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By Sui-Lee Wee and Ben Blanchard
BEIJING (Reuters) - China's ruling Communist Party unveiled an older,
conservative leadership line-up on Thursday that appears unlikely to take the
drastic action needed to tackle pressing issues like social unrest,
environmental degradation and corruption.
New party chief Xi Jinping, premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang and vice-premier in
charge of economic affairs Wang Qishan, all named as expected to the elite
decision-making Politburo Standing Committee, are considered cautious
reformers. The other four members have the reputation of being conservative.
The line-up belied any hopes that Xi would usher in a leadership that would
take bold steps to deal with slowing growth in the world's second-biggest
economy, or begin to ease the Communist Party's iron grip on the most populous
nation.
"We're not going to see any political reform because too many people in the
system see it as a slippery slope to extinction," said David Shambaugh,
director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University's Elliott
School of International Affairs.
"They see it entirely through the prism of the Soviet Union, the Arab Spring
and the Colour Revolutions in Central Asia, so they're not going to go there."
Vice-Premier Wang, the most reform-minded in the line-up, has been given the
role of fighting widespread graft, identified by both Xi and outgoing President
Hu Jintao as the biggest danger faced by the party and the state.
The run-up to the handover has been overshadowed by the party's biggest scandal
in decades, with former high-flyer Bo Xilai sacked as party boss of
southwestern Chongqing city after his wife was accused of murdering a British
businessman.
Bo, who has not been seen in public since early this year, faces possible
charges of corruption and abuse of power.
One source said an informal poll was held by over 200 voting members in the
party's central committee to choose the seven members of the standing committee
from among 10 candidates. Two of them who had strong reform credentials -
Guangdong party boss Wang Yang and party organization head Li Yuanchao - failed
to make it, along with the lone woman candidate Liu Yandong.
The source, who has ties to the leadership, told Reuters on condition of
anonymity that Wang and Li Yuanchao, both allies of Hu, did not make it to the
standing committee because party elders felt they were too liberal.
However, all three are in the 25-member Politburo, a group that ranks below the
standing committee. It was earlier believed the voting was confined to the
Politburo.
"The leadership is divided," said Jean-Pierre Cabestan, a Chinese politics
expert at Hong Kong Baptist University, adding however that the new leadership
would find it easier to make progress on economic reform rather than political
change.
"It's easier for them to move to a new growth model. I think they agree upon
that and that won't be the hardest task. But I see a lot of political
paralysis."
OLDER
This is an older line-up, with the average age of the standing committee at
63.4 years compared with 62.1 five years ago. Except for Xi and his deputy Li
Keqiang, all the others in the standing committee - the innermost circle of
power in China's authoritarian government - are 64 or above and will have to
retire within five years, when the next party congress is held.
That means the party may just tread water on the most vital reforms until then,
although after that, Xi would probably have more independence in choosing his
team. The current line-up has been finalized by Xi and Hu, and by former
president Jiang Zemin, who has wielded considerable influence in the party
after the tumult over the Bo Xilai scandal.
Wang and Li Yuanchao could make it to the standing committee at the next party
congress in 2017, perhaps along with so-called "sixth generation" leaders like
Inner Mongolia party chief Hu Chunhua.
"To me it smacks of a holding pattern," said Tony Saich, a China politics
expert at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "I think the understanding is
that Wang Yang has a good shot in five years' time."
The standing committee has as expected been cut to seven members from nine,
which should ease consensus building and decision making.
There is now no domestic security tsar in the new committee, reflecting fears
the position had become too powerful, although top policeman Meng Jianzhu will
take charge of the portfolio from within the Politburo.
"SEVERE CHALLENGES"
Besides party chief, Xi was also appointed head of the party's top military
body, which gives him two of the three most important posts in the country. He
will take over from Hu as president in March.
Jiang, who was Hu's predecessor, did not give up the military post until two
years after giving up the party leadership.
Xi said in an address that he understood the people's desire for a better life
but warned of severe challenges going forward.
"We are not complacent, and we will never rest on our laurels," he said after
introducing the standing committee at the Great Hall of the People in a
carefully choreographed ceremony carried live on state television.
"Under the new conditions, our party faces many severe challenges, and there
are also many pressing problems within the party that need to be resolved,
particularly corruption, being divorced from the people, going through
formalities and bureaucracy caused by some party officials."
North Korean-trained economist Zhang Dejiang is expected to head the largely
rubber-stamp parliament, while Shanghai party boss Yu Zhengsheng is likely to
head parliament's advisory body, according to the order in which their names
were announced.
Tianjin party chief Zhang Gaoli and Liu Yunshan, a conservative who has kept
domestic media on a tight leash, make up the rest of the group. Zhang should
become executive vice premier.
Advocates of reform are pressing Xi to cut back the privileges of state-owned
firms, make it easier for rural migrants to settle in cities, fix a fiscal
system that encourages local governments to live off land expropriations and,
above all, tether the powers of a state that they say risks suffocating growth
and fanning discontent.
With growing public anger and unrest over everything from corruption to
environmental degradation, there may also be cautious efforts to answer calls
for more political reform, though nobody seriously expects a move towards full
democracy.
The party could introduce experimental measures to broaden inner-party
democracy - in other words, encouraging greater debate within the party - but
stability remains a top concern and one-party rule will be safeguarded.
(Additional reporting by Benjamin Kang Lim, Sabrina Mao and Sally Huang;
Writing by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Nick Macfie and Raju Gopalakrishnan)