SinoInsight 1
March 11
1. PRC premier Li Keqiang confirmed during the press conference held after the close of the Two Sessions that he would be stepping down at the end of this term next March.
“This is the last year I will be premier,” he said.
2. He Lifeng (age 67), head of the National Development and Reform Commission, is currently the leading candidate to replace Liu He (70) as the fourth-rank vice premier overseeing economic, financial, and industrial affairs, according to The Wall Street Journal, citing people familiar with discussions. Party insiders told the Journal that Liu could retire at the 20th Party Congress later this year.
Party insiders say the 70-year-old Mr. Liu, once considered a reformer who would overhaul China’s financial system with market-oriented changes, could retire from the 25-member Politburo at the party’s twice-a-decade congress this fall—when Mr. Xi is likely to refresh his aging leadership bench as he prepares to defy recent precedent and take a third term as Party chief.
The Journal noted that Liu “has an almost professorial demeanor that lends him authority, but sometimes makes him seem distant to lower-level cadres,” citing PRC officials. In contrast, He “is considered a political operator who has little patience for reading reports, but boasts an ability to push policy changes down through the rank and file.”
The Journal said that the new leadership team is not yet finalized, but “some within the Party elite expect Mr. He to assume control over most economic affairs going into the next term.”
Xi Jinping and He Lifeng were colleagues in Fujian Province in the 1980s. Like Liu He, He Lifeng is considered to be a close ally of Xi.
3. The State Council appointed Wang Linggui (55), a vice president of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, as a deputy director of its Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office. Two other retiring HKMAO deputy directors, Song Zhe (62) and Deng Zhonghua (61), were removed from their position.
March 12
The Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced an investigation into Liu Yanping (67), a former head of discipline inspection at the Ministry of State Security.
Liu is a career political and legal affairs official. He spent the bulk of his career in the Beijing public security bureau, eventually rising to the deputy director position. According to publicly available information, Liu was jointly appointed to the Ministry of Public Security’s Security Bureau (predecessor to the Special Service Bureau) at some point and eventually became its head in 2009. Liu was later promoted to assistant public security minister (August 2011 to June 2013) and public security vice minister (June 2013 to May 2015). In May 2015, Liu was transferred to the Ministry of State Security to head its discipline inspection committee, and was still at the same post when he was officially investigated.
OUR TAKE
1. The above personnel developments and information offer insight into Xi Jinping’s current grip on power while clarifying popular factional struggle speculation in recent years.
2. Li Keqiang announcing that he is in his final year as PRC premier affirms his coming retirement after the 20th Party Congress and adherence to regime rules. Premiers are limited to two terms of five years.
Li’s public confirmation that he is stepping down also indirectly debunks the so-called “Xi-Li split” or “Xi-Li struggle” theory that is floated whenever observers think they spot “discrepancies” between what Li says or does and the stance of Xi Jinping. We previously explained that Xi and Li (via his mentor Hu Jintao) are in alliance against the Jiang Zemin faction, and Li does not have the political means to challenge Xi for the Party leadership even if he wanted to (see here and here). Li announcing his final year as premier at the Two Sessions further indicates that he has no quarrel with Xi or ambitions to wrestle the Party leadership away from his ally. Conversely, if Li had leadership ambitions or is in league with Xi’s factional rivals, he would keep his silence or seek to skirt the issue on the subject of his political future to inject uncertainty about Xi’s future and avoid becoming a “lame duck” contender.
Further, Li preparing to step aside signals Xi’s seriousness about taking a third term. If Xi is serving another five years, he will need optimal personnel reshuffles at the 20th Party Congress (see also point 2) to shore up his position. Li is only an ally of Xi’s through his political patron Hu Jintao, and would be less in sync with Xi as compared to a close ally or pliant loyalist. Xi’s control over the Politburo and its Standing Committee, as well as his ability to sway the “collective leadership,” would also be enhanced if the premiership went to a candidate with either of the two aforementioned criteria. Hence, Xi would have no complaint about allowing Li to retire on schedule, and would not see any need to change regime rules (and in the process, incur even more unwanted political pressure and resistance) to keep the latter in office.
3. News that Xi could be replacing Liu He with He Lifeng is another indication that Xi is currently preparing optimal personnel reshuffles as he looks ahead to a third term. As noted in the previous point, Xi would want close allies or obedient loyalists in key positions to further consolidate power and control the “collective leadership.”
When viewed from another angle, that Xi is looking for optimal personnel appointments indicates that his standing in the Party and personal “quan wei” is nowhere near the level of Mao Zedong or Deng Xiaoping despite his many titles and the mainstream consensus on Xi’s undisputed power. Xi may be moving the Party closer towards a strongman dictatorship, but he is still mostly adhering to “collective leadership” rules and constraints such as age and term limits. And if Xi cannot yet cast off the “shell” of “collective leadership,” then it is unlikely that he will claim the “Party Chairman” title at the 20th Party Congress, but will remain General Secretary. Xi’s current lack of “quan wei” also means that his third term bid is not a done deal as many presume, but will be hard-fought and contested along the way, with the final outcome uncertain and variable until the Party Congress commences.
