading the country to great global power and influence. A more nuanced, and doubtful, take on the issue by Pankaj Mishra, titled "What will Asia's Ascendance Bring?" is up here on the Rendezvous blog. For a longtime reporter in China, however, the key question raised by Mr. Wang's analysis of how power works is this: Can China become truly modern and powerful by operating old systems of power that rely on so much secrecy and ignorance?