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
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.
The revelations about Ling’s attempts to cover up the crash of a Ferrari which killed his son that year led to the end of his political career, and marked the beginning of the end for one of the party’s most powerful factions of recent decades. Last month Ling was sentenced to life in prison on charges including corruption and leaking state secrets.
It should come as no surprise that on Tuesday Xinhua made public a comprehensive plan to overhaul the league’s leadership structure and downsize its management. The announcement was preceded by official media reports that quoted the party’s anti-graft investigators blasting the league as “bureaucratic, elitist, and entertainment-oriented”, and that said the league’s budgets for this year had been slashed by more than 50 per cent. There were also reports that one of the universities operated by the league would be shut down. All this came amid widespread speculation about Xi’s personal distaste for the league’s dysfunctions.