China Briefing | Why Xi Jinping has no need of factions in the Communist Party

Overhaul of Youth League marks another landmark in president’s drive to consolidate his influence, but suggestions he is grooming his own clique are premature

Young pioneers of the Communist Youth League walk past a large billboard of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao in 2011 - a year before Xi Jinping came to power. Photo: AFP

The writing was on the wall for the Communist Youth League, the power base of former president Hu Jintao, as early as 2012 – even before Xi Jinping came to power.

Ling Jihua, then the chief of staff to Hu and widely seen as the league’s future flag bearer, reportedly mounted a failed bid for the top leadership in the run-up to the 18th party congress, which ended up ensuring the ascendancy of Xi as head of the party and the state in late 2012.

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