China’s leader, Xi Jinping, extended his formidable dominance on Saturday, advancing a contingent of Communist Party loyalists ready to defend his personal power and expand the state’s influence over the economy and on national security.
Xi has transformed China through his authoritarian rule over the past decade, purging potential rivals, crushing dissent and reasserting the central role of the Communist Party across Chinese society. Xi has long been expected to secure a third five-year term as the party’s general secretary. But evidence of his even tighter hold over the party came on Saturday, when the Communist Party congress approved a new membership list for the Central Committee, the elite body from which China’s top leaders are drawn.
That list showed that several senior figures were stepping down, opening the way for more of Xi’s favored officials to rise into the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s highest decision-making body. Xi’s control at the top will become even more entrenched, meaning less likelihood of elite pushback against his policies, which include a pugnacious stance toward Washington, and ever-greater party steering of the economy, technology and the internet.