The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) yesterday elevated five new officials to assist Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) as he embarks on a second five-year term as CCP secretary-general, and by stopping short of designating an obvious successor strengthened his position as the country’s most powerful leader in decades.
As expected, Xi was given a renewed mandate following the first meeting yesterday of the new CCP Central Committee that was elected at the party’s twice-a-decade national congress.
“We will mobilize the whole party and the whole country in a resolute push to deliver on our pledge and eradicate poverty in China,” Xi said in comments to reporters at a brief ceremony at the Great Hall of the People.
Photo: EPA-EFE
Five members of the new seven-strong Politburo Standing Committee introduced by Xi were appointed yesterday. Going by the party’s norms on retirement ages, none of them are deemed suitable to succeed the 64-year-old Xi as party leader after his second five-year term.
The absence of an obvious successor pointed to Xi’s long term ambitions, said Joseph Fewsmith, an expert on Chinese politics at Boston University.
“It suggests that Xi will likely serve a third term, and that he is likely to name his own successor,’’ Fewsmith said. “We have not seen that for two decades.’’
In contrast, before Xi took power in 2012, he had been in the Standing Committee for five years.
Xi’s predecessor, Hu Jintao (胡錦濤), had a seat in the body for 10 years before becoming CCP leader.
Under recent party precedent, party leaders have served just two five-year terms.
The party had already elevated Xi’s status on Tuesday at its closing session by inserting his name and dogma into the party’s constitution alongside past leaders Mao Zedong (毛澤東) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平).
“No one doubts Xi bestrides the landscape like a colossus. Organized or even unorganized resistance is inconceivable,” said Jeremy Paltiel, a China expert at Canada’s Carleton University.
The only other returning member to the apex ruling body was Chinese Premier Li Keqiang (李克強), the party’s No. 2 official primarily responsible for overseeing the economy and leading the Cabinet.
Li’s authority was widely viewed as having been undercut by Xi’s accumulation of power across various sectors of government.
The makeup of the committee reflects Xi’s efforts to foster party unity by striking a balance between different interest groups in the 89-million member organization.
The new members of the Politburo Standing Committee are, in order of seniority: Li Zhanshu (栗戰書), who serves as Xi’s chief of staff; Vice Premier Wang Yang (汪洋); Wang Huning (王滬寧), director of the party’s Central Policy Research Office; Zhao Leji (趙樂際), head of party organization responsible for job assignments; and Shanghai CCP leader Han Zheng (韓正).
BUILDUP: US General Dan Caine said Chinese military maneuvers are not routine exercises, but instead are ‘rehearsals for a forced unification’ with Taiwan China poses an increasingly aggressive threat to the US and deterring Beijing is the Pentagon’s top regional priority amid its rapid military buildup and invasion drills near Taiwan, US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said on Tuesday. “Our pacing threat is communist China,” Hegseth told the US House of Representatives Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense during an oversight hearing with US General Dan Caine, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. “Beijing is preparing for war in the Indo-Pacific as part of its broader strategy to dominate that region and then the world,” Hegseth said, adding that if it succeeds, it could derail
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
ELITE UNIT: President William Lai yesterday praised the National Police Agency’s Special Operations Group after watching it go through assault training and hostage rescue drills The US Navy regularly conducts global war games to develop deterrence strategies against a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, aimed at making the nation “a very difficult target to take,” US Acting Chief of Naval Operations James Kilby said on Wednesday. Testifying before the US House of Representatives Armed Services Committee, Kilby said the navy has studied the issue extensively, including routine simulations at the Naval War College. The navy is focused on five key areas: long-range strike capabilities; countering China’s command, control, communications, computers, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting; terminal ship defense; contested logistics; and nontraditional maritime denial tactics, Kilby
RSS