Reshuffle follows Central Committee retirements, banking crises and Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign but scope of changes prompts uncertainty.
«:»A bigger than expected reshuffle of economic and financial personnel unfolded at the just concluded Communist Party congress , as development security, tech self-reliance and common prosperity were adopted as new overriding guidelines to counter rising external uncertainties over the next five years. It has generated giant questions over whether and how the country’s refraining from an all-out stimulus, its debt regulation and cautious steps in yuan internationalisation will change, and how the new team will shore up the slowing economy and handle spillover from US Federal Reserve rate hikes. Vice-Premier Liu He , President Xi Jinping’s top economic adviser and chief trade negotiator with the United States and the European Union, has moved out of the Central Committee, according to the new list published by Xinhua on Saturday. The retirement of the 71-year-old – who helped draft China’s economic structural reform, de-risking and innovation policies over the past 10 years – has long been expected because of the party’s implicit age limit of 68, but there is speculation he may be retained as a special adviser in another capacity. Liu’s aides on trade negotiations and the Central Economic and Financial Affairs Commission, including 59-year-old Han Wenxiu, 56-year-old deputy commerce minister Wang Shouwen and 58-year-old Han Jun, governor of northeast China’s Jilin province, were elevated to the Central Committee for the first time. He Lifeng, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission and a hot candidate for the top economic adviser role, made an unsurprising appearance on the Central Committee list.
