Charter flights and low-key tours mark a new approach for China’s premier

Li Qiang is three months into the job and appears to be taking a different tack to his predecessor

Observers say he could be trying to show deference to the president and to cut down on bureaucracy

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Premier Li Qiang signs the guest book at the Munich Residence on Tuesday. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 2:00pm, 23 Jun 2023

After three months in the job, China’s new premier appears to be doing things a little differently than his predecessor – or at least in a more low-key way.

Observers say Li Qiang could be trying to show deference to President Xi Jinping, and it could also be a bid to cut down on bureaucracy.

Li – who is considered one of Xi’s closest aides having worked together since the early 2000s – is on his first overseas trip this week, to Germany and France.

Chinese Premier Li Qiang is greeted by French Interior Minister Gerald Darmanin at Paris-Orly airport on Wednesday. Photo: Xinhua

He arrived in Berlin on Sunday on a chartered flight, according to a statement from Beijing.

His predecessor Li Keqiang, like other premiers before him, would have travelled on a special plane for any trip abroad – the Chinese equivalent of Air Force One.

The premier is the only Chinese official other than the president who is entitled to take a special flight, according to a 2012 directive aimed at streamlining procedures.

Other members of the Politburo Standing Committee – the apex of political power in China – can take chartered flights with approval, but not special planes.

Li’s choice of flight is a gesture to “give prominence to Xi’s core status” in the Communist Party leadership, according to Xie Maosong, a senior fellow at the Taihe Institute and senior researcher at the National Institute of Strategic Studies at Tsinghua University.