Who, after Xi Jinping, will lead China? The question is both taboo and, no doubt, premature. The vast majority of specialists are convinced that the number one will remain in power for at least another ten years. Since in 2018 he had the Constitution amended to end the two-term limit for the President of the Republic, nothing prevents him from doing so.
In 2032, Xi Jinping will be 79 years old. But he is the exception that confirms the rule that a leader can still hope for a promotion at 67, but no longer at 68. Result: if Xi Jinping actually stays until 2032, his successor will be part of the generation”, that which was born between 1970 and 1979, to the detriment of the sixth generation, which will then be too old for one of its members to attain supreme power.
108 leaders in the making
The seventh generation, the “7G”, is considered the “golden generation”. She did not know the famines of 1960 nor suffered the one-child policy put in place in 1979. According to Cheng Li, a “Pekinologist” from the Brookings Institution – an American think tank – it was in November 2016 that a member of 7G has entered a provincial-level standing committee of the Communist Party of China (CCP) for the first time. This is Liu Jie, in Jiangxi. Since then, others have followed. According to Cheng Li, in March 2022, 108 7G members held the rank of vice minister or vice-province official, two important ranks in the Chinese administration. 7G should also make its strong debut at the Party’s central committee on the occasion of its 20e congress, which begins on October 16, estimates the researcher. Today, only two of its 376 members were born in the 1970s. But about forty should join this inner circle next week.
Since 2019, the provinces have created posts of “vice-governor of financial affairs”, increasingly occupied by members of the seventh generation
Who are these 108 leaders in the making? Mostly men – there are only seven women – who have done between three and five years of technical studies (34% of the cohort), or studied management, finance or economics (25%). Of these 108 people, 23 claim to have studied abroad. At a time when the country’s debt is growing significantly and when the real estate crisis is hurting public revenues, financiers are on the rise. Since 2019, the provinces have created posts of “vice-governor of financial affairs”, more and more often occupied by members of this 7G.
You have 55.85% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.