China has implied that a new job could be in the offing for Wang Qishan, the powerful former top graft-buster and a close ally of President Xi Jinping, with an announcement that he had been chosen as a delegate to the annual meeting of parliament.
Wang stepped down from the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee, the apex of power in China, during a leadership reshuffle in October at the end of the once-in-five-years Communist Party Congress, amid intense interest in whether he would leave the post.
Aged 69, Wang had reached the age at which top officials tend to retire, but sources with ties to the leadership said Monday that Xi could keep him on in some capacity, thanks to his loyalty and history of successfully tackling tough issues such as corruption.