New old guys on the block
The Politburo's Standing Committee has been named.Xi Jinping Unveils China’s New Leaders but No Clear Successor
President Xi Jinping thrust China into a new era of strongman politics on Wednesday, unveiling a leadership team without a likely successor among the six officials who will help him rule for the next half decade.
In a nationally televised ceremony, Mr. Xi introduced the new members of China’s highest council of power, the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, on the red carpet of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. In addition to Mr. Xi and China’s premier, Li Keqiang, the committee included five new members, all men in their 60s…
The five new Standing Committee members are party leaders with long careers in Chinese politics, including one of Mr. Xi’s longtime allies and a scholar of international relations. But the party declined to name a younger leader to the committee who might succeed Mr. Xi when his second term as president ends in 2023…
But by discarding the unspoken conventions that have ensured relatively stable leadership changes in recent years, Mr. Xi has pushed Chinese politics into new territory that critics have warned could lead to turmoil, or a cult of personality with echoes of Mao…
Among the new members were Wang Yang, 62, a vice premier who promoted himself as a can-do reformer while party chief of Guangdong Province in southern China, and Han Zheng, a former mayor of Shanghai who is credited with guiding that city’s emergence as China’s glittering financial and business capital. Neither had a long history of working closely with Mr. Xi before he became president in 2012.
Other new members have worked alongside Mr. Xi for years. They included Li Zhanshu, his longtime friend and aide, and Wang Huning, a former professor turned party ideologue who has helped craft Mr. Xi’s speeches and reports…
The seventh member, Zhao Leji, served as head of the party’s organization department and will assume leadership of its anticorruption agency…
Some China watchers have said they also expect Mr. Xi to place more emphasis on overhauling the economy and cleaning up finances, after spending the past five years stamping out dissent and tightening his control over the party and the military, China’s other political power center…
Few experts expect Mr. Xi will take big steps toward market liberalization, but many believe he must move to limit financial risk. After decades of rapid growth, China faces growing economic challenges that include mountains of debt held by local governments and inefficient state-owned conglomerates.
“He wants a team around him that will implement his vision,” said Evan S. Medeiros, the former senior director for Asian affairs in the National Security Council under President Barack Obama. “On economic issues, one could tentatively say that this Politburo Standing Committee is more reform-minded than the current lineup.”…
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Labels: China, leadership, politics
posted by Ken Wedding @ 9:00 AM
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