Inside Xi Jinping’s inner circle
Unlike other leaders, Xi Jinping has eschewed factional allies in favour of colleagues and friends
Three different Chinese leaders, three separate paths to building their inner circle.
Unlike his two predecessors President Xi Jinping (習近平) has chosen to draw on a stable of close aides and former colleagues whom he first met while posted in various government jobs around the country before ascending to the top office.
Such associates, one could argue, afford a greater degree of trust than factional allies who could have expectations and political debts owed to others.
By contrast, Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and Jiang Zemin (江澤民) relied on more established coteries of power. Hu drew on his links to the powerful Communist Youth League to govern, while Jiang was head of the “Shanghai Faction”.
Although Xi is also sometimes called a leader of the “Princelings Faction”– made up of the offspring of party elders – few of those connections serve him in any official capacity.
He worked briefly in Shanghai before being promoted to the central government, but most of his inner circle can be traced back to his time working in the relatively small provinces of Fujian (福建) and Zhejiang (浙江), far from the capital, according to Beijing-based political commentator Zhang Lifan .
“He belongs to none of these factions and thus lacks such a power base, so he needed his own men to assist him,” Zhang said.