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China’s 20th Party Congress
ChinaPolitics

Seat at the top table caps Guangdong party chief Li Xi’s journey across China

  • Li takes over as head of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection after being promoted to the new Politburo Standing Committee
  • It is the latest step in a career has sent him to some of the country’s biggest economic hubs as well as centres with a special place in Communist Party history

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Xi Jinping ally Li Xi has been appointed to the Politburo Standing Committee and will head the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. Photo: Getty Images
Guo Rui
Li Xi, Guangdong’s Communist Party chief, has taken over as the party’s anti-corruption chief after being named among the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee.
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Li, who appeared alongside President Xi Jinping on Sunday when the new leadership team was unveiled, will rank as No 7 in the hierarchy.

Li, 66, is originally from the landlocked northwestern province of Gansu, and has administrative experience across the nation, including the country’s main financial centre Shanghai, the northeastern rust-belt province of Liaoning, and the southern economic powerhouse of Guangdong.
Since 1992, four of the five Guangdong party chiefs have landed a place on the Standing Committee. The only exception is Hu Chunhua, Li’s immediate predecessor and a vice-premier. Hu, who lost his seat in the Politburo on Sunday, is set to step down as vice-premier in the coming March government reshuffle.

Li took over as Guangdong’s party chief in 2017 and has overseen the Greater Bay Area plan, which aims to integrate Hong Kong and Macau more closely with nine cities in the southern province.

In the early stages of Hong Kong’s anti-government protests in 2019, he warned officials to be alert to the risk and, without directly referring to the city, told them to guard the country’s “southern gate”.

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Many observers credit Li with minimising the economic disruption Covid-19 controls have caused in the province and avoiding large-scale lockdowns while still adhering to the country’s zero-Covid goals.

In July last year, Li, who was facing a small upsurge in cases at home, was the only member of the then 25-strong Politburo to miss the party’s 100th anniversary celebrations in Beijing.

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