China’s former number two an advocate

FORMER number two leader in China Li Keqiang was the country’s top economic official for a decade.

Mr Li was China’s number two from 2013-23 and an advocate for private business but was left with little authority after President Xi Jinping made himself the most powerful Chinese leader in decades and tightened control over the economy and society.

Mr Li, an English-speaking economist, was considered a contender to succeed then-Communist Party leader Hu Jintao in 2013 but was passed over in favour of Mr Xi.

Reversing the Hu era’s consensusoriented leadership, Mr Xi centralised powers in his own hands, leaving Mr Li and others on the party’s ruling seven-member Standing Committee with little influence.

As the top economic official, Mr Li promised to improve conditions for entrepreneurs who generate jobs and wealth.

But the ruling party under Mr Xi increased the dominance of state industry and tightened control over tech and other industries.

Foreign companies said they felt unwelcome after Mr Xi and other leaders called for economic self-reliance, expanded an anti-spying law and raided offices of consulting firms.

Mr Li was dropped from the Standing Committee at a party congress in October 2022 despite being two years below the informal retirement age of 70.

The same day, Mr Xi awarded himself a third five-year term as party leader, discarding a tradition under which his predecessors stepped down after 10 years.

Mr Xi filled the top party ranks with loyalists, ending the era of consensus leadership and possibly making himself leader for life.

The number two slot was filled by Li Qiang, the party secretary for Shanghai, who lacked Li Keqiang’s national-level experience and later told reporters that his job was to do whatever Mr Xi decided.

Mr Li was born on July 1 1955 in the eastern province of Anhui and by 1976 was ruling party secretary of a commune there.

Studying law at Peking University, he was the campus secretary of the ruling party’s Communist Youth League, an organisation that launched the political careers of former party leaders Hu Jintao and Hu Yaobang.

He was a member of the League’s Standing Committee, a sign he was seen as future leadership material.

After serving in a series of party posts, Mr Li received his PhD in economics in 1994 from Peking University. Following Henan, Mr Li served as party secretary for Liaoning province in the north-east as part of a rotation through provincial posts and at ministries in Beijing that was meant to prepare leaders.

He joined the party Central Committee in 2007.