China shuffles leadership committee and retains many Xi allies

China’s President Xi Jinping (C) gestures during the closing ceremony of the 20th Chinese Communist Party’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 22, 2022.

Several officials with more market-leaning tendencies were not on the new central committee's list.

The Politburo and its standing committee are then determined by the central committee. The names of those core positions are due out on Sunday.

The Politburo standing committee has seven members, but four of them weren't on the list. Wang Huning, the current head of party discipline, was one of the three remaining.

The party secretaries from Beijing and Shanghai remained on the list.

The Asia Society Policy Institute has a center for China analysis. The list of new central committee members included other Xi loyalists.

• Ding Xuexiang — Politburo member and “essentially Xi’s Chief of Staff, as well as in charge of his personal security, meaning he is among Xi’s most trusted circle,” the Asia Society report said.
• Chen Min’er — Politburo member and party secretary of the Chongqing municipality, a job he gained by Xi’s “abrupt ousting” of the prior secretary, Asia Society pointed out.
• Huang Kunming — Politburo member and head of China’s propaganda department, who worked closely with Xi in the provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang, the report said.

The expectation was that Wang Yi would retire and leave room for a shift in China's foreign policy.

The Chinese ambassador to the U.S. was on the new list.

Hu is one of the favorites for the premier position. Cheng Li said at a talk that it would signal leadership unity if he was promoted.

According to reports and multiple witnesses, Hu Jintao was removed from his seat at the closing ceremony of the party's 20th national congress on Saturday. It wasn't clear why he was thrown out.

China’s President Xi Jinping (R) talks to former president Hu Jintao as he is ushered out from the closing ceremony of the 20th Chinese Communist Party’s Congress at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Oct. 22, 2022.

The Governor of the People's Bank of China wasn't on the list.

Wang was not included in the list of 205 members of the central committee of the Communist Party of China.

The premier was not included.

The vice premier who led trade negotiations with the US was not on the list.

The new central committee list did not include the banking regulators.