Guangdong chief Li Xi set to be China’s new anti-corruption czar
Guangdong province party chief Li Xi looks set to be the next head of the Communist Party of China’s (CPC) disciplinary inspection body, based on a list of its members released on Saturday.
Li, 66, appears to be the highest ranking member on a list of 133 members of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), a role that also guarantees him a spot on the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC), China’s apex governing body.
A native of north-west China’s Gansu, he spent most of his early career in the province before moving on to Shaanxi province in 2004.
He later spent four years in Shanghai and three years in Liaoning before becoming party chief of Guangdong, an economic powerhouse.
Li is believed to have close ties to Chinese President Xi Jinping. Both men are linked via connections in Shaanxi and while he was party chief in Liaoning, Li was an enthusiastic supporter of Xi’s call for stricter enforcement of party discipline.
Also on the CCDI list was a Wang Yang. While the Chinese characters appear to be exactly the same as retiring PSC member Wang Yang, the man is in fact secretary of Qinghai province’s anti-corruption body.
The powerful CCDI, ostensibly in charge of party discipline, also serves as China’s anti-graft body.
Since President Xi Jinping came to power a decade ago, he has made fighting corruption a hallmark of his term, cleaning up what he felt was a culture of privilege among officials.
But critics said the anti-graft campaign was also used to take down powerful rivals, including former Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai, who was jailed for life in 2013 for corruption, embezzlement and abuse of power.
Members of the CCDI, along with the CPC Central Committee, were picked by party cadres in elections earlier on Saturday.
A list of candidates had been approved by the body during a meeting on Friday – more than 8 per cent of the members were voted off in preliminary elections.
Members of PSC will be unveiled on Sunday following the first plenary meeting of the new Central Committee, where President Xi is all but certain to be guaranteed a third term as general secretary, making him head of the party and, by extension, of the government.
The Central Committee comprises 205 full members and 171 alternate members.
The full members will elect the party’s 25-member Politburo, the Standing Committee and the general secretary, the chairman and vice-chairmen of the Central Military Commission and chief of the CCDI.
The elections come at the end of a week of meetings which saw about 2,300 party cadres from all over China gather at the Great Hall of The People in Beijing.
Held mostly behind closed doors, the meetings were meant to elect the party’s next slate of leaders, as well as to set the agenda for the next five years.