China's Second Most Powerful Man Is 'Not Retiring'

Wang Qishan. Photographer: Tomohiro Ohsumi/Bloomberg

South China Morning Post: Wang Qishan still attending top Communist Party meetings and in line for China’s vice-presidency

Wang, 69, left the Politburo Standing Committee in the reshuffle at the party’s five-yearly national congress in October.

Wang Qishan, China’s formidable former anti-corruption tsar, will continue to wield political influence in new Communist Party and state roles carved out for him by president and party chief Xi Jinping.

He has been given the rare privilege of attending meetings of the party’s supreme Politburo Standing Committee as a non-voting member, despite having stood down from the highest decision-making body in Chinese politics in October.

Meanwhile, he is also expected to be named vice-president – a less significant role in the Chinese hierarchy – at the annual session of the National People’s Congress, China’s legislature, in March, according to several sources.

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Update: China’s Top Graft-Buster May Become Vice President, Report Says (Bloomberg)

WNU Editor: So much for all the predictions that he was retiring .... China's Second Most Powerful Man Is 'Retiring' (October 23, 2017). I have always regarded Wang Qishan as China's second most powerful man .... and it is all due to his close friendship to President Xi. And while the post of Vice-President in China is mostly ceremonial, his appointment is a signal to everyone that he is still involved in government, and he has the ear of President Xi. Bottom line .... whatever he says or does will be treated as coming directly from President Xi's office itself.