The torch of leadership has been passed in China. At a major party conclave that just ended in Beijing, Jiang Zemin relinquished his third and last post in the leadership to Hu Jintao. In addition to his top positions in the Communist Party and the Chinese state, Mr. Hu has now added authority over the military as chairman of the Central Military Commission.

There are plenty of absorbing questions in the wake of Mr. Hu’s apparent consolidation of power. Among them, for example, why did Mr. Jiang bow out of his last leadership post earlier than many expected? And just how settled is the leadership question? Will the many cronies of Mr. Jiang who remain in positions of power make Mr. Hu’s life more difficult?

Despite these questions, to a surprising degree, the early analyses of the power shift have arrived at a consensus on Mr. Hu himself. The New York Times reported that “it seems highly unlikely that Mr. Hu is a closet liberal,” citing Mr. Hu’s implementation of restrictions on the press, an internet crackdown, and the judgment of an expert on the Chinese leadership who placed Mr. Hu firmly in the category of communist apparatchiks. Meanwhile, the Washington Post cited a party source that Messrs. Jiang and Hu “shared basic views on the course China should follow” and “reports of differences…had more to do with competing power bases and jockeying by proteges than fundamental policy differences.”

These assessments are a departure from more hopeful thinking about Mr. Hu. Until recently, reports suggested that, but for the need to battle Mr. Jiang for undiluted power, Mr. Hu would have been more flexible in dealing with sensitive issues like Hong Kong’s democracy movement and China’s policy to gain control of Taiwan, and felt freer to embark on political reforms.

Some doubt however that Mr. Hu’s heart ever beat as a political reformer. “It’s all hogwash,” says Yu Mao-chun, an historian at the American Naval Academy, of such speculation. Indeed, shortly before the party meeting confirming his grasp of the military post, Mr. Hu gave a speech rejecting Western political models as leading China into a “blind alley” and urging the supremacy of the Communist Party. Was that a last-ditch maneuver to gain hard line support, or a sign of Mr. Hu’s true nature?

Or do such questions miss the point? Projecting attitudes and governing styles onto Chinese leaders is a precarious business, as misjudgments about Mao Tse-tung and Deng Xiao-ping proved. The range of opinion and degree of flexibility among Chinese Communist Party leaders is much more limited than efforts to divine reformist tendencies or hard-line inclinations encourages us to believe. Mr. Hu’s agenda, says Mr. Yu, is aimed at improving the Party’s grip on power rather than allowing in the vast majority of Chinese people to have a say in China’s governance. As for the power shift, Mr. Hu’s trifecta, says Mr. Yu, means “China has reverted back to normal,” by concentrating all the posts, military, political, and ideological in one man.

Even those who find in Mr. Hu’s record indications of moderation believe he has turned a corner.” Last year, Mr. Hu put out that he was supporting ‘political reform’ in China,” says John Tkacik, Jr., but at the party plenum, the message became ” ‘strengthening the Party’s governance capacity’ which is a bumper sticker for top-down control of the Party over every aspect of Chinese life.” In Mr. Tkacik’s view, the continuing presence of members of Mr. Jiang’s “Shanghai faction” in the politburo and state council means that a power struggle continues, and Mr. Hu is still constrained from taking greater steps in press freedom and governance.

Fascinating as it is to read Communist Party tea leaves, Mr. Hu’s identity, whether as crypto-reformer or dyed-in-the-wool apparatchik is not the most pressing concern. It is far more useful to nail down what America wants in its dealings with Beijing on Taiwan, Hong Kong, and North Korea, human rights and democratization, and in regional and global affairs. America can and should set policy goals that are not tailored to an anticipated response from the Communist Party. Where resistance is met, as for example on Taiwan, a tough and consistent policy will make it easier for a moderate to chart a different course, and clearer to a hardliner what the limits are.

Ms. Bork is deputy director of the Project for the New American Century.