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Red carpet lineup indicates Xi Jinping is destined to lead the nation
When China's new leaders  took to  the red carpet of the Great Hall of the People  under the media glare, Xi Jinping  stepped forward  unruffled, followed  closely  by Li Keqiang .
The grand game of succession looks all but over, even though nothing has been formally announced.
Mr Xi, the latecomer to the contest for the leadership of the world's fourth biggest economy after 2012,  came ahead of Mr Li, who had been odds-on favourite until very recently, in the final lineup of the Politburo's Standing Committee - the apex of the country's power structure.
'Who's name comes first is a critical matter in the Chinese political language,' said Mao Shoulong ,  a professor of political science at  Renmin University. 'Ranking carries the meaning of personnel arrangements. The die is cast.'
Mr Xi, the 54-year-old party boss from the financial hub of Shanghai, was yesterday also given the job of heading the party secretariat, a powerful executive body in charge of the day-to-day affairs of the decision-making Politburo.
'That's the perfect gig for accumulating political capital,' Professor Mao said. 'And it's a route you probably must take on your way to the top.'
At the very least, according to Joseph Fewsmith, a  political scientist who studies  China's political elite, 'Xi clearly has a strong edge' in the race to succeed incumbent party chief Hu Jintao   when the latter retires in five years' time.
By having  Mr Xi outrank Mr Li , the 52-year-old Liaoning province  party chief, in the leadership lineup and take charge of the all-important secretariat, the collective leadership had engineered  'a very strong institutional momentum where Xi would have to do something really wrong to make himself vulnerable', Professor Fewsmith  said.
The position in the Standing Committee of Mr Li, Mr Hu's  choice as heir apparent, puts him in line to  take over from Wen Jiabao   as the country's  premier.
'It's going to be very difficult for Hu to upset this arrangement,' said Professor Fewsmith, who teaches at Boston University.
'He'd have to challenge a lot of unwritten rules within the party and doing so would invite instability.'
Mr Li's credentials as a leading man of the tuanpai - the Communist Youth League that is Mr Hu's political power base  - had probably worked as a double-edged sword, he said.
'Hu relies on tuanpai too much and a lot of people in the party don't like that,' Professor  Fewsmith said.
Even on paper, Mr Li doesn't look as good as Mr Xi.
Before being given the mission in March to take care of a vulnerable Shanghai reeling from the country's biggest corruption scandal in the past decade, Mr Xi boasted a solid record in the coastal provinces of Fujian  and Zhejiang  thanks to his pro-business attitude, which is clearly an inheritance from his father, a liberal-minded former vicepremier.
On the other hand, Mr Li cut his political teeth in the Youth League, which lent him expertise in party affairs instead of economic management. Also, his tenure in the central province of Henan  was overshadowed by an Aids epidemic caused by poor farmers selling their blood for money in unhygienic conditions.
'[Mr Xi's experience in Fujian and Zhejiang] is what China's future development needs: the support from affluent provinces,' Professor Mao said.
Analysts also think Mr Xi's status as a princeling - scion of a Communist Party elder - with an impeccable political pedigree tipped the balance in his favour in a game where retired cadres still pull the strings.
'He can talk with the party elders as well as schmooze with top executives,' Professor Mao said.
The fact is that he is probably acceptable to all factions, including Mr Hu's camp.
Steven Tsang,  a China specialist at Oxford University, said: 'If Hu finds himself in a situation where he will have to have Xi in the Standing Committee, he might as well go and do a deal with Xi or make sure Xi knows he gets in because of him.
'And Xi, who was probably calculating who his  patron is, may well happily tango along with Hu. That's the real thing.'
The failure to have his  top protege anointed his heir apparent is not necessarily a setback for Mr Hu, Dr Tsang said.
'Nobody after [late leader] Deng Xiaoping   is in a position to dictate his own successor.'



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