BREAKING THE PRECEDENT
Even before this, President Xi was considered equal to China’s two previous supreme leaders.
Xi was declared the “main” leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) after the official document of the results of an important party meeting held in 2016. With this, his position and political influence became even stronger. Previously, this title was given to Mao and Deng, as well as Jiang, former Chinese leaders who have died.
Six years later, President Xi’s position became even more prominent when he attended the 20th Party Congress. At that time, Xi was appointed to fill an ‘important position’ in the party’s Central Committee.
This event, which is held every four years, is a witness to how tradition is broken by President Xi. One of them was when he stopped the tradition of de facto age limits that had long been in effect for high-ranking officials. This rule is known as ‘qi shang ba xia’ (or literally translated as ‘seven up eight down’).
This unwritten rule states that members who are 67 years old or younger at the time the party congress takes place have the right to retain their position or take up a new position. Meanwhile, those who have reached the age of 68 are required to retire.
As a result, this old tradition was broken when some of those who managed to cross the threshold of the then parliament were retained. Among them were top military general Zhang Youxia (then 72 years old) and Foreign Minister Wang Yi (then 69 years old).
Xi himself paved the way at the age of 69, when he was reappointed as party chairman for the third time at the 2022 event.
However, the composition of the members of the politburo, the party’s second-highest decision-making body, creates an anomaly. The number of seats decreased by one to 24. For the first time in 25 years, there are no women in this group after Vice Premier Sun Chunlan stepped down.
The appointment of seven prominent figures to the Politburo Standing Committee has sparked debate among analysts and commentators. They argue that these elected officials are allies of President Xi, with similar backgrounds and have had connections with him in the past.
Among them were three officials — Premier Li Qiang, chief of staff Cai Qi, and chief anti-corruption supervisor Li Xi — who were part of the “New Zhijiang Army.” They once worked under Xi Jinping’s leadership in Zhejiang Province during its political heyday.
In addition, small leading groups (LSG), or “ling dao xiao zu” were also re-formed under Xi’s presidency. This group formed by the CCP operates independently without the help of political party members and state officials and is able to determine the direction of government policy, as explained in an article published in 2020 by the Jamestown Foundation, a think-tank from the United States.
Based on analysis by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) research institute in 2017, it is estimated that there are more than 80 groups operating. The report said that around 30 groups were formed under Xi’s supervision.
According to a Jamestown Foundation article, these groups have experienced increasing centralization under Xi’s leadership, where he is said to personally lead at least half of the main committees currently active.
