Team Xi: Members of the new leadership

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Numbers in upper left of the photos are their rankings within the party. Figures in parentheses are one's age.

Personal connections within the 'Xi faction'

The "Xi faction" completely dominates the party -- yet each key player has an individual relationship with the president, hence the faction's solidarity can be considered relatively weak. Former President Jiang Zemin's faction was cemented together by special interests, and the Communist Youth League faction was united by firm camaraderie. As the Xi faction -- once the minority -- grows larger, new intrigues linked to loyalists are emerging. Rivals are vying for a limited number of posts, and competing groups within the Xi faction are expected in the future. Maintaining the administration's centralizing force will become an issue for the new government.

We have mapped out and explained the network of people within the Xi faction who have been selected as Politburo members. The leaders of the Fujian, Zhejiang and New Shanghai factions that Xi met in the regions where he was once posted, and they are said to be his closest associates. The Tsinghua University group has been linked to Chen Xi, a former Politburo member who was Xi’s dormitory roommate at university. In the case of the Central Party School, two vice principals from Xi’s time as head of the school have joined the current leadership. Among senior military officials, Zhang Youxia, who is a childhood friend of Xi, has remained as vice chairman of the Central Military Commission despite being 72.

A group connected to Xi's home province of Shaanxi and his father is also gaining influence. They have little personal connection to Xi but have gained clout by trying to make a mausoleum for Xi's father and make the village where Xi spent his youth during the Cultural Revolution a "sacred place." Li Hongzhong, who falls into the "Others" category of Xi relationships, also received recognition for his loyalty. Other people not directly connected to Xi who were top executives of companies in the military and aerospace industries have been promoted to leadership positions in central and local governments as Xi pushed integration of the military and civilian sectors.

Another characteristic of Xi's personnel appointments is that he uses different personnel for the "inner moat" and the "outer moat." For the "inner moat" directly surrounding Xi, such as members of the Politburo Standing Committee, he places more importance on strong loyalty than on experience and aptitude. Conversely, the "outer moat" is made up of highly skilled technocrats. Among the members of the Politburo, State Council (cabinet) officials and top local officials are many outstanding individuals from various fields, including military industries, aeronautics, nuclear power, and health and medical care. Many of them were recruited under the Xi government, and there is no doubt that they are loyal to Xi.

Of the four people selected as vice premiers, Ding Xuexiang, the principal vice premier, and He Lifeng, in charge of macroeconomics and finance, are trusted and familiar subordinates whom Xi met during his past postings. Zhang Guoqing is a representative of the military industries and is expected to be in charge of science and technology policy, plus the integration of the military and civilian sectors. Liu Guozhong was selected by Li Zhanshu, who is said to have been Xi's drinking buddy in his younger days.

When Xi became general secretary at the 18th Party Congress in 2012, he did not yet have a solid sphere of influence that could be defined as the "Xi faction." He is one of the so-called princelings, children of former high-ranking party officials. His father was Xi Zhongxun, one of the eight elders of the party. However, the younger Xi was sent to live in the countryside since his teens and did not form strong connections with other princelings to develop a faction.

Nevertheless, Xi became the party's general secretary because of internal politics. The faction of then-President Jiang Zemin was competing fiercely with the Communist Youth League faction, controlled by former President Hu Jintao. Jiang and his followers supported Xi as a candidate against the youth faction. Xi himself did not belong to the Jiang faction. When Xi took office as general secretary, he had only two trusted old friends in the party leadership: Wang Qishan, who joined the ranks of the standing committee of the Politburo, and Li Zhanshu, who became a member of the Politburo and director of the party’s General Office.

After Xi took office for his second term in 2017, the makeup of the leadership changed dramatically. Of the 25 members of the Politburo, 15 are Xi supporters. These politicians are not only his old friends, but also subordinates he grew to trust during his second term working in Fujian and Zhejiang provinces and in Shanghai. Among them are Li Qiang, party secretary of Shanghai; Chen Min'er, party secretary of Chongqing; and Ding Xuexiang, director of the General Office. These loyal subordinates have pledged absolute allegiance to Xi. And so a clear Xi faction has solidified.

