Xi Jinping has been elected General Secretary of the Communist Party of China and will also now be the country’s commander-in-chief, making him de facto leader of the world’s most populous country.
He was confirmed to be China's paramount leader for the next 10 years as the 18th Congress of the Communist Party of China came to an end. The Politburo of the Communist Party selected Xi and other members of the new seven-man Standing Committee, the highest authority in the party, on Thursday.
Xi has also been named chairman of the Central Military Commission, putting China’s military under his
control.
In his acceptance speech, Xi admitted that the Communist Party has its problems with corruption, detachment from the people and bureaucratic tendencies among some of its members.
He pledged to address these issues by working “with all the comrades in the party to uphold the principle that the party should supervise its own conduct and run itself with strict discipline."
He also praised the people of China, saying that their “desire for a better life is what we shall fight for” and that ''If we unite as one people, there is no difficulty we cannot overcome.''
"It is the people who have created history, and it is the people who are true heroes. The people are the source of our strength," Xi said.
The new leader replaces Hu Jintao, under whose administration China saw a decade of extraordinary growth despite the global financial crisis.
Xi was first unofficially slated to take this position five years ago during the previous congress of the CPC. He’s been a member of the Standing Committee of the Politburo since 2007.
Son of the late communist elder Xi Zhongxun, Xi Jinping is part of the "princeling" generation – offspring of the figures who played key roles in bringing the Communist Party into power in 1949.
Like many other young educated Chinese, he was sent to live in the countryside to live and work alongside peasants during Chairman Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution of 1966-76.
Xi is believed to be a pragmatic and skilled politician capable of finding consensus among different factions in the party. Like his predecessor, he is expected to continue opening China’s economy to market reforms while maintaining tight grasp on political sphere.
The six other members of the newly-elected committee are Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan, and Zhang Gaoli.
The new Chinese leadership will gradually take over responsibility for the country over the next several months. Hu Jintao's presidency will formally end at the annual parliamentary session in March 2013.
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