Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng, 58, was appointed as the city’s Party Secretary after serving as Mayor since 2003. He replaces Yu Zhengsheng, 67, who has been elected one of the seven members of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau.

Sun Zhengcai, 49, a former Minister of Agriculture before he was named in late 2009 as Jilin province’s Party Secretary, has been appointed to the post in Chongqing, succeeding Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang, who was also promoted to the Standing Committee.

Sun Chunlan, until recently Party Secretary of Fujian province, has been appointed Party Secretary of Tianjin Municipality after being inducted into the elite 25-member Politburo. She is the second highest raking woman in the Chinese Communist Party, following Liu Yandong, who is expected to become a Vice Premier in March.

On the closing day of the 18th Chinese Communist Party Congress on November 14, 2,307 delegates elected 205 full members to the Central Committee and 171 alternate members. Ninety-one of the previous Committee’s full members were re-elected and 55 existing alternate members made full members. On November 15, the newly-elected Central Committee held its first meeting to elect the Politburo and its Standing Committee. The members of the Standing Committee (SC) were presented to the domestic and international press in the Great Hall of the People shortly before noon on November 15. The SC was reduced from nine to five members: Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Liu Yunshan, Yu Zhengsheng, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli. New Party General Secretary Xi Jinping is expected to succeed his predecessor Hu Jintao as China’s President in March next year, while Li Keqiang would succeed Wen Jiabao as Premier. Zhang Dejiang is expected to become the new Chairman of the National People’s Congress (NPC). Current Vice Premier Wang Qishan has been elected to the post of Chairman of the Communist Party’s Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), the main anti-corruption body. Xi Jinping also succeeded Hu Jintao as Chairman of the Party’s Central Military Commission (CMC), but Hu will remain Chairman of the State’s Central Military Commission until the next plenary session of the National People’s Congress in March 2013.

In the newly amended Party Charter endorsed by the 18th National Congress, reform and opening up are highlighted as “the path to a stronger China” and the “salient feature” of the new period in China. A Congress resolution said that the inclusion of this statement would help the Party acquire a deeper understanding of the importance of continuing reform and opening up, and help it to pursue this endeavor more consciously and with greater determination. The “Scientific Outlook on Development”, first put forward in October 2003 by Hu Jintao to facilitate overall, coordinated and sustainable development, has also received a prominent place in the Party’s Charter, on a par with the theories of Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping and Jiang Zemin. The concept of scientific development was first incorporated into the preface of the Party Charter at the 17th Congress in 2007. Another noteworthy amendment is the detailed explanation on the strategic position of ecological progress in China’s overall development plans. “Ensuring ecological progress and building a beautiful China are new concepts in our Party’s Constitution,” said Xia Xueluan, a renowned Sociologist at Peking University.

Two newly-appointed Politburo members are widely seen as candidates for top posts when Xi Jinping’s generation leaves office a decade from now: Inner Mongolia Party Secretary Hu Chunhua and Jilin Party Secretary Sun Zhengcai. Both 49 years old, they are poised to take up two important posts soon. Hu is expected to become Guangdong Party Secretary, while Sun is set to lead Chongqing. Analysts say the tasks would put their capabilities to the test and provide them with valuable experience. Five of the new Politburo Standing Committee’s seven members will retire in five years, paving the way for a new generation. Only Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang will still be on the Standing Committee after the 19th Party Congress in 2017.

Sun Zhengcai, one of the youngest provincial Party Secretaries to join the Politburo, is expected to become Party Secretary of the municipality of Chongqing rocked by the downfall of former Party Secretary Bo Xilai. Born in Rongcheng, Shandong province, in 1963, Sun built up his knowledge base in agriculture. In 1997, he was transferred to Beijing’s Shunyi district as Deputy Director, marking the start of his political career. He was elected in 2002 as a Standing Committee Member of Beijing’s Party Committee, then led by Jia Qinglin, and became Minister of Agriculture in 2006. The posting made him one of the youngest Ministers yet. Sun’s ascension to the post of Jilin Party Secretary in 2009 was followed two years later by the province’s rise to “the trillion GDP club”, when its economic output hit CNY1.04 trillion.

