Congress concludes with President Xi Jinping as undisputed ‘core’ leader

President Xi Jinping was elevated to the status of late paramount leaders Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping, securing an almost unchallengeable dominance over the Communist Party, which ended its week-long gathering on Tuesday with a newly elected Central Committee, the party’s elite decision-making body.

At the closing session in Beijing’s cavernous Great Hall of the People, Xi declared that his governing philosophy, officially titled “Xi Jinping thought on Socialism with Chinese characteristic for a new era”, had been added to the party constitution.

The widely expected move cements Xi’s rapid rise over the past five years as China’s most powerful man in decades as more than 2,300 carefully vetted delegates from around the country approved an amended party constitution carrying the name of the country’s new “core” leader.

The elevation of several of Xi’s protégés to the powerful Central Committee, which has 204 full members and 172 alternative members – the latter do not have voting rights – coincided with the departure of his key ally and anti-graft tsar Wang Qishan and China’s vice-president Li Yuanchao from the top leadership.

The absence of Wang, 69, a Politburo Standing Committee member and head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), from the full list of Central Committee members released by Xinhua confirmed an earlier report by the South China Morning Post.