China’s 20th Communist Party Congress: What you need to know

(Reuters) – China’s Xi Jinping secured a precedent-breaking third leadership term and introduced a new top governing body stacked with loyalists, cementing his place as the country’s most powerful ruler since Mao Zedong.

* Li Qiang, who oversaw Shanghai’s grinding COVID-lockdown this year, followed Xi onto the stage at the Great Hall of the People as the new Politburo Standing Committee was introduced, putting him in line to succeed Li Keqiang as premier when he retires in March.

* Other members of the seven-man PSC include Zhao Leji and Wang Huning, who return from the previous committee, and newcomers Cai Qi, Ding Xuexiang and Li Xi.

* Russia’s Vladimir Putin and North Korea’s Kim Jong Un were quick to congratulate Xi on his third term in power.

* At the congress’s closing on Saturday, the party’s new 205-member Central Committee did not include Li Keqiang or former Guangdong party boss Wang Yang, who had been seen as a potential replacement as premier.

* China’s central bank chief Yi Gang is also likely to step down after he was dropped from an elite body of the ruling Communist Party, sources close to the central bank said.

* In a highly unusual situation, Chinese former President Hu Jintao was unexpectedly escorted out of the closing ceremony.

* The new leaders will face a difficult time. The world’s second-largest economy is slowing and facing a potentially painful rebalancing of its investment- and property-led model.

* China’s approach to foreign policy is also in the spotlight after a Hong Kong protester was dragged into the Chinese consulate in Manchester on Sunday and assaulted in an incident which the police are investigating.

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“The result was a resounding victory for Xi, more decisive than many experienced observers had forecast,” said Richard McGregor, Senior Fellow for East Asia at the Lowy Institute think tank in Sydney.

“All of his rivals, potential and real, have been forced out of the Politburo Standing Committee and Xi loyalists took their place. The new Politburo is an emphatic statement of Xi’s dominance over the party.”

(Compiled by Lincoln Feast)