An early-release agenda for the 6th plenum of the 18th party congress in October, along with a sweeping reorganization of the Communist Youth League (CYL), appear to be the latest signs of Xi Jinping's consolidation of power over the CPC.
Taken together, these latest developments suggest that Xi has more than neutralized the supposed threat to his rule from premier Li Keqiang, and is as indisputably in charge of China as ever before. In fact, it may even herald an acceleration of his growing authority between now and next fall's 19th party congress.
Such political stabilization would greatly help the economic transition. Ironically, now that Li seems to pose no danger to Xi, he might be given more breathing room to run the economy, which is going reasonably well; he can be expected to star at the G-20 summit in Hangzhou next month, reassuring global financial and economic leaders that there won't be any nasty surprises from China despite its persistent headwinds.
That would send a positive message to the world: Xi is concentrating power not for his own sake, but to make difficult reforms possible. He wants the world to be confident in China's commitment to rebalancing, and part of that means letting Li do his job as well as possible for as long as possible, even if the delicate national condition demands that the party's new "central leading groups" play more of a supervisory role, as well.
Li for his part seems to have little incentive to not throw in his lot with Xi - or more to the point now, little whatsoever to gain from Xi's loss of credibility, which if anything would hurt him more than Xi himself.
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