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BEIJING (AP) — China's Communist Party elevated President Xi Jinping to the position of "core" leader on Thursday, underscoring his clout and strengthening his dominance ahead of a reshuffle in the top ranks next year.
A key party meeting this week called on all members to unite around the party leadership with "Comrade Xi Jinping as the core," according to a communique released by the official Xinhua News Agency.
"This actually is very significant in the sense that it is truly making him the undisputed leader of today," said Dali Yang, a Chinese politics expert at the University of Chicago.
While mainly symbolic, the move to bestow Xi with "core" status reflects his assertion of himself as one of the country's most powerful leaders in decades. It could strengthen his influence at next year's party congress at which Xi and other leaders are expected to place new officials in the party's top bodies. That includes the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee, five of whose seven current members — all but Xi and Premier Li Keqiang — are due to step down according to custom.
"Core" status was an accolade bestowed on past leaders including famed reformist Deng Xiaoping and ex-President Jiang Zemin, but which Xi's immediate predecessor never attained. Xi is also head of the military and chairman of the National Security Council, which gives him greater control over the domestic security services.
The new title points to Xi's success in unraveling a network of potential rivals surrounding a former senior leader and sidelining members of predecessor Hu Jintao's China Youth League faction. He has taken charge of the most important policy oversight party committees and waged a popular anti-graft campaign that has unsettled the vast bureaucracy and is perceived as helping to purge rivals.
It remains to be seen whether the new position will further cement Xi's authority or simply be another title. It also could place Xi under greater pressure to solve grave and thorny domestic challenges including slowing economic growth and massive layoffs resulting from the closure of steel and coal mines, analysts said.
"It is still up in the air whether he will have the real authority as the core or if he is just powerful in name and not in reality," said Zhang Lifan, an independent historian and political observer.
"If troubles such as the slowing economy and social disintegration continue to grow, his responsibilities as the core will grow accordingly," Zhang said.
At the same time, the party communique sought to emphasize the importance of collective leadership. It said the system "must always be followed and should not be violated by any organization or individual under any circumstance or for any reason."
Such an emphasis could be read as a bid to assuage concerns in some parts that Xi might be trying to roll back the consensus-oriented leadership of the past two decades and restore rule by a dominant strongman.
"To avoid concentrating all power in one person can help avoid terrible mistakes," said Hu Xingdou, political science professor at Beijing Institute of Technology. "The question is to what extent the collective leadership is to be exercised in a democratic way."
Since being appointed party leader in late 2012, Xi has moved aggressively to make his personal stamp with campaigns against corruption, official waste and liberal, Western ideas.
More than 1 million party members have been punished for corruption since 2013, state media have said. At the same time, authorities have imposed a heavy crackdown on rights lawyers, women's rights activists and other civil society groups.
The party is trying to strike a delicate balance between endorsing a leader with enormous power and the need to maintain an internal mechanism to check that power, said Cheng Li, an elite China politics expert at the Washington, D.C.-based think tank Brookings Institute.
"It's important to point out that the party does not necessarily give him a blank check or give him Mao (Zedong) -like power," Li said. "You do see the emphasis on collective leadership and that the No. 1 leader should have more responsibility and be accountable."
The party meeting also approved two sets of rules aimed at strengthening discipline among party members and curbing corruption. The communique included pledges to address the common problem of vote-rigging and the buying and selling of official posts — problems that have triggered public anger.
The new rules reflect the party's long-held concern that rampant official graft has vastly eroded its legitimacy, analysts said.
"They want something they hope will allow them to maintain the integrity of the party," said Yang of the University of Chicago. "Xi and previous leaders have all emphasized how a dissolute party could eventually end up falling."
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