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China’s Communist Party
ChinaPolitics

Exclusive | Signs of Chinese President Xi Jinping delegating more to hand-picked deputies at start of third term

  • Xi has chaired fewer gatherings at home and cut back on international meetings
  • The leader could be feeling more confident entrusting others with major responsibilities, observers say

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Xi Jinping appears to be overseeing fewer meetings at home, leaving more of the responsibilities to his deputies. Photo: Reuters
Vanessa Caiin Shanghai

Chinese leader Xi Jinping appears to be delegating more responsibilities to his chosen deputies, with fewer reported appearances at top-level meetings in the first stage of his unprecedented third term.

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While Chinese politics is opaque, meetings are the main platform for the leader to voice specific goals and policy points, reflecting how deeply involved he is in those areas.

According to publicly available information, Xi had chaired 38 domestic meetings between the end of the Communist Party’s 20th national congress in October – the start of his third five-year term as the party’s leader – and the annual summer break that ended last week.

The total was fewer than the 59 he chaired five years earlier and the 50 meetings he directly oversaw at the start of his first term after taking over from predecessor Hu Jintao.

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While the Covid-19 pandemic may have been a contributing factor overall, all zero-Covid restrictions were abandoned after the “two sessions”, the annual legislative gatherings, in March, when he installed allies in all key government positions.
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