China is about to release a number of economic figures that show growth is gaining pace, which is good news for the man expected to take the helm of the economic super-power - Xi Jinping.
However, as Lindsey Hilsum from Channel 4 News says it's little comfort for the country's millions of villagers, who rarely see the benefits.
Among those voicing their concerns are the residents of Wukan village in China's south, whose protests against local corruption last year succeeded in kicking out officials and allowing free elections.
Hilsum travelled to the village of Wukan to see how the experiment in democracy is working and what residents are hoping for from the country's new leaders.
It was there where she met Hong Ruiqing, a young woman who grew up on a farm before moving to the city to live.
Hong Ruiqing says when she returned to the village to run a hair salon, she found that local Communist Party leaders had taken her parents land and sold it.
"The old village leaders gave nothing to the villagers. They owned Wukan and decided what to do with the village. They were not elected. The old village chief was the chief for more 40 years, even from before I was born," she said
Last year she joined other villagers in protest when the leaders stole two-thirds of the village land and sold it to developers.
Embarrassed by world attention, the Guangdong provincial party leadership agreed that Wukan could choose new village leaders.
However, some elderly villagers like Yang Ming Qiao say free elections haven't been much of an improvement on the rigged polls which kept the corrupt old guard in for so many years.
"Our lives are still not very good after the election. The government hasn't returned our land yet. The villagers are restless. They want to protest to the new village committee," he told Ms Hilsum.
Many people in China believe change comes from the top down and - like many other villagers with similar struggles across the country - they are looking to the new leadership in Beijing to provide it.
