BEIJING -- Chinese people celebrated the lunar new year last week by attending colorful temple fairs during the day and watching television galas at night. But the best show was performed by China's top dozen leaders.
There they were, men who for years have been bitter rivals, televised sitting side by side and applauding performances by acrobats and crooners. In their speeches they extolled solidarity and paid their respects to retired leaders, including Deng Xiaoping.
Yet this seamless show hid the fact that China is facing its most serious leadership crisis in nearly two decades.
With Mr. Deng -- the man who has juggled China's competing factions and kept the peace since 1978 -- now seriously ill, this rare period of unity may soon be replaced by battles for control of the world's most populous country.
The effects of China's leadership struggle will reverberate far beyond the walls of the leadership compound in Beijing's Forbidden City.
Under Mr. Deng's leadership, China has developed one of the world's most dynamic economies and has dramatically improved ties with the outside world -- changes unimaginable under Mr. Deng's predecessor, Mao Tse-tung.
A different leadership could try to reverse these changes. And the lack of a single, strong figure like Mr. Deng, who exercised unquestioned authority, could lead to power struggles that might weaken China for years.
Already, Mr. Deng's ill health is held partially responsible for the danger of a breakdown in trade talks between China and the United States. None of Mr. Deng's potential successors is strong enough to make the tough decisions necessary for a settlement.
The problem of succession has dogged Mr. Deng from the time he won the power struggle that followed Mao's death, in 1976. By 1978, when his authority was secure, Mr. Deng was already 74 years old, and any prolonged absence from public view was always enough to start rumors about his health.
But this time, even his family admits that the 90-year-old Mr. Deng is in poor health. Over the past year, he has lost the use of his legs; his daughter has said his health gets worse "day by day" -- a statement she then tried to retract.
But there is other evidence of the patriarch's poor health.
Mr. Deng has not appeared in public in a year, since the last lunar new year festivities; this time, the state-run New China News Agency issued a short report saying only that top leaders had gone to visit him.
The one photo of him released during the past year showed him staring glassy-eyed at a fireworks display.
He is said to be ill with Parkinson's disease, a brain disease that usually worsens with time. He has installed a collective leadership to run the country, but such arrangements have never lasted long in China. While power has in the past been shared, a kingmaker has always emerged to settle disputes and keep the country's fractious political culture in check.
On paper, Mr. Deng's latest protege -- two others fell from grace in the 1980s -- appears well-placed to weather any power struggle. Jiang Zemin is already the country's head of state, its president, general secretary of the Communist Party and head of the powerful Central Military Commission.
But in China, titles count for little.
At the top is indeed Mr. Jiang. But he is more akin to the chief executive officer of a corporation than the supreme leader implied by his titles. Along with him are several other men in their 50s, 60s and early 70s who manage the daily business of the country. And overseeing this group is the equivalent of a corporate board of directors, composed of veteran Communist Party leaders in their 70s, 80s and 90s, with Mr. Deng as informal chairman.
These elderly leaders are dubbed the "Eight Immortals," after a group of Taoist gods. They meet infrequently. They can fire the CEO or anyone else they choose. United only in their belief that the Communist Party must run China, these old revolutionaries exercise power by helping proteges up the ladder.
But with Mr. Deng ill, there are signs the system is breaking down.
Some reformers below Mr. Jiang, such as economics czar Zhu Rongji, have dropped from sight as Mr. Deng's power to protect them has withered. Mr. Jiang himself has begun to be more confident in advocating his own views on China -- which favor slower growth and more centralized economic planning.
Yet Mr. Jiang has not been able to fully assert himself because Mr. Deng is still not dead.
"The successor is caught in a terrible trap of being the heir apparent but not being able to exercise his authority or build a power base," said Lucian Pye, professor of political science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Mr. Jiang, for example, will not have had time to build the intricate network of personal relationships needed to stay in power. He would be vulnerable to other, better connected would-be leaders.
One is Premier Li Peng, a formidable insider and efficient administrator who is widely respected among the bureaucrats who run the world's biggest government. He has the backing of the elderly leaders who most oppose China's new, get-rich-quick ethos.
But Mr. Li is vulnerable himself: He is widely perceived as the hard-liner most associated with the massacre of hundreds of anti-government protesters in 1989 at Beijing's Tiananmen Square.
He is also an advocate for building the Three Gorges dam, a gargantuan project that would dam the mighty Yangtze River. Because of its immense costs -- in displaced people, lost cultural heritage, environmental damage and multi-billion price tag -- the project is seen more the work of a vainglorious emperor than a sober-minded administrator.
A stronger contender may be the shadowy Qiao Shi, head of China's rubber-stamp parliament, the National People's Congress.
This would seem to be a weak base from which to challenge Mr. Jiang. But Mr. Qiao has worked to make the parliament an institution with real powers. In addition, Mr. Qiao used to be China's public security and intelligence boss, giving him access to his opponents' dossiers.
This background and his reputation for toughness may also help Mr. Qiao gain support of the military, said June Teufel Dreyer, a military analyst at the University of Miami. As in many developing countries, China's leaders need at least tacit military support to rule.
"Unlike Deng, none of today's contenders have strong miliary ties, so Qiao's intelligence background may be an asset," Ms. Dreyer said.
Conventional wisdom has it that Mr. Jiang has enough titles and allies to inherit power after Mr. Deng's death, and perhaps to keep it. When Mao died in 1976, Mr. Deng was seen as his natural heir, even though he had just been purged.
But Ms. Dreyer cautions against overestimating Mr. Jiang.
"Once the top person slips, it can be all over in a short while," she said. "As of right now it could go either way. China's leadership is up in the air."