Party Factions And China’s New Top Leadership: A Scoresheet

China’s leadership election couldn’t be further in style from the U.S.’s public horse race, but that doesn’t deter this Bystander from keeping score of how various factions have done in the composition of the new Politburo standing committee. Factions overlap, as the list below shows. Xi Jinping overlaps more than most of his fellow collective leaders, one reason he is primus inter pares.

Jiang faction 5 — Xi Jinping, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli;

Hu faction 2 — Li Keqiang, Liu Yunshan;

Princelings 4 — Xi Jinping, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Wang Qishan;

Youth League 2 — Li Keqiang, Liu Yunshan;

PLA connections 2 — Xi Jingpeng, Zhang Dejiang;

No/weak PLA connections 5  — Li Keqiang Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli;

SOE connections 5 — Xi Jinping, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli;

No/weak SOE connections 2 — Li Keqiang, Liu Yunshan;

Elite university graduates 3 — Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang (if North Korea’s Kim Il Sung University counts);

Other university graduates 4 — Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli;

Party power monopolists 7 — Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, Zhang Gaoli.