During the ongoing annual session of China’s rubber-stamp parliament, Chinese President Xi Jinping on Saturday proposed Li Qiang, 63, to fill the position of premier, which entails overseeing the second-largest economy in the world.
After serving two five-year mandates, Li Keqiang, the former head of the Communist Party in Shanghai, the largest city in China, will step down during the session of the National People’s Congress that ends on Monday.
When Xi was the provincial party secretary of eastern China’s Zhejiang province from 2004 and 2007, Li Qiang served as his chief of staff.
His appointment to the second position on the Politburo Standing Committee during the once every five years Communist Party Congress put him on the path to become premier in October.
As a generation of more reform-minded officials retires and Xi continues to consolidate his power after being elected president for an unprecedented third term on Friday, he is appointing a slate of loyalists to important positions in the government, which is the biggest reshuffle in ten years.