BEIJING -- With just days to go before Hu Jintao could assume the most powerful job in Chinese politics, the world is little closer to knowing what he is really like, less still what he stands for, AFP reported.

On November 8 the ruling Communist Party begins its 16th National Congress at which Hu is widely tipped to take over the party secretary general's post from President Jiang Zemin.

Hu, currently vice-president, would then become state president next March, leading a generational change at the top echelons of Chinese politics, experts predict, AFP reported.

But both within China and during an increasing number of overseas trips, Hu's defining characteristic remains his almost completely blank facade.

During a landmark solo visit to the United State in May, the man with the bank manager's face and hesitant smile came and went without leaving so much as a hint of personality, let alone controversy.

There is little doubt that Hu, 59, is a highly intelligent Achiever, said AFP.

"He is very good, outstanding," said Wang Dazhong, president of Tsinghua University in Beijing, where Hu graduated with a degree in hydraulic engineering in 1965. "He is very methodical and has a remarkable memory," said a diplomat who has met him. "He has a firm grasp of international culture and great facilities on the economic level."

Beyond this, even the place where Hu was born in December 1942 remains open to dispute.

The official Chinese biography lists him as a native of eastern Anhui Province, now assumed to mean this is his ancestral home.

Other sources say he was born in Shanghai, although the best bet seems to be the nearby city of Taizhou.

After graduating Hu spent a long time in some of China's poorest regions, beginning in the northwestern of Gansu Province, where he worked as an engineer and set about ascending the Communist Party ladder.

After a stint in Beijing he became the youngest provincial party boss in China, taking the helm of the southwestern of Guizhou Province, in 1985 aged 43.

At the end of 1988 he took over in Tibet, immediately showing a tough line in overseeing a declaration of martial law as pro-independence protests in Lhasa were brutally crushed.

Four years later Hu reached the promised land, winning a place on the Communist Party's all-powerful politburo standing committee.

But the reason for his Annointi as the head of a so-called "fourth generation" of party leaders remains a mystery.

"He wasn't chosen because there was this unique package of virtues that had to be acknowledged," said Frederick Teiwes, an expert on modern Chinese history at the University of Sydney.

What happened, observers say, was that in 1992 three party bigwigs including Jiang went to see then-paramount leader Deng Xiaoping with a list of promising middle-aged cadres.

New members of the standing committee had to be picked, and when Hu's name came up, Deng's reaction was simple, but decisive.

"He is a good comrade," the aging patriarch reportedly said, settling the issue.

many rumors have circulated as to why Deng was so sure he had found the right man, including that Hu was friendly with Deng's children.

What Hu will do if installed in power remains equally unknown.

"He is cautious, but open-minded," said Cheng Li, a professor at New York's Hamilton College.

Others warn that with Jiang packing top party posts with his proteges, Hu, with little power base of his own, will have to tread cautiously just to stay in power.

If one thing differentiates Hu from other top leaders, it is the time spent in poor, inland provinces, leading to predictions he might tackle growing disparities between the wealthy east coast and other regions. "Hu Jintao represents China's inland," said Cheng Li. "He may achieve more balanced development."