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Journalism of Courage
President Xi Jinping has been confirmed as China’s supreme leader for a third term, a widely expected break with precedent. No leader of China since Mao Zedong’s death in 1976 has ruled for more than two terms.
President Xi unveiled his new leadership team on Sunday (October 23) morning — six men who will, along with Xi himself, make up the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC), which sits at the peak of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) structure of power.
Who is in the leadership team?
Xi himself is at the top of the seven member body, the supreme leader of the party, government, country, and the Chinese military. All the other six men are his close loyalists. Four of these men are new entrants to the PBSC. In short bios of these men, The New York Times and The Guardian say:
* Li Qiang (new member): As party chief of Shanghai, he oversaw the harsh Covid-19 lockdown in the city. He has longstanding ties to Xi, which appears to have helped him fend off the pushback against the unpopular step. According to a report in The Guardian, he could be Xi’s choice of the new Premier of China.
* Cai Qi (new member): His ties to Xi go back over two decades to Fujian province where the men worked together. Xi had shown his trust in Cai by appointing him the party chief of Beijing.
* Ding Xuexiang (new member): He is a close aide to Xi, who almost always travels with the supreme leader, and helps him manage party matters.
* Li Xi (new member): He is the party secretary of Guangdong province, where he has tightened the top-down control that is the hallmark of Xi’s style. He is set to lead the party’s agency for investigating corrupt or disloyal officials, The New York Times said.
And who are the men who have been retained?
They are Zhao Leji (65), and Wang Huning (67). Zhao is currently the low-key head of the CCP’s agency for investigating corruption and disloyalty, a position that could now go to Li Xi. Wang Huning, according to The New York Times, is the party’s veteran ideological seer, who has shaped Xi’s nationalist ideas. He may get a new role, the report said.
The four people who have been dropped from the old PBSC are Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, and Han Zheng. Li Keqiang and Wang Yang were powerful figures in the old PBSC, in which a semblance of opposition to Xi still existed.
How is the Politburo Standing Committee chosen?
The top three bodies in the CCP are the PBSC, the Politburo, and the Central Committee.
On Saturday (October 22), the 2,300-odd delegates who had gathered in Beijing for the Party Congress elected 200 members to the new Central Committee. The CC has a range of members, including officials from the provinces, the military, and government ministers. Given Xi’s complete control over the CCP, there is very little dissent in this elite grouping.
On Sunday, the CC met to select officials who will comprise the Politburo, which is the CCP’s executive policy-making body. The Politburo has around 25 members, although this number varies, and is almost exclusively male. The elections are usually a series of backroom dealings rather than an open vote, and it was not immediately clear how many people were elected to the Politburo on Sunday.
The PBSC sits at the top of the PB. Its members include, apart from the party general secretary (Xi), the Premier, first Vice-Premier, and the chairman of the National People’s Congress.
The number of people on the PBSC has been as high as 11 and as low as five. The PBSC chosen in 2017 had seven members, this one too has seven.
