President Jiang Zemin has highlighted the criterion of the 'revolutionary bloodline' in the selection of top cadres.
In internal meetings, Mr Jiang and his political advisers asked party authorities to strive to prevent a 'Chinese-style Gorbachev or Yeltsin' from emerging.
Chinese sources said this was a reference to senior officials who might succumb to 'bourgeois liberalisation' and change the nature of the Communist Party.
The sources quoted the President as saying descendants of 'first-generation revolutionaries' were better motivated to ensure that the party remained in control.
While personnel changes were unlikely to take place at the Sixth Plenum of the Party Central Committee next week, senior cadres at the conclave would informally discuss high-level promotions at the 15th Party Congress next year.
'Jiang has instructed that if there are 150 or so offspring of party elders working at high levels, the purity of the party can be preserved,' a source said.
