For a cogent review of the coming leadership in China’s next Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), set to assume power in the fall of 2012, read “The Battle for China’s Top Nine Leadership Posts” by Brookings Institution Thornton China Center Research Director Cheng Li in the Winter issue of the The Washington Quarterly. Li expects that seven of the nine PSC members will step down, leading to an unprecedented situation in which “the principal figures responsible for the country’s political and ideological affairs, economic and financial administration, foreign policy, public security, and military operations will be mostly newcomers.”
For the first time, the Chinese public has become “increasingly aware of the ongoing battle for PSC membership, as well as broader political tensions, ideological disputes, and policy differences within the leadership. Never before has the country witnessed such extraordinarily open political lobbying . . .” Li describes the leading candidates for these key positions, including the elite “princelings” whose fathers were powerful Communist figures, and analyzes the new “bi-partisan” (elitist and populist) collective leadership that has been developing. He gives special attention to the two current PSC members expected to be at the pinnacle of the next PSC, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang. Li also speculates that “it is difficult to imagine how the new leadership’s likely agenda for innovation-led economic growth can be achieved without greater political freedom and openness.”
John Gapper of the Financial Times quotes Li in his January 4 article, "China's Princelings Should Not Rule Alone": “'Business tends to be associated with the elitist faction,' says Cheng Li, a senior fellow of the Brookings Institution. 'But if their approach is not balanced, politics might unfold in a way that shocks the nation and the world. If China were to become chaotic, it would be a disaster.'"
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