Li Keqiang: China’s No 2 ousted from party leadership as Xi Jinping tightens grip on power

Reshuffle likely to see all-powerful Politburo stacked with Xi loyalists, China observers say

The Chinese premier Li Keqiang has been dropped from the Communist Party’s all-powerful Politburo, part of a reshuffle of China’s leadership on Saturday that will further tighten Xi Jinping’s grip on power.

Mr Li was due to step down as premier by March, at the end of his second five-year term, but he would have been eligible under China’s age restrictions to serve another five years on the Politburo standing committee.

The 67-year-old premier was appointed in 2013 and has a background as a liberal economist. He was close to China’s previous president Hu Jintao, but is not viewed as having particularly friendly or long-standing relations with Mr Xi.

Video from Saturday, the last day of the Chinese Communist Party’s 20th National Congress, showed the 79-year-old Hu being unexpectedly led out of the closing ceremony by party aides, despite seeming reluctant to leave and sharing words with both Mr Xi and Mr Li on his way out.

Votes taking place on Saturday were expected to include a motion to allow Mr Xi to stay on as president for an unprecedented third term.

And Mr Xi will now also bring four new candidates onto the standing committee, after Mr Li, Shanghai party chief Han Zheng, party advisory body head Wang Yang, and Li Zhanshu, a longtime ally of the leader and the head of the largely ceremonial National People’s Congress, were dropped.

Analysts say the move signals that the next Politburo is likely to be stacked with Xi loyalists.

The National Congress is expected to conclude with an amendment of the Communist Party’s constitution that will further bolster Mr Xi’s authority.

While the exact text of the amendment – scheduled for Saturday – has not been made public, an announcer reading out the reasons behind it repeatedly cited Mr Xi and his success in strengthening the country’s military and economy, in addition to reinforcing the Communist Party’s authority as a whole.

Mr Xi has taken personal charge of policy working groups in a departure from the ruling style of his two immediate predecessors, Mr Hu and Jiang Zemin, under whom the National Congress saw a broader internal discussion of ideas.

“Right now, you don’t really see a lot of internal party debates about these different policies and there is only one voice there,” said Ho-fung Hung, a professor of political economy at Johns Hopkins University.

In brief closing statements, the Chinese president said the constitutional revision “sets out clear requirements for upholding and strengthening the party’s overall leadership”.