PRESIDENT XI JINPING

CHINA’S NEW LEADER TAKES FULL POWER IN DELICATE BALANCING ACT

Chris Buckley

The New York Times, March 14. 2013

HONG KONG — China’s new Communist Party leader, Xi Jinping, completed his formal transition to power on Thursday, assuming the presidency during a parliamentary meeting which has sent signals that his government will try to be more responsive to an impatient public while defending the party’s top-down control.

The National People’s Congress anointed Mr. Xi as president four months after he was appointed as Communist Party general secretary and chairman of the Central Military Commission, giving him all three offices – party, army and state – through which he is likely to wield power for the next decade.

There was never any doubt that compliant delegates to the annual party-run parliament would overwhelmingly endorse Mr. Xi for president. They also voted in his ally Li Yuanchao as vice president. Among the 2,956 delegates who cast valid ballots in the grandiose Great Hall of the People, one contrary soul voted against Mr. Xi, while three abstained.

Now Mr. Xi faces rival expectations of how he will apply the power in his hands – expectations that he has kindled. Since succeeding Hu Jintao as party leader in November, he has used meetings, speeches and visits to a frenetic coastal city and a dirt-poor village to signal he wants some economic liberalization, more room for citizens to criticize the government, and a crackdown on the official corruption that has increasingly infuriated Chinese citizens.

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