Xi Jinping consolidates his position, boosts power of Party’s upper echelons

Special to WorldTribune.com

Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Secretary Xi Jinping has concentrated more powers at the top of the party so as to buttress his ability to rule China as a strongman.

Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli at the Great Hall of the People on November 15, 2012 after China's ruling Communist Party revealed the new Politburo Standing Committee. /Feng Li/Getty Images AsiaPac — Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli at the Great Hall of the People on November 15, 2012 after China’s ruling Communist Party revealed the new Politburo Standing Committee. /Feng Li/Getty Images AsiaPac

In a strategic move, Xi, whose other titles include state president and commander-in-chief, has beefed up the organization and the powers of the CCP Secretariat, which is the working organ of the Politburo, and especially the elite Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC).

The concentration of more administrative powers in the CCP’s topmost echelons runs counter to the teachings of late patriarch Deng Xiaoping, who came up with the famous principle of “the separation of the party and government.”

Through the 1980s, Deng insisted that the party should only be concerned with long-term strategic planning, leaving day-to-day administration of the country to the State Council, or central government.

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boosts power of Party’s upper echelons, Deng Xiaoping, Politburo Standing Committee, Xi Jinping consolidates his position

Xi Jinping consolidates his position, boosts power of Party’s upper echelons added by World Tribune on March 27, 2013
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