President unveils new leaders but no successors
BEIJING — President Xi Jinping thrust China into a new era of strongman politics Wednesday, unveiling a leadership team without a likely successor among the six officials who will help him rule for the next half decade.
In a nationally televised ceremony, Xi introduced the new members of China’s highest council of power, the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee, on the red carpet of the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. In addition to Xi and China’s premier, Li Keqiang, the committee included five new members, all men in their 60s.
“Over the past five years, we’ve done a lot. Some work has been finished, some we must continue with,” Xi, 64, said after briefly introducing the committee members, who stood stiffly in line. “A new era needs a new look, and even more needs new accomplishments,” he added.
The debut was the culmination of a weeklong party congress in Beijing that underlined the breadth of Xi’s political ambitions. On Tuesday, its final day, the congress elevated Xi to the same exalted status as the nation’s founding father, Mao Zedong, by enshrining “Xi Jinping Thought” in the party’s constitution.
The five new Standing Committee members are party leaders with long careers in Chinese politics, including one of Xi’s longtime allies and a scholar of international relations.
But the party declined to name a younger leader to the committee who might succeed Xi when his second term as president ends in 2023.
That was a departure from China’s carefully scripted transfers of power in recent decades and a possible signal that Xi intends to govern beyond this next five-year term. Xi may also want more time to test possible successors, while avoiding lame duck status with an heir waiting in the wings.