Xi to tighten his grip on power by promoting key lieutenants

Xi Jinping is set to tighten his grip on the highest levels of the Chinese Communist Party by bringing in key lieutenants into his seven-man cabinet and surrounding himself with loyalists.

The promotions, expected to be announced on Sunday, will entrench the Chinese President’s dominance over the Politburo Standing Committee, and allow him to pursue his economic, ideological and foreign affairs priorities with even fewer dissenting voices at top of the Party hierarchy.

Xi Jinping is expected to dominate the Politburo Standing Committee with his own allies, while Premier Li Keqiang’s [bottom left] Communist Youth League faction is expected to lose out. Credit:

Li Keqiang - China’s number two, the leader of the rival Communist Youth League faction and a relatively moderate economic voice in Beijing - will have to step down from his role as Premier after serving two terms. Li, 67, is young enough to remain on the Standing Committee in a different role but may choose to retire. That has opened the door to Xi’s protégé Li Qiang, the current party boss of Shanghai - who despite bungling the city’s response to COVID-19 in May - has been persistently raised as a top candidate.

Dr Willy Lam, an adjunct professor at the Centre for China Studies at the University of Hong Kong, said Li Qiang’s elevation would indicate Xi has locked in his monopoly on power.

“There’s a long tradition of the party secretary of Shanghai becoming a member of the Standing Committee but in the eyes of foreigners, if you look at the way the pandemic was handled in Shanghai, he is a total failure,” said Lam. “He also has no national achievements.”

Yang Zhang, an assistant professor at the American University in Washington said if Li Qiang becomes premier, “then any power balance at the top ceases to exist”.

Li Qiang, the Shanghai Party Secretary. Credit: Alamy

Xi’s chief of staff, Ding Xuexiang, who has worked alongside Xi since 2007 is also set for promotion, The South China Morning Post and The Wall St Journal reported on Tuesday.

“I think at the central level of the party machinery and of the party hierarchy, we will have Xi Jinping and Ding Xuexiang,” said Lam.

“It is possible that Xi will get five members of the Standing Committee. If you look at previous standing committees, almost all of them since Deng Xiaoping [in the 1980s] have maintained a rough factional balance between the conservatives and the liberals.

“Five factional members will be lopsided. It is abnormal and goes against Party tradition.”

The entrance of four loyalists into Xi’s cabinet would create a “Xi unbound scenario” the Asia Society Policy Institute said in a briefing ahead of the Party Congress, in which “Xi’s influence proves to be unconstrained, and he takes full advantage to set up his ideal [Politburo Standing Committee].”

Xi Jinping delivers the opening speech at the Party Congress on Sunday.Credit: AP

Lam said the retirement of Li Keqiang without a replacement of similar stature would effectively eliminate the factional threat of the more liberal Communist Youth League, putting it on course to join former President Jiang Zemin’s Shanghai Clique in being largely shut out of high office.

“That would be a very bad scenario,” said Lam.

Ding, who runs Xi’s office and the Central Committee’s general office, could replace Li Zhanshu, the 72-year-old chairman of the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, or vice-premier Han Zheng, 68, who has also reached retirement age.

Both of their retirements would leave room for one more younger Xi loyalist to join the Standing Committee with Chen Min’er and Li Xi the most likely potential candidates. Chen went to Tsinghua University with Xi in the 1970s and was then parachuted in as the Party Secretary of Chongqing in southwestern China by Xi in 2017. Li, the Party Secretary of Guangdong province - home to megacities Guangzhou and Shenzhen - has been a family friend of Xi’s since the 1980s.

Wang Huning, the ideologue behind Xi Jinping. Credit: Qilai Shen

Zhao Leji, Xi’s anti-corruption enforcer would likely remain in this scenario. As would Wang Huning, China’s chief ideologist, who has served former presidents Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao. Wang, the faceless man of Chinese politics is the architect of “Xi Jinping Thought”, Xi’s ideological blueprint that is now entrenched in China’s constitution.

“He is the brain of Xi Jinping,” said Lam.

But two appointments on Sunday could also show that Xi’s power is not as strong as expected. Wang Yang, who is currently on the Standing Committee, is considered the compromise candidate for Premier. The 67-year-old has been historically linked with Li’s Communist Youth League faction and has been in favour of market-led reforms.

“There are essentially two sides in this debate over Chinese economic policy. The first is what might be termed ‘Fortress China’ led by Xi and his ‘Xi Jinping Economic Thought’,” the Asia Society Policy Institute said.

“A second group that could be called the ‘Reform and Opening’ faction, however, feels that Xi’s economic policies have… ultimately damaged China’s economic prospects – resulting in rapidly slowing growth and threatening China’s future as a superpower.”

The Premier’s position will not be formally announced until March at the National People’s Congress, but the order in which the Standing Committee members walk on stage on Sunday behind Xi will indicate their seniority. Hu Chunhua, a protégé of former president Hu Jintao who is also aligned with Li’s more economically liberal group, could step up from the 25-member Politburo to the seven-member Standing Committee if Li manages to retain some factional power.

China’s former Ambassador to Australia Ma Zhaoxu. Credit: Bloomberg

China’s foreign policy establishment is also preparing for a reshuffle. Yang Jiechi, the veteran diplomat who berated US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in Alaska in March last year is scheduled to retire at 72. His deputy, Foreign Minister Wang Yi is 69, making him technically too old to join the 25-member Politburo. Neither Yang nor Wang are part of the seven-member standing committee, where foreign policy is largely run by Xi and his ideological guide Wang Huning.

Lam said he expected Xi to make an exception for Wang Yi to join the Politburo despite being past retirement age. That leaves his position as Foreign Minister open to his deputy Ma Zhaoxu, who was Beijing’s Ambassador to Australia between 2013 and 2016.

Ma, 59, presided over a relatively harmonious period in Australia-China relations but was hauled in by former prime minister Tony Abbott in 2013 after Beijing declared an air identification zone over islands in the East China Sea.

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