Li Yuanchao, chief of the Chinese Communist Partys secretive and powerful Organization Department, speaks during an opening ceremony in Dalian, northeast Chinas Liaoning province, 29 June 2010.
Li, 62, heads the Communist party’s organization department, a powerful role that guides the placement of officials throughout the government. Li is considered to be one of the most liberal-minded candidates for the standing committee. As party secretary of Jiangsu province in eastern China from 2003 to 2007, he emphasized quality of life issues such as environmental protection and responsive local governance. “He’s a serious reformer,” says David Zweig, an expert on Chinese politics at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Zweig has researched the party’s 1,000 Talents Program, a pet project of Li’s to encourage overseas educated Chinese to return to China. In June, Zweig presented Li with an analysis of why the program was failing. “I said basically the bureaucracy is too powerful,” Zweig says. “He ate it up.”