How far will Xi's influence grow in his third term? A rapid expansion of the Xi faction can be expected. Eurasia Group, a U.S. political risk consultancy, expects the faction will account for about 80% of the Politburo, from the current 60%. Observers will be watching to see if his close aides join the Politburo Standing Committee.

Reinforcement of the general secretary's authority

The anti-corruption campaign was harsh. High-ranking party and government officials with vested interests at various levels of central and local government were punished. Under Xi's reign, more than 20,000 high-ranking officials were placed under arrest or investigation. Documentaries were often broadcast on TV showing senior officials being put away for corruption. It was thought that this was done in part to gain support from ordinary Chinese for Xi's anti-graft campaign.

Corruption and bribery by high-ranking government and party officials since Xi took office

The downfall of Zhou Yongkang, a former member of the Politburo Standing Committee, in 2014 shocked party members. Despite an unwritten rule that members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the top leadership, cannot be charged, Zhou was expelled from the party and sentenced to life in prison. Businessmen who had been laundering money for high-ranking officials were dealt with even more severely, including being executed.

Lai Xiaomin, head of a state-operated company for disposing of bad loans, was one such example. He was executed only eight days after receiving a death sentence in his second trial. Xi then gave his aides the positions that had become vacant through his purges. He also created small, exclusive groups to oversee important areas and departments, such as organizational reform, the military, the judiciary, government finances and internet management, and appointed their top officials himself. This method of "small-group governance" accelerated the concentration of his authority. This method of control was almost complete by around 2018.

Xi became head of many divisions when high-ranking officials were ousted

Photos of Bo Xilai, Zhou Yongkang and Ling Jihua by Reuters

Cleaning up corruption in the military and other divisions The biggest governmental reform since the founding of the People's Republic of China

Whether the paramount leader can control the People's Liberation Army is an important factor on which his power depends. Jiang, who did not have his base in the military, secured the allegiance of high-level military officers by offering them sweeteners. The relationship was strong. Hu, who succeeded Jiang and also lacked a base in the military, was unable to conduct the affairs of state as he wished. Against the backdrop of swelling military spending, corruption was rampant in those days. Zhang Yang, director of the Political Work Department of the Central Military Commission, was nicknamed the "jute bag general" because of rumors that "he always puts yuan in jute bags and piles them up."

Meanwhile Xi, whose father, Xi Zhongxun, had been a hero in the Chinese Communist Revolution and was one of the party's eight elders, had the advantage of being something like a prince of the military. In his days in Fujian, he developed friendships with local servicemen in the Nanjing Military Region, which faces the Taiwan Strait. Making the most of this background, he started an anti-corruption campaign in the military as well, carrying out a sweeping removal of high-ranking officers connected with Jiang. In 2014 and 2015, he purged two top-level officers, the most powerful figures in the military.

Realizing top-down system through reform, pushing ahead with "strong-military" strategy against America

Having removed corrupt high-ranking officers, Xi was then able to launch what was said to be the first large-scale military reform since the founding of the country. He abolished the four headquarters -- staff, politics, armaments and logistics -- and created various functional groups under the Central Military Commission. He reorganized the seven military regions of the country into five theater commands and gave operations-planning capability to each theater command as in the U.S. military. Departing from the traditional style of attaching too much importance to the army, he placed it, the navy, air force, strategic support force -- which includes cyber forces -- and rocket force in parallel under direct control of the Central Military Commission along with the People's Armed Police Force and the China Coast Guard. That essentially means that Xi, chairman of the military commission, supervised all military forces and led their change from being a traditional defensive force to one that can counter U.S. forces in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.

A tight grip on the People's Liberation Army is considered an important pillar of Xi's control. Shattering vertical divisions and realizing a top-down structure made it possible for him to advance his ideas on a strong military, such as a military-civilian fusion and the deepening of integrated and joint operations capabilities, both of which had been slow to progress.