Key findings
- The 20th Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was held in Beijing from 16 to 22 October 2022. The new Central Committee elected a new Standing Committee of the Politburo consisting of Xi Jinping, Li Qiang, Zhao Leji, Wang Huning, Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi, and elected Xi Jinping for a new five-year period as General Secretary of the CCP.
- The new Standing Committee consists of Xi’s close work associates and former underlings. An average age of 65 makes it the oldest Standing Committee since the 1990s.
- The Youth League faction suffered a big defeat with the retirement of Li Keqiang and Wang Yang from the Party leadership and the removal of Hu Chunhua from the Politburo.
- 12 new members, all personally vetted and interviewed by Xi Jinping, were elected to the 24-member Politburo. New members include regional leaders such as the Party secretaries of Fujian (Yin Li), Shaanxi (Liu Guozhong), Shandong (Li Ganjie), Liaoning (Zhang Guoqing), Zhejiang (Yuan Jiajun), and Xinjiang (Ma Xingrui), as well as Beijing Mayor Chen Jining. Reshuffling of provincial leadership positions resulted in new Party secretary appointments in Shanghai, Beijing, Chongqing, Tianjin, Fujian, and Guangdong.
- All four provincial-level cities in China (Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Chongqing) are represented on the Politburo, indicating the continued importance of these megacities. The economic powerhouse of Guangdong and the strategically important Xinjiang also retained their seats on the Politburo.
- New Politburo members Ma Xingrui, Zhang Guoqing and Yuan Jiajun have a background in China’s aerospace industry. The rise of the aerospace group or “cosmos club” in Chinese politics highlights the importance Xi Jinping places on innovation and strategic new industries, as well as the critical role of aerospace in Beijing’s high-priority civil-military fusion strategy.
- New appointments to the Politburo show that the former rule of “67 down and 68 up” no longer applies to China’s senior leaders.
- The new Central Committee is a highly educated group, with 98 percent holding a bachelor (benke) degree or above: 114 members have a science-based education and 121 studied business-related subjects. As with the Politburo, the Central Committee appears to be composed with a view of creating a pool of future leadership expertise capable of managing future challenges in high-priority development programs such as Made in China 2025, Internet+ and artificial intelligence.
- Xi Jinping’s report at the Congress strongly criticized the Hu Jintao era and focused on Party-building and security as the keys to achieving political stability. Xi did not mention the Covid-19 crisis in China.
- Amendments to the Party Constitution were primarily about reinforcing Xi Jinping’s authority over Party ideology, organization, and policymaking. There was neither an upgrade of “Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era” nor was Xi given any new designation as speculated prior to the Congress.
Kjeld Erik Brødsgaard: Copenhagen Business School
Kasper Ingeman Beck: Copenhagen Business School
 | Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them. |
This policy brief was originally published by the Dealing with a Resurgent China” (DWARC) project under the Horizon Europe framework and is republished under the Creative Commons CC BY license.
