New | Close aide to China’s President Xi Jinping named Beijing’s anti-graft chief
Appointment of former child prodigy, who wrote many of the president’s speeches, may signal an intensification of the campaign, analysts say
A close aide to China’s President Xi Jinping (習近平) has been appointed to head Beijing’s anti-graft watchdog in a move expected to see the corruption crackdown further intensify in the capital.
Li Shulei (李書磊), 51, was named secretary of Beijing’s Commission for Disciplinary Inspection yesterday. His predecessor Ye Qingchun (葉青純), 64, has reached retirement age.
Li had been Fujian (福建) province’s publicity department chief for a year before his appointment.
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He was Xi’s deputy in the elite Central Party School when Xi headed it from 2007 to 2012 as first-rank secretary of the Communist Party’s Central Committee Secretariat. A core member of the school – regarded as the cradle of senior cadres – Li wrote many speeches for Xi, according to Hong Kong and Taiwan media.
Hong Kong-based Yazhou Zhoukan reported that Li was the one who wrote Xi’s speech to an arts and literature forum two years ago, in which the president demanded the sector should serve the people and socialism.
Li, a former child prodigy, was admitted to Peking University in 1978 at the age of 14. He obtained a degree in library science and a masters and doctorate in literature before joining the Central Party School at 24. After two decades at the think tank, he became the school’s youngest vice-president at the age of 44.
In 2014, Li was transferred to head Fujian’s publicity department, in a move widely seen as showing the leadership’s intention to groom him through more local government experience.