News that Liu He is preparing to step aside adds another dimension to the leaked audio recording of the Chinese scholar Huang Wansheng. In one of the scenarios we earlier laid out, the Huang recording could have been put out by the Xi camp via Liu (Huang reports to Liu) as a way for Liu to get “important messages through to Xi while giving him reason to take action to resolve crucial problems threatening regime security.” If Liu knew that he was definitely on the way out after the 20th Party Congress (vice premiers officially change hands at the first Two Sessions of the incoming Central Committee), he would have nothing to risk or lose from leaking a controversial recording that potentially benefits Xi Jinping.
3. Wang Linggui’s career background marks him as a technocrat. As a scholar, his main research interests include the Belt and Road, national security strategy, anti-terrorism, Xinjiang, Islam, the Middle East, and Hong Kong and Macau issues. Wang joined the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences from the State Council’s Development Research Center in December 2010, and served in senior leadership positions in the CASS institutes of contemporary China, Asia-Pacific and global strategies, and information research. Eventually, Wang was promoted to CASS vice president and was a member of the think-tank’s Party group.
Wang’s technocrat background and study of Hong Kong and Macau issues are likely what led Xi Jinping to approve his appointment to the HKMAO. Xi has been looking to tighten his control over Hong Kong and eradicate the influence of his factional rivals in the city since the 2019 anti-extradition bill protests and the Hong Kong pro-establishment camp’s disastrous showing at the district councillor elections that year. At the personnel level, Xi has sought in recent years to remove or marginalize Jiang faction officials and those with Jiang faction leanings in the Hong Kong and Macau apparatus, while “parachuting” in officials from outside the apparatus into its senior leadership.
As a technocrat, Wang would have weaker factional associations, if any, and would theoretically be more loyal to Xi as compared to officials who climbed the ranks of the Hong Kong and Macau apparatus during the Jiang faction’s era of dominance. Wang’s study of Hong Kong and Macau affairs would also be a plus for the Xi leadership as it seeks to better understand and control Hong Kong society while minimizing input from older, and likely Jiang faction-tainted, information and influence networks.
4. The recent HKMAO personnel changes leave executive deputy director Zhang Xiaoming as the only Jiang faction official in its senior leadership. While there is one HKMAO deputy director who has served in the Hong Kong and Macau apparatus since 1998, his career trajectory suggests no obvious factional background. Huang Liuquan (58) spent 16 years in the HKMAO at the deputy bureau and bureau level, a sign of career stagnation and not being favored by the dominant faction at the time (the Jiang faction). Huang was finally promoted to the deputy ministerial level in December 2016, or after Xi had more firmly grasped the Party’s “gun” (槍桿子) through implementing military reforms. Huang’s work experience in the HKMAO gives him the opportunity to serve as Liaison Office director in either Hong Kong or Macau in the event that Zhang Xiaoming is retired or investigated before the 2023 Two Sessions.
The purge of Liu Yanping a day after the closing of the Two Sessions marks the resumption of the Xi leadership’s “self-revolution” and “always on the road” anti-corruption efforts. More purges are likely on the way, especially with the scheduled conclusion of the political and legal affairs apparatus “education and rectification” campaign in March.
Liu’s career identifies him as a Jiang faction official. It is possible that his purge is connected to the authorities’ investigation into the “political gangs” of Sun Lijun and Fu Zhenghua. Such an investigation could later implicate Meng Jiangzhu and Guo Shengkun, two senior Jiang faction associates who were former ministers of public security and secretary of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission.
Liu’s transfer to the Minister of State Security in 2015 fits with Xi’s mode of operations in scrubbing and reshuffling the public security apparatus leadership ranks at the time. The Xi leadership has a tendency of transferring officials being targeted for investigation away from their base of operations (調虎離山) so that they will not leverage their power and connections to hinder the investigation process. Moving Liu away also saw the Jiang faction lose influence over a crucial position (director of the Special Service Bureau), allowing Xi to make personnel reshuffle preparations and eventually appoint allies such as Wang Xiaohong. Transferring Liu in 2015 enabled Xi to wrestle the Special Service Bureau away from the Jiang faction and hence better place the Party elite under his leadership’s surveillance and control; the Special Service Bureau is responsible for providing security to senior officials at the sub-national level and above.
5. All in all, the recent personnel developments suggest that Xi Jinping is moving carefully towards taking a third term while working to minimize risks. Risks, however, will not be reduced and will instead rise higher as Xi accelerates efforts to purge factional rivals and rectify the officialdom. Xi’s third term bid could be upended if Beijing cannot steer the regime safely through the “perfect storm” of domestic and external problems.
