Beijing, February 27: China is set to re-elect President Jiang Zemin to the post for a second successive five-year term while economic reformer Zhu Rongji will replace Li Peng as Prime Minister, reports said.The Communist Party has confirmed Zhu Rongji's promotion to the post of prime minister and the appointment of current Premier Li Peng as National People's Congress (NPC) chairman, Hong Kong's South China Morning Post said today.In its central committee plenum here yesterday, the ruling Communist Party of China (CPC) endorsed the top government and legislative leaders who will be elected at the first session of the ninth National People's Congress (NPC), China's parliament.``A list of candidates for leading officials of state bodies was discussed and passed yesterday at the second plenary session of the CPC,'' the official Xinhua news agency said without giving further details.Li would replace Qiao Shi, whom many considered the only `rival' to Zemin till the September 1997 CPC nationalcongress, where he was forced to `retire.'Zhu, 69, is one of the six vice-premiers of China and was virtually assured of his new post as premier after he emerged third in ranking from the fifth in the CPC's powerful seven member polituburo standing committee at last September's national congress, sources say.Zhu is credited with turning China into an economic powerhouse from a chronically loss-making economy. He also spearheads the effort to re-structure China's financially unviable public sector units.Li, 69, is required by the Chinese constitution to step down at the end of his term. However, even after stepping down early next month, Li would still be formally the second most powerful man in China after Jiang since he ranks second in the politburo standing committee, one slot ahead of his possible successor, Zhu.At the two-day central committee plenum, the party also endorsed a bold plan to restructure the Chinese central government apparatus.``The plenum adopted through deliberations theplan concerning institutional restructuring of the state council,'' and suggested that the state council (China's top administrative body) submit it to the first session of the ninth NPC for examination,'' Xinhua said.Meanwhile, the Chinese Government charged the seven leading industrialised countries with inaction and allowing Asia to slide into financial crisis.A commentary in a China daily said a meeting last weekend of finance ministers of the big seven - Britain, France, Germany, Canada, Italy, Japan, and the United States - plus Russia had ``offered only empty words like reform.''A $10 billion short-term credit package for three of the worst-hit countries - Thailand, South Korea and Indonesia - was ``primarily designed by European countries and the US to serve the economic interests of themselves,'' it charged.
