Just before the US election, we laid out the details and implications of the ‘other’ major ‘election’ occurring in the world – that of China’s Supreme Leader of Awesomeness. Last night the details were announced of the makeup of the new Politburo Standing Committee. As Bloomberg notes, the panel – the most powerful decision-making body in China – was reduced from nine to seven members and will be led (unsurprisingly) by Xi Jinping. Perhaps, in a lesson for our own politicians, the ‘new’ committee is ‘bipartisan’ with five members from Xi Jinping’s own Jiang Zemin faction and two members from Hu Jintao’s faction (more a balance of reformers and reactionaries). But, in a similar vein to the US, as The Diplomat’s David Cohen notes,”If Xi is to achieve even the economic policy goals that already appear to enjoy consensus support in Beijing, he will need to find ways of overcoming some of the largest entrenched interest groups in contemporary China.  To do so, he may have to set about creating new entrenched interest groups.”

Adjusted from Goldman Sachs: The New Politburo…

Via The Diplomat’s David Cohen: Xi Jinping’s Economic Challenge,

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