President Xi and his men
Afterthe19thPartyCongress,China’snewleadershipisinplace.Thesearethepresident’smenwhowillshapetheworld economyuntil2022-andbeyond.
IT was Mao who made possible a sovereign China and peace industrial take- off. But China’s industrial revolution did not materialize until Deng Xiaoping took over in the 1980s. After three decades of dramatic indus China’s transition to post-industrial society in 2012, which his second team is likely to complete.
The full line- up of the new Politburo and its ultimate leadership, the Standing Committee, includes Party General Secretary Xi Jinping ( born in 1953), who accounts for China’s grand strategy, and Premier Li Keqiang ( 1955), a highly regarded economist.
But who are the new Chinese leaders?
Wang Yang: Liberal Voice
Wang Yang ( 1955) is one of Li Keqiang’s four vice premiers who is expected to become chairman of China’s top political advisory body, the People’s Political Consultative Conference. While Wang is perceived as one of the most “liberal” members of the Chinese leadership, he grew up in an urban working- class family in Anhui, a landlocked, agricultural and poorer province in east China.
Wang served in the local Communist Youth League (CYL), as deputy head of the National Development and Reform Commission in the late 1990s, was deputy secretary general of the State Council in 2003-2005, and party secretary in Chongqing. He began to modernize the megacity of more than 30 million people, and was soon promoted to party secretary of Guangdong, where Chinese reforms began in the 1980s. He is credited with pioneering the Guangdong model of - vate enterprise, economic growth and a greater role for civil society.
In the past half-decade, Wang has overseen several portfolios in the Li administration and often accompanied Xi and Li on trips abroad. Wang is among the Chinese elite leaders.
Li Zhanshu: Security and foreign affairs specialist
Li Zhanshu ( 1950) is one of Xi’s right- hand men and his chief of staff. Well before the 19th Congress, he stood a good chance of becoming chairman of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress.
Like Xi and Wang, Li belongs to the generation that lived through the Cultural Revolution. As direc and the chief of its National Security Commission, he is one of the key members of the Politburo.
Li has also played a key role in foreign affairs. He facilitated a strong relationship between China and Russia. In 2015, Xi sent Li as his “special representative” to meet with President Putin in Moscow. Li also paved the way for Xi’s meetings with President Obama in 2015.
Zhao Leji: New anticorruption chief
Formerly head of the CPC’s organization department and its personnel chief, Zhao Leji (1957) will replace the smart and tough hands- on anti- corruption tsar Wang Qishan as the head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection ( CCDI).
Zhao has been a member of the CCP Politburo and its Central Committee secretariat since 2012. He has also served in Xi’s important economic reform steering committee. Like Xi, he went to the countryside to perform manual labor in a commune during the later years of the Cultural Revolution.
Zhao’s appointment signals great trust in his capabilities. Xi expects much from China’s new anti-corruption leader who must have great integrity, high executive ability and be seen as untouchable.
Han Zheng: Shanghai’s chief
Han Zheng (1954), the Shanghai party chief, will become the executive vice premier. Born in Shanghai, Han was not sent to the countryside. He began his career as a warehouse laborer toward the end of the Cultural Revolution and joined the CPC in 1979.
Han served as Mayor of Shanghai from 2003 to 2012, a critical period of rapid growth, booming property markets, and the Expo coming- out party. Thereafter he was promoted as Shanghai’s party secretary, the top political job in the city. Han developed a mainly positive image in Shanghai for his openness and transparency, and for his modern and international outlook.
To some, Han’s appointment was a surprise because usually the members of the Standing Committee are expected to serve in various Chinese provinces rather than mainly in one locale.
On the other hand, Shanghai’s importance will only increase in the coming years when the megacity will become the world’s global city. The Standing Committee needs a veteran Shanghai hand.
Wang Huning: ‘Chinese Kissinger’
The Xi team will also include Wang Huning ( 1955), the CPC’s top party theorist and director of the Central Policy Research Office who is expected to be in charge of ideology, propaganda and party organization. In the West, such a role typically triggers associations of black- and- white ideological propagandists. But nothing could be further from the reality in Wang’s case.
In the CPC, Wang represents continuity and change. He is one of the key theorists behind the ideological stances of three administrations: the “Three Represents” by Jiang Zemin (which opened the CPC to more diverse constituencies, including business people); the “Scientific Development Concept” by Hu Jintao ( which began the quest for greater balance amid income polarization); and the “Chinese Dream” by Xi Jinping (which re - mentum from poverty reduction to the emerging middle classes).
Moreover, Wang has served as Xi’s key foreign policy aide, particularly during his international trips, and is seen as “China’s Kissinger.”
Some other important Leaders
During the 19thCongress, the second vice chairman Xu Qiliang ( 1950) was elevated to replace the retiring 70- year- old Fan Changlong as the first chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission that oversees the military. He will be seconded by General Zhang Youxia ( 1950), a long- time Xi ally. Zhang will have a vital mandate to complete the modernization of the Chinese military.
There is also a select group of major CPC leaders who are members of the Politburo but not in the Standing Committee: Guangdong party chief Hu Chunhua (1963), and the president’s protégé, Chongqing party chief Chen Min’er (1960). Chen serves as the party secretary of Chongqing. Hu and Chen have been perceived as possible successors of President Xi and Premier Li.
One of the most interesting names in the Central Committee is Liu He (1952), Xi Jinping’s trusted economic adviser. Despite his current ministerial-level rank, Liu has a particularly high his close ties to Xi. A Harvardtrained economist, he is seen as the mastermind behind Xi’s macroeconomic policy. Liu has also accompanied the president on many of his overseas trips.
Still another key name of the Central Committee is Yang Jiechi ( 1950), China’s former ambassador to the US, foreign minister and member of the inner circle of the State Council as director of the Foreign Affairs Leading Group. He is one of the key architects of China’s foreign policy and has had a critical role in China’s policies in Asia.
The great mandate
What makes the role of China’s new leadership team exceptional in Chinese history is that it will pave the way for the expansion of the Chinese economy, which is likely to surpass that of the United States in the 2020s; for the upgrading of Chinese innovation as the mainland’s investments into research and development are likely to transcend those in America by the early 2020s; and for the acceleration of economic and financial reforms and the internationalization of the renminbi.
It is also a leadership team that will intensify China’s central role in 21st century globalization that will no longer be driven exclusively by advanced economies, but mainly by emerging and developing nations.