Communist congress in Beijing set for October
CHINA will convene its 19th Party Congress on October 18, state media said yesterday, a key meeting held every five years where President Xi Jinping is expected to receive a second term as the ruling Communist Party’s top leader.
Over 2,300 delegates will discuss the country’s accomplishments since the previous gathering and elect the new members of the party’s top leadership, according to the party’s official mouthpiece the People’s Daily.
The congress will decide a new line-up for the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, the group of seven politicians who run the world’s second largest economy.
At the meeting, Xi is widely expected to consolidate his grip on power, solidifying his position as China’s most powerful ruler in a generation.
“The spirit of President Xi Jinping’s important speeches will be carried out at the Congress,” the People’s Daily said.
There has been speculation that Xi’s name will be immortalised in the party’s constitution, alongside the country’s two most powerful former leaders, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping.
The People’s Daily article added that the meeting would discuss a strategy for building a “moderately prosperous society,” the goal of Xi’s banner campaign to eliminate poverty nationwide by the 100th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2021.
The new slate of committee members is traditionally seen as indicating Xi’s most likely successor after he steps down, expected in 2022.
However, the president has thus far delayed anointing an heir, spurring speculation that he will try to stay in office beyond that year.
Doing so would violate the unofficial rule set by Deng that general secretaries stay in office no longer than 10 years. The concept allows different party factions to dominate at different times, and seeks to prevent the emergence of a despot.
Five of the current seven PSC members are expected to retire at the Congress, and many experts believe Xi and his number two, Premier Li Keqiang, are locked in a struggle to fill the vacancies with their own supporters.