Xi Jinping’s Inner Circle – Part III
The author, Mr. Cheng Li, is a director of the John L. Thornton China Center and a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy program at Brookings (he’s also a director of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and focuses on the transformation of political leaders, generational change and technological development in China).
This is the third installment (click the link at the top of this note for the full paper) of a four part series which looks into Mr. Xi Jinping’s past to explain where his allies come from and what connects some of the most important people in the Chinese administration today.
Mr. Xi spent many of his formative years in the provinces, as have nineteen of the current twenty five Politburo members, and many friends from that journey have followed him to Beijing. This paper compliments the first two by Mr. Li which looked at Mr. Xi’s friends from his formative years and his Shaanxi connections and if you missed those I’ve dropped them in here for your further perusal (click links below).
Xi Jinping’s Inner Circle – Part I
Xi Jinping’s Inner Circle – Part II
Mr. Li paints a picture of an accomplished operator who is close (if he hasn’t done it already?) to cementing a formidable power base from which who knows what will come next? Looking at the quality of the team though it’s not hard to be optimistic about what this most-popular-since-Mao leader (Mr. Xi being of course for-real popular) may be able to achieve?
Happy Sunday.