China's Communist Party is about to unveil the country's next generation of leaders in the party congress that is held once a decade.

Almost all will be career politicians who have risen through the ranks and questions will be asked whether this new set of leaders will be able to deliver reforms.

The new generation of leaders will have to cope with slowing economic growth, resentment of believed corruption, calls for democracy and nationalist fervour, all of which have been on the increase in China over recent years.

Dr Yiyi Lu, a researcher at the Beijing think tank Chang Chu, explained that "these days you do not have charismatic leaders who have extensive power bases" that the old leaders had and this might make it more difficult to implement change.

Daniel Bell, professor of political theory at Tsinghua University in Beijing, emphasised that we should not expect a "big bang approach to change" in China.

He told Today presenter Justin Webb that "the way that change happens in China is through experimentation at lower levels of government. If it works at lower levels then it could be generalised at high level."

Get in touch with Today via email , Twitter or Facebook or text us on 84844.