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Xi Jinping Secures a Third Term as China's Leader
Xi Jinping claimed a third five-year term as the chief of China's Communist Party.
Last Updated:
Oct. 23, 2022 at 11:04 PM EDT
Oct. 23, 2022 at 1:53 PM
The Loss of Hu Chunhua, China’s Liberal Champion
Hu Chunhua lost his seat in the party’s governing Politburo. (Mikhail Klimentyev/Zuma Press)
Chinese leader Xi Jinping’s increased dominance is evident not just in the names he elevated to the Communist Party’s top echelons, but also whom he chose to leave out.
Hu Chunhua, one of China’s four vice premiers and once considered a potential successor to Mr. Xi, lost his seat in the party’s governing Politburo on Sunday, marking a downbeat denouement to the career of an erstwhile high-flier.
Some political analysts had given the 59-year-old good odds to join the party’s top decision-making body—the Politburo Standing Committee—and become China’s next premier. Instead, the party announced a new 24-member Politburo, with one fewer seat than before, that was packed with Mr. Xi’s allies and protégés. So packed that Mr. Hu had no place in it.