Former domestic security chief Zhou Yongkang's corruption trial may be a major test of whether President Xi Jinping's intention to promote the rule of law in China is genuine or not.

Last week, Xi confirmed that the October meeting of senior party officials will revolve around bolstering the legal system to allow "modern governance" to be implemented, state media reported.

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However, Xi's desire to reform the system is contrary to the extrajudicial methods of his on-going anti-graft campaign and political purges, Bloomberg Businessweek explained.

Zhou's trial, which was announced last week, may face a similar fate to that of Bo Xilai's in 2013. For 18 months, Chinese authorities arrested Zhou's allies in the government and detained them without trial and outside communication for months.

How Zhou's trial will proceed may reflect the Communist Party's willingness to reform its secretive legal processes and decrease the power monopoly enforced during the last 65 years.

Having links to a senior official suspected of illegal activities put an individual in danger of being detained without trial. To this day, China observes the party's long-standing shuanggui discipline system that cannot be checked by the law.

Melbourne-based professor of law Randy Peerenboom said the shuanggi system will most likely remain under Xi's administration because it is needed for the anti-graft drive.

According to Jerome Cohen, a Chinese legal system expert based in New York, if Xi is serious with his vow to uphold rule of law, Zhou's trial could demonstrate his sincerity by excluding evidence that were illgaly obtained through shuanggi.

In November last year, the party's Central Committee meeting raised the issue of legal reform in the Communist country. At the end of the meeting, Xi and the party leaders called for more emphasis on the rule of law, judicial independence and respect for the constitution.

Observers said one sign of the system giving courts more independence would be granting Zhou the chance to construct a proper and credible defense. A real shift in the system would be the public broadcast of the trial, Washington-based analyst Scott Harold said.

Meanwhile, University of Hong Kong law professor Michael Davis argues that Xi's claims to uphold the rule of law only encourages the party to take arbitrary actions that harass those who defend human rights.

Before announcing the Zhou probe, the party allowed state-run media to publish details about the former security chief's family and business dealings. Harold from Rand Corp said if the party was sincere about bolstering the rule of law, then the rumor campaigns against Zhou would not have happened.

Xi's anti-corruption campaign ensnared over 480 officials to date. A secretive party watchdog called Central Commission for Discipline Inspetion (CCDI) leads the investigation and has the power to investigate and detain indefinitely any of the members of the country's Communist Party.

TagsZhou Yongkang, Bloomberg Businessweek, Bo Xilai, Central Commission for Discipline Inspetion, CCDI, Randy Peerenboom, Jerome Cohen, Scott Harold, Michael Davis, Rand Corp, Harold