China’s new prime minister: Li Qiang – pragmatic and loyal

With 2,936 out of 2,947 votes, the People’s Congress elected Li Qiang as prime minister. The 63-year-old is considered a close confidant of President Xi. Experts expect that the style of politics in China will continue to change.

China’s new prime minister is Li Qiang. As expected, the delegates in Beijing voted for the sole candidate with a large majority. According to the official result, Li Qiang received 2,936 yes votes. There were three votes against and eight abstentions. Li Qiang was immediately installed in his post.

The 63-year-old is considered pragmatic and business-friendly. He is also a close confidante of China’s head of state and party leader Xi Jinping. Unlike his predecessors, he was never Deputy Prime Minister.

Li Qiang was previously party leader in Shanghai and thus partly responsible for the sometimes chaotic conditions during the tough two-month lockdown in Shanghai last year. Observers see the fact that he was nevertheless promoted to prime minister as a sign that one thing counts above all for a rise in the Communist Party: loyalty to Xi Jinping.

Prime Minister responsible for economy

The prime minister is number two in China after the head of state and party leader and is mainly responsible for the economy. He also chairs the Council of State, which coordinates the ministries. Li Qiang replaces the former Prime Minister Li Keqiang, who was considered relatively moderate, who is retiring.

“This is already the end of an era,” says Miko Huotari, director of the Mercator Institute for China Studies (MERICS) in Berlin. “Li Keqiang stood for a different style of politics and was certainly a representative of a different policy that paid more attention to market forces – even if he was of course part of the party state apparatus.”

Huotari is convinced that this time has now come to an end. “It’s about a much stronger control of economic life, for example in strategic technology fields.” Now Xi Jinping’s men are in power and they “will prevail even more than in the past”.

The Mighty Xi

Yesterday, Xi was unanimously confirmed as head of state for the third time by the People’s Congress, thereby further consolidating his power. The basis for this was laid at the Communist Party Congress in the fall. There, delegates confirmed Xi for a third term as party leader, the more important post in China.

In order to prevent too much concentration of power, after two terms in office and ten years, the leadership of the state and party ended. But Xi had the constitution changed in 2018 in order to be able to continue to lead the country and also ignored the previous age limit. The 69-year-old is more powerful than anyone in China since Mao Tsetung, the founder of the People’s Republic.