Xi Jinping secured an unprecedented third leadership term on Sunday and unveiled a top governing body packed with loyalists, cementing his place as the country’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong.
Shanghai Communist Party chief Li Qiang followed Xi onstage at the Great Hall of the People as he unveiled the new Politburo Standing Committee, putting him in line to be prime minister when Li Keqiang retires in March. .
The other members of the seven-person Standing Committee are Zhao Leji and Wang Huning, returning from the previous committee, and newcomers Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi. Li Qiang is also new to the Standing Committee.
Analysts see them all as sympathetic to Xi, the son of a Communist Party revolutionary who has led China in a more authoritarian direction since he came to power in 2012.
Richard McGregor, a senior fellow on East Asia at the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney, said the result was a resounding victory for Xi.
“All of his rivals, potential and real, have been expelled from the Politburo Standing Committee and Xi loyalists have taken their place. The new Politburo is an emphatic statement of Xi’s dominance over the party.”
The unveiling of the 24-member Politburo and Standing Committee comes a day after the close of the 20th Communist Party Congress, which saw amendments added to the party’s charter that cement Xi’s central status and the leading role of his political thought within the party.
Still, Xi, 69, faces tough challenges as the world’s second-largest economy slows and frustration grows over his “zero” policy. In addition, China is increasingly estranged from the West, aggravated by Xi’s support for Russia’s Vladimir Putin and rising tensions over Taiwan.
Information of: www.algemeiner.com
Photo credits: AP
