Six Politburo Standing Committee members are not technocrats
Six out of seven Politburo Standing Committee members are not technocrats, but analysts say their backgrounds will not affect their focus
In a noticeable break from the past two decades of Communist Party leadership, dominated by technocrats, six of the seven members of the new Politburo Standing Committee, the party's top decision-making body, trained in social sciences and the humanities.
Analysts said the top leaders' educational backgrounds would have a bearing on their outlook and leadership style, but were unlikely to see them stray from the party's overriding focus on maintaining the status quo.
Li Keqiang, ranked No 2 in the Politburo Standing Committee, is the first senior party leader to hold a PhD in economics and master's and bachelor's degrees in law - all from Peking University.
Li, 57, who will succeed Wen Jiabao as premier in March, will be the best-educated premier since the founding of the People's Republic in 1949.
New party general secretary Xi Jinping , who studied chemical engineering at Beijing's Tsinghua University from 1975 to 1979, received a PhD in law (Marxist theory) through part-time study at Tsinghua's school of humanities and social sciences.
Four of the other members of the Politburo Standing Committee studied the social sciences or the humanities, with the sole remaining technocrat being Yu Zhengsheng , who studied automated control systems for ballistic missiles.