Party's foremost rising stars show different working styles as they meet delegates Li Keqiang, one of two men tipped to lead the mainland in five years, did not stray from the script for a minute yesterday, while rival Xi Jinping chilled out at a media-packed discussion meeting. In an interesting political juxtaposition, the Communist Party's two rising stars presided over simultaneous discussions with their delegations in different halls of the Great Hall of People. The week-long party congress is supposed to endorse one candidate to succeed incumbent party chief Hu Jintao in 2012. Mr Li, the 54-year-old Liaoning party chief, had been leading the game before Mr Xi, the 52-year-old Shanghai party chief entered the fray very recently. Both showed the same high degree of party loyalty. Both men expressed enthusiasm for 'scientific development' - Mr Hu's pet project which essentially means a more balanced, environmentally friendly development mode - by peppering their speeches with plenty of references from Mr Hu's keynote speech at the opening of the congress on Monday. But that's probably where the similarities ended. Mr Li seems, at least, to have inherited a number of personality traits from his mentor, Mr Hu, even if he does not inherit his position. Throughout the two hours of discussion, he was either taking notes, reading delegates' work reports, or trying hard to look away from the line of television cameras. Also like Mr Hu, he appeared uncomfortable when journalists tried to establish any meaningful eye contact with him. At the meeting of the Shanghai delegation some 200 metres away, however, Mr Xi - a so-called princeling whose father was a member of the revolutionary elite - was very much at home in the media limelight. He looked relaxed and smiled throughout the meeting, despite seemingly paying little attention to what delegates had to say. 'He looked like an overnight passenger to Shanghai,' one journalist remarked. Mr Xi was only moved to Shanghai in March after the city's former party chief, Chen Liangyu , was fired for his involvement in a massive social security fund corruption scandal. The Liaoning delegates heaped praise on Mr Li, saying the province's urban landscape had been transformed since he took office. When it came to meeting the press, Mr Li dodged every question about his prospects for political promotion and resorted to Mr Hu's speech in all of his replies. Mr Xi's question-and-answer session was ended before he had any chance to show his supposed smoothness. Mr Li became more confident talking about policy issues. He especially elaborated on a slum-clearance project that reportedly won him a lot of hearts and minds in the province.