The decision to use the toothless Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference as the platform for renewed saber-rattling against Taiwan and affirmation of Hu's "socialist concept of honor and disgrace" is noteworthy for several reasons.

Analysts are now getting the opportunity to connect more of the dots toward understanding the apparatchik mindset of the fourth generation leadership which controls the 70 million members of the Communist Party of China who guide the national destiny.

Today, as triple crown holder -- Party General Secretary, President and Central Military Commission chairman -- Hu Jintao is asserting his position as first among equals at a time when the Party is in crisis over its relevancy to a fifth of the planet's population.

Hu and his cohorts are the first leaders to be brought up since childhood under the Communist system created by Chairman Mao. Unquestioning belief in such institutions, ingrained from an early age, cannot help but shape who Hu is and what he thinks is best for his country.

One of those institutions is the CPPCC, first established with American participation sixty years ago. A Political Consultative Conference was created in January 1946 as part of the effort to create a coalition government between the Communist and Nationalist party factions following World War II with Gen. George C. Marshall acting as a mediator.

When Marshall returned to the U.S. in disgust after his mission failed in bitter recrimination, the organization was taken over by the Communists as part of their "United Front" strategy of cooperating with other political parties to legitimate and consolidate its bid for power.

When the Communist victory was apparent in 1949, the "Chinese People's" part of the acronym was added. The CPPCC was then deemed "the highest organ of state power" and declared the founding of the People's Republic in October 1949; it was all downhill for the group after that.

The body's legislative functions were supplanted by the National People's Congress in 1954. Disbanded during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976), the institution was revived by Mao's successor Deng Xiaoping in 1978 as propaganda window dressing then convened to coincide with gatherings of the NPC.

Illustrating the weak institutions and roots for the rule of law, Deng was the one to anoint Hu as China's leader in 1989 after third generation supreme leader Jiang Zemin was chosen as an interim leader.

State-run media under Hu now describes the CPPCC as "a mechanism for multi-party cooperation and political consultation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China, a major manifestation of socialist democracy and a patriotic united front organization of the Chinese people."

The CPPCC concluded its annual session in Beijing Monday morning by adopting a political resolution which "calls on the nation to firmly oppose and check Taiwan independence secessionist forces and activities" and hailing Hu's concept of "socialist honor and dishonor."

The resolution said: "We shall unite all descendants of the Chinese nation who love the motherland to resolutely oppose and check Taiwan independence secessionist forces and activities, and contribute to the development of cross-Straits relations and the reunification of our motherland."

The statement slammed Taiwan's democratically-elected President Chen Shui-bian of "accelerating steps toward independence" in 2006, a move considered "in overt defiance to the strong opposition of Chinese compatriots on both sides of the Taiwan Straits."

Chen's abolition of the National Unification Council was deemed "dangerous." The resolution reaffirmed the PRC's "determination to safeguard our country's sovereignty and territorial integrity is unshakable."

Analysts have long noted that the mainland plays the nationalist card on the Taiwan issue as one of the ways to divert attention away from the welter of devastating domestic problems arising out of its poor performance governing the country by corrupt crony capitalism.

The political resolution also paid homage to a new trial balloon floated by Hu during a CPPCC panel discussion. His addition to communist cant is termed, "the socialist concept of honor and disgrace."

Hu's new idea, reinforced by state media Monday, stresses "the value of patriotism, hard work and plain living, belief in science, conscientious serving the people, solidarity, honesty and credibility, and observing the law."

The new dispensation was trumpeted by the CPPCC resolution as "a perfect combination of traditional Chinese values and modern virtue" with Xinhua news agency saying it was "imperative to make it part of social norms."

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