The 49-year-old Hu Chunhua is tipped to take over the leadership of Guangdong. Born in 1963 in the city of Wufeng in Hubei province, Hu graduated from Peking University with a Chinese language major and has worked for a period of time in Tibet. He returned to Beijing in 1997 to serve as a Vice Chairman of the All-China Youth Federation. In 2001, Hu left again for Tibet for five years, taking up the post of Deputy Party Secretary and Executive Vice Chairman of the Tibet Autonomous Region. In 2006, Hu became Chairman of the Communist Youth League. Two years later, he was made Governor of Hebei, the youngest provincial Governor in the country. Hu Chunhua was transferred to Inner Mongolia in January 2010.

Economic analysts are watching a handful of experienced bankers whose ascent though the party ranks last week makes them likely candidates for top jobs managing China’s economy for the next five years. At least four cadres who headed one of the Big Four state-owned banks – Shang Fulin, Guo Shuqing, Xiang Junbo and Xiao Gang – are widely seen as favorites for top economic posts after their promotion to the Communist Party’s Central Committee. The four, along with the Chairman of the China Investment Corporation (CIC), Lou Jiwei, are seen as leading contenders for top positions at the People’s Bank of China (PBOC) and the Finance Ministry. The Governor of the Central Bank, Zhou Xiaochuan, and Finance Minister Xie Xuren are expected to retire in March next year. All four candidates are considered advocates of more market freedom and less control over banks’ business operations. But some analysts were disappointed that Wang Qishan, who secured a spot on the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, was appointed Chairman of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, China’s top anti-corruption body, instead of to an economic top post.

The Communist Party of China (CPC) is holding its 18th Congress in Beijing. General Secretary Hu Jintao delivered a report on behalf of the 17th Central Committee at the opening session on November 8, attended by 2,268 delegates. Former members of the Politburo and its Standing Committee also attended the session, including former General Secretary Jiang Zemin and Premiers Li Peng and Zhu Rongji. Hu’s speech lasted for about 100 minutes. The following is a brief summary of his speech:

Hu Jintao said that “China has entered the decisive stage of completing the building of a moderately prosperous society in all aspects” and the theme of the Congress was to strive to complete this task. During more than 90 years of struggle, the Party led the people to turn the poor and backward old China into an increasingly prosperous and powerful new China, Hu said. While there were “unprecedented opportunities for development”, there were also unknown risks and challenges. In the past five years, “notable progress has been made in making China an innovative country”, and Hu specifically mentioned China’s space program, deep-sea exploration, supercomputers and high-speed railways, while progress has also been made in environmental protection. China’s open economy has reached a new level, and its import and export volume now ranks second in the world. Living standards have been significantly improved and progress has been made in developing the social security system.

Among the difficulties and problems the Party faced, Hu Jintao mentioned the “unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable development”, and changing the growth model remains an arduous task. He warned that “social problems have increased markedly” and “the fight against corruption remains a serious challenge”. But after the 2008 global financial crisis, China’s economy was the first in the world to make a turnaround, and China successfully hosted the Olympic Games and the World Expo, Hu said. Over the past ten years, China’s economy has risen from the sixth to the second place in the world. To guide its work, the Party had formulated the “Scientific Outlook on Development”, which should be applied throughout the course of modernization. The central task was pursuing economic development, Hu added, who also called for being realistic and pragmatic, and using a holistic approach. In the past 30-plus years, China continued to develop “socialism with Chinese characteristics” and “rejected both the old and rigid closed-door policy and any attempt to abandon socialism”. He said that public ownership remained the mainstay of the basic economic system, but that other forms of ownership were allowed to develop together, as China was still in “the primary stage of socialism”.

Party General Secretary Hu Jintao called for China to become an innovative country and to significantly increase its international competitiveness. A new growth model based on improved quality and performance should be created, and the way to achieve this is to deepen reform, Hu said. “We should follow more closely the rules of the market and better play the role of the government,” he added. The convertibility of the renminbi under the capital account should be promoted in due course and the development of private financial institutions should be speeded up. The utilization of foreign capital should be improved, Chinese companies should expand overseas and a number of world-class multinational companies should be developed, Hu said. Finally, he called for joint efforts to create a brighter future for the Chinese people and nation.