How Xi Rewrote China’s Rulebook to Build the Party Around Himself

By Bloomberg News

October 11, 2022, 5:00 PM EDT

Xi Jinping climbed to the center of China’s political universe by rewriting the rules. He’ll have to break at least three key ones this month to ensure power revolves around him for years to come.

A Bloomberg News analysis of appointments to the party’s Central Committee since 1992 — almost 1,300 in total — shows how Xi has consolidated his own power while stacking the body with loyalists. He’ll get a chance to go even further at a twice-a-decade party congress that begins Oct. 16.

The party’s leadership is made up of more than 300 officials arranged in a five-level hierarchy. At the top is the general secretary, Xi, who also serves as president and commander-in-chief of the military. Each congress provides a new opportunity to rejig the ranks.

Rule to Break: Retire at Age 68

To secure a third term, Xi must break a rule established two decades ago by outgoing President Jiang Zemin: a retirement age of 68. Although Chinese officials have dismissed the rule as “folklore,” none of the Central Committee’s 961 members appointed since then have crossed that barrier.

Xi, 69, is expected to be the first top leader to breach that rule. Securing party approval to stay on past the age limit will affirm Xi’s status as a historic figure on par with Mao Zedong, who died in power at 82.

Even if Xi breaks the retirement rule, that doesn’t automatically mean other aging leaders will also benefit. Eleven members of the current 25-person Politburo, who are elected from the Central Committee, are expected to age out under the current retirement rule. Whether they stay or go will have big ramifications for who leads the world’s second-biggest economy.

That question will be answered next week when 2,300 delegates, representing almost 97 million Communist Party members, gather in Beijing for the party congress. One of their main jobs will be to elect a new Central Committee — one loyal to Xi.

“The new members of the Central Committee will either be his followers or people unaffiliated with any powerful factions,” said Victor Shih, an associate professor at the University of California San Diego who researches elite Chinese politics. “The Politburo likewise will stay pretty much the same, with a few retirements and a few new entrants, dominated by Xi’s followers, of course.”

That line-up will represent the culmination of Xi’s efforts to consolidate power since his surprise appointment as Shanghai’s top official 15 years ago. Xi’s rise to such a prestigious post at the young age of 53 set him up for a seat on the Politburo Standing Committee — China’s most powerful body — at the party congress held later in 2007.

Although Xi was the “princeling” son of a former revolutionary, at the time he lacked clear links to the key factions that dominated the party’s upper echelons, raising questions about how he would amass enough power to rule effectively. Even after he became party chief, he had to contend with vast patronage networks linked to retired powerbrokers who held sway through their allies on the Politburo.

Xi responded with an unprecedented corruption crackdown that would last a decade and eventually ensnare more than 4.7 million cadres. Those taken down include former security czar Zhou Yongkang, a retired Standing Committee member who was sentenced to life in prison in 2015 for crimes including bribery and abuse of power. More recently cadres who spearheaded the early crackdowns have been purged: Last month, for instance, former Justice Minister Fu Zhenghua was sentenced to life in jail.

Purges and Power Plays

Xi’s crackdown remade the party leadership, according to Bloomberg’s analysis, which drew on data from Shih, Columbia University Assistant Professor Junyan Jiang, Chinese official sources and others. About three dozen members of the Central Committee were removed during his first decade in office, freeing up seats for a coterie of officials whose careers crossed paths with his own in places including Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanghai.

Xi’s appointments to the party’s leadership ranks illustrate a key challenge he had to overcome while consolidating power. Without a clear base of support on the Central Committee, he had to look elsewhere for candidates for top posts.

That required sidestepping the party’s traditional step-like career progression to make sure his favorites advanced quickly through the ranks. Xi had the perfect model to follow: himself.

Tough Climb to the Top

Xi’s rise to the supreme Standing Committee 15 years ago was extraordinary not only because of his relatively young age, but because of its velocity. Xi jumped two levels in the party hierarchy, bypassing older and more experienced cadres.

