March 15 (Bloomberg) -- Xi Jinping, the son of an army veteran, was appointed today as China's vice president, the next step in an orchestrated plan for him to succeed Hu Jintao as the country's head of state in 2013.

Hu, 65, was named today by China's legislature to his second and final five-year term as president and head of China's military commission, controller of the 2 million-strong People's Liberation Army.

Xi was chosen in October to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau, the Communist Party's most powerful decision- making body, displacing the last ally of former President Jiang Zemin. That gave Hu full control over the highest ranks of government and Communist Party. Today's promotion puts Hu's hand- picked successor in place.

``The sense among people who follow politics was that Xi Jinping was not Hu's first choice, that he was more a consensus choice by the party's elite,'' Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Beijing-based Dragonomics Research & Advisory, said in a phone interview today. ``Decisions in China can no longer be made by one guy.'' Xi's role as vice president isn't clear, he said.

Xi, 54, will be Hu's understudy, representing China at international gatherings and ceremonial occasions, including the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, according to economists who advise the ruling Communist Party. Xi replaces Zeng Qinghong.

`Princeling'

Xi is a so-called princeling, the son of former Chinese vice premier and army veteran Xi Zhongxun. Xi Jinping holds a doctorate in law and a chemical engineering degree from Beijing's Tsinghua University, Hu's alma mater, according to Xi's biography distributed by Xinhua News Agency.

He was Shanghai's Communist Party secretary for a year after the previous party chief Chen Liangyu was fired for corruption. U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who met Xi when Xi was party chief of Zhejiang province, near Shanghai, described the Chinese official as ``the kind of guy who knows how to get things over the goal line.''

Among the other appointments announced today was the selection of Wu Bangguo, 66, to a second and final term as chairman of the National People's Congress, the country's legislature.

To contact the reporters on this story: Eugene Tang in Beijing on eugenetang@bloomberg.net; William Bi in Beijing at wbi@bloomberg.net

Last Updated: March 15, 2008 01:58 EDT