Li Qiang appointed premier: he is a Xi Jinping loyalist
Very loyal to Chinese President Xi Jinping, but with no experience of government at the national level, Li Qiang, 63,i, is the eighth premier of the People’s Republic of China. Information about him is scarce, even by the standards of Chinese politicians, traditionally known for their opacity, but what emerges is a solid bond with Xi, consolidated over the years.
A native of Wenzhou, in the eastern province of Zhejiang, Li Qiang has risen through the ranks at the local and provincial levels, showing himself as an open-minded official and able to listen to the entrepreneurs of one of the most economically dynamic areas of China. Li has been collaborating with Xi since the early 2000s, when the current Chinese president (reconfirmed yesterday for an unprecedented third term at the top of the state) was party secretary of Zhejiang.
Li became governor – the second most important political position – in 2013, after Xi ascended to the top of the party and state. Three years later, however, he would assume the role of political leader of the Jiangsu province, also on the eastern side of the country. In 2017, on the other hand, he was promoted to head of the party in Shanghai, the traditional springboard towards the upper echelons of the CCP. Li arrives at the top of the State Council, the Chinese government, after the controversy over the long lockdown to which the metropolis was subjected last year to contain the Covid-19: the protests have not stopped its rise, nor damaged trust who puts the leader in him.
The big question mark regarding his future as premier essentially concerns the margins of maneuver that he will have: Li Qiang, lacking experience as vice premier, takes over the reins of the State Council after a restructuring operation of the bodyapproved yesterday, but especially after the decade of Li Keqiang, 67, whose role as prime minister has been greatly reduced by the intervention of Xi, head of commissions that have regulated practically every vital aspect of the state.
Unlike its predecessor, Li Qiang enjoys the confidence of the president, and last October he ascended to the top of the Communist Party of China, joining the inner circle of the Politburo Standing Committee, made up of seven top leaders, including the general secretary himself, Xi Jinping. Li appeared immediately behind Xi, in a position that indicated him as number two of the new class of political leaders elected at the end of the Twentieth Congress of the CPC and given, even then, as a possible future prime minister. As premier, Li Qiang will have oversight of the national economy as his primary task.
The new prime minister is known for an approach that appeals to entrepreneurs, and which he has been able to maintain over the years: in 2018, while he was political leader of Shanghai, Elon Musk announced the construction of the Tesla factory in the Chinese metropolis – while the trade dispute with the United States was already taking hold – the first outside the US territory. Above all, however, Li Qiang is seen as a loyal executor of the will of the leader, a quality that, probably more than any other, has contributed to making him Xi’s new number two.
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