Special to WorldTribune.com

By Willy Lam, East-Asia-Intel.com

Beijing has announced the line-up of a super-agency charged with overseeing the directions of economic reform.

President Xi Jinping, who is already in charge of party and foreign affairs in addition the army and the police, has been appointed the Head of the Chinese Communist Party’s Leading Group on the Comprehensive Deepening of Reforms (LGCDR).

Premier Li Keqiang, who is supposed to be the Politburo Standing Committee (PBSC) in charge of the economy, has become one of the three Sub-Heads of the powerful organ. The other two Sub-Heads are fellow PBSC members Zhang Gaoli and Liu Yuanshan. Both Zhang, who is executive-vice premier, and Liu, who is the CCP’s ideology and propaganda tsar, are considered to be much closer to Xi than to Li.

The establishment of the LGCDR has broken with a couple of China’s long-established norms. Traditionally, the premier has overall responsibility for economic affairs. Moreover, the central government, rather than the party, is in charge of the formulation and execution of policies dealing with the economy.

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