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The team of Communist Party officials running China’s economy is about to get a major makeover.
Party elites have just finalized nominations for key government positions ahead of the annual gathering of the National People’s Congress, the country’s rubber-stamp legislature, which starts on Sunday.
No women have occupied these key economic positions in Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s administration.
All four are expected to be formally endorsed at the congress. The appointments are seen as part of Xi’s attempt to strengthen the party’s control over the country’s economic institutions, where many Western-educated officials have long influenced policy making.
The congress will set an economic growth target for this year that should be a considerable improvement on last year’s anemic 3%, one of the weakest performances in decades, but which is likely to be a far cry from the pace of expansion China enjoyed before the pandemic. The new team will have to deliver the recovery.
A former party boss of Shanghai who presided over the city’s chaotic two-month lockdown, Li Qiang was named the country’s No 2 party official after Xi during the leadership reshuffle in October.
That puts the 63-year-old in line to succeed Premier Li Keqiang when he steps down during the upcoming congress.
In China’s political system, the premier is traditionally responsible for managing the economy, with several vice premiers supporting his work and taking charge of different issues.
His career took off after he served as Xi’s de facto chief of staff when Xi was the party chief of Zhejiang province between 2002 and 2007.
Li would be the first premier since the Mao era not to have previously worked at the State Council, China’s cabinet, as vice premier, analysts say.
