China reaffirms Xi’s leadership, removes premier from power
BEIJING — China’s ruling Communist Party reaffirmed President Xi Jinping’s continued dominance in running the nation Saturday, one day ahead of giving him a widely expected third five-year term as leader.
A party congress effectively removed Premier Li Keqiang, the nation’s No. 2 official, from senior leadership.
The weeklong meeting, as it wrapped up Saturday, also wrote Xi’s major policy initiatives on the economy and the military into the party’s constitution, as well as his push to rebuild and strengthen the party’s position by declaring it central to China’s development.
The removal of Li signaled Xi’s continuing tight hold on power in the world’s second-largest economy.
“The congress calls on all party members to acquire a deep understanding of the decisive significance of establishing comrade Xi Jinping’s core position on the party Central Committee and in the party as a whole and establishing the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought,” states a resolution on the constitution approved at Saturday’s closing session.
“Xi Jinping Thought” refers to his ideology, which was enshrined in the party charter in 2017.
Xi said the revision to the constitution “sets out clear requirements for upholding and strengthening the party’s overall leadership.”
Li was among four of the seven members of the party’s Politburo Standing Committee who were missing from its new 205-member Central Committee, which was formally elected at the closing session.
That means they won’t be reappointed to the Standing Committee in a leadership shuffle that will be unveiled today. Xi is widely expected to retain the top spot, getting a third term as general secretary.
The three others who were dropped were Shanghai party chief Han Zheng, party advisory body head Wang Yang, and Li Zhanshu, the head of the largely ceremonial legislature.
Li Keqiang will remain as premier for about six more months until a new slate of government ministers is named.
Xi has emerged during his first decade in power as one of China’s most powerful leaders in modern times. A third five-year term as party leader would break an unofficial twoterm limit that was instituted to try to prevent the excesses of Mao’s one-person rule.
Xi has put loyalists in key positions and taken personal charge of policy working groups. In contrast, factions within the party discussed ideas internally under Hu and Jiang, his two immediate predecessors, said Ho-fung Hung, a professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins University.
Xi has emphasized the central role of the Communist Party, expanding state control over society as well as the economy.
The congress concluded by playing the communist anthem, “The Internationale.”