Career path of Xi Jinping — *Average age of 84 Politburo members since 1992 at each career level

Premier Li Keqiang also jumped two spots to reach the Standing Committee at the 2007 party congress, making him a key rival to Xi for the party’s top spot. Xi, of course, eventually won out.

Such double jumps are rare and indicate strong political support from party elders. Only 20 of the 1,272 Central Committee members analyzed by Bloomberg advanced two levels or more. Most who did so reached high office, including the past three presidents and four of seven men on the current Standing Committee.

Career paths of Li Keqiang, Li Zhanshu, Wang Yang, Wang Huning, Zhao Leji and Han Zheng

Rule Broken: Appoint a Clear Successor

Historically, potential successors could be clearly identified by double jumps through the ranks. At the beginning of a president’s second term, usually two members would be appointed to the Standing Committee who were young enough to stay on for 15 years — like Xi and Li in 2007.

But in 2017, Xi appointed nobody who could stay that long, signaling he would be in power for a precedent-defying third term.

He did, however, put key allies on the Politburo. Of the 15 members promoted to the body by Xi five years ago, five had double jumps. Four of them — Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang, Huang Kunming and Yang Xiaodu — had careers that overlapped with Xi, while the fifth, Li Xi, spent time in the president’s official home province of Shaanxi. Ding is the only one who could theoretically serve two terms as premier, China’s second-most powerful position.

Career paths of Ding Xuexiang, Li Xi, Huang Kunming, Cai Qi and Yang Xiaodu

Other Xi allies who could make the Standing Committee include Li Qiang, 63, who once worked as Xi’s secretary in Zhejiang province, and Chen Min’er, 62, another former Xi aide from Zhejiang.

One key figure to watch from outside of Xi’s camp is Hu Chunhua, 59, who holds the distinction of being the youngest official promoted to the Politburo in the past 30 years. The elevation of Hu, a protege of former President Hu Jintao, could indicate significant pushback to Xi within the party.

Career paths of Hu Chunhua, Chen Min’er and Li Qiang

The cadres that advance this year will illustrate whether Xi has gained unchallenged control over the party — and how long he’ll continue to be the driving force in China’s politics.

Sources: Communist Party of China, Chinese government, The Database of CCP Elite (Victor Shih, UC San Diego China Data Lab), Chinese Political Elite Database (Junyan Jiang, Columbia University), China Vitae, The Brookings Institution, Caixin, People’s Daily, Xinhua News Agency, state-run media, data compiled by Bloomberg

Methodology: All ages in the analysis are calculated based on a birth year, therefore they represent not current ages but ages at year-end. This is because there was no complete information on exact birth dates for those 1,272 China’s top politicians since 1992.

To compile the birth years, we mainly referenced 3 individual databases maintenanced by scholars and think tanks: The Database of CCP Elite, Chinese Political Elite Database and China Vitae. For about 60 names that those databases didn’t cover, mostly people from the 14th Central Committee (1992), we tried to verify the birth years by checking state-run media reports. For about 20 out of them, we obtained the birth years from Baidu Baike or Wikipedia as there was no source elsewhere.

By Yasufumi Saito, Spe Chen and Brendan Scott

With assistance from: Adrian Leung, Jing Li, Hayley Wong, Sarah Zheng, Kari Soo Lindberg and Pei Li

Edited by: Daniel Ten Kate, Jenni Marsh and Jane Pong

Photography: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images, Justin Chin/Bloomberg, Qilai Shen/Bloomberg, Andrea Verdelli/AFP/Getty Images, Pang Xinglei/Xinhua/Getty Images, Lintao Zhang/Getty Images

How Xi Rewrote China’s Rulebook to Build the Party Around Himself

Purges and Power Plays

Tough Climb to the Top

Other Standing Committee Members

Xi’s Allies in Politburo

Younger Members to Watch