Exclusive | Why China’s Xi Jinping is unlikely to anoint a successor
Hu Chunhua and Chen Miner unlikely to win promotion to Communist Party’s top decision-making body
The man once tipped to become President Xi Jinping’s successor, Guangdong party boss Hu Chunhua, is likely to become a vice-premier in March but his prospects of inclusion in the Communist Party’s top echelon of power, the Politburo Standing Committee, are fading, sources have told the South China Morning Post.
Meanwhile, Chongqing party boss Chen Miner, another rising star who is widely seen as the president’s protégé, is expected to win promotion to the 25-member Politburo but will probably not make it into the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, sources familiar with top-level party discussions said.
Hu is already a Politburo member while Chen is now a Central Committee member ¬-- one rank lower in the party hierarchy. The Politburo Standing Committee sits on top, making it the highest decision-making body in Chinese politics.
If Hu, 54, and Chen, 57, do not win promotion to the Politburo Standing Committee next week, after the party’s national congress concludes on Tuesday, it would contain no putative heir in the position to take over from Xi after he completes his second five-year term as party general secretary in 2022.
Another contender, 54-year-old former Chongqing party chief Sun Zhengcai, suffered a spectacular fall from grace this year. He was expelled from the party last month and is now facing criminal prosecution for corruption.
