Shanghai Party boss tipped for higher position

Current leaders President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, both in their 60s, are widely expected to retain their seats on the Party’s all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee in a leadership reshuffle at the 17th Congress opening on Oct. 15.

Hu, who is tipped to retain the top job in the Party and the Central Military Commission at the closed-door Congress, may promote more than one younger-generation successor to the Standing Committee in what would be a watershed move.

At the very least, several of Communist China’s new generation of leaders — the fifth after Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin and Hu himself — are expected to join the decision-making Politburo, one notch below the Standing Committee.

Shanghai Party boss Xi, 54, and Li Keqiang, 52, a Hu ally and top official in the northeastern province of Liaoning, are front-runners to replace Hu and Wen in 2012, the sources said, requesting anonymity.

If Xi joins the top leadership, it would mean that an official who cut his teeth managing prosperous provinces on China’s east coast would have a major say in central policy.

Xi’s name emerged last week, while Li, a political ally of President Hu, was identified by Reuters last year as a candidate.

Xi’s chances soared earlier this year when he topped Party regional straw polls known as “mo di” (literally “try to find out the real situation”), said three independent sources with knowledge of the informal votes.

“He won about 90 percent of the votes (in Shanghai),” one source said.

A second source told Reuters: “He was No. 1 nationwide.”

Xi has been in charge of the country’s richest and most glamorous city, Shanghai, for only six months.

If he makes it to the Standing Committee at the week-long Congress, he could be named either first vice premier or vice president at the annual parliament session next March, the sources said.

“Xi was put in Shanghai as the Party’s best person,” the second source said.

Xi is close to political allies of Hu’s immediate predecessor, Jiang Zemin. But he is a “princeling”, one of the privileged sons and daughters of the country’s incumbent, retired or late leaders, making him palatable to both Hu and Jiang.

“That figure, someone who can appeal to all sides and who does not offend anyone, is quite a good source of guidelines for the sort of people who are likely to rise,” said Rana Mitter, a Chinese politics lecturer at Oxford University.

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