Premier in Xi’s shadow

SECOND TERM: RUBBER-STAMPED BUT LI’S POWER IS LIMITED

President surrounds himself with powerful allies, leaving leader out in the cold.

Beijing

China’s rubber-stamp parliament gave Premier Li Keqiang a second five-year term yesterday, but he faces a tenure deeper in the shadow of the country’s powerful leader Xi Jinping.

Li was re-appointed with 2 964 votes in favour and two against during the annual session of the National People’s Congress at Beijing’s Great Hall of the People, one day after Xi was unanimously given a second term.

Appointed in 2013 to oversee the day-to-day management of the world’s second-largest economy, Li, 62, has seen Xi consolidate power, accumulate titles and surround himself with powerful allies.

In another sign of Li’s diminishing stature in government affairs, Xi’s former antigraft buster and trade negotiator, the economist Wang Qishan, was appointed vice-president on Saturday.

Xi has also turned to his top economic aide, Liu He, to deal with US trade frictions, dispatching him to Washington earlier this month, although it has not stopped President Donald Trump from considering new punitive measures against China.

For his part, Xi now has a clear path to ruling the country indefinitely as the parliament voted last week to abolish the two five-year terms limit for the president.

Li “was sidelined from the premier’s traditional economic policy bailiwick early on in his tenure”, Jonathan Sullivan, director of the China Policy Institute at Nottingham University, said.

“The most influential figures

around Xi are allies that he has manoeuvered into central positions,” Sullivan said, referring to Wang and other officials.

“That does not leave a lot of room for Li Keqiang to exert much influence.”

When he took office five years ago, Li promised “fair treatment” to foreign firms, a larger role for the market and structural re-

forms in favour of the private sector.

But the US and Europe say foreign firms still face hurdles to break into and thrive in China’s huge market as they are forced to work in joint ventures with local firms and share their technology.

Li’s first term has also been marked by increasing concerns about China’s growing debt. –