Beijing:
The Chinese Communist Party’s top body will have no full female members for the first time in 25 years, according to the new Politburo roster released on Sunday.
Sun Chunlan, the only woman sitting in the last Politburo, has retired, and no other woman was appointed.
President Xi Jinping, along with four aides, including two of his former secretaries, placed the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee in a move that demonstrates his power and rewards loyalty above all, analysts said.
Current Shanghai party boss Li Qiang – who earlier this year oversaw a two-month stringent Covid-19 lockdown in the metropolis – is likely to take over as chief from Li Keqiang, who will retire next year.
Close aides Ding Xuexiang, Guangdong Party chief Li Xi and Beijing party boss Kai Qi were also in the new lineup, according to state media broadcasts from Beijing’s Great Hall of the People.
“It is all Xi’s people who indicate that he wants to rule beyond a third term,” said Chinese political expert Alfed Wu Muluan from the National University of Singapore.
The leadership reshuffle occurs soon after the party concludes its two-decade congress, a major political event in which a new central committee of about 200 senior party officials is established, then elected to higher levels of the top leadership.
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