SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST (China), BBC NEWS (UK),
BEIJING – One day after formally appointing Xi Jinping as the country’s new president for the next 10 years, China leaders have named Li Keqiang for a five-year term as premier, the last leg of a well-oiled generational transition of power.
Although Xi and Li hail from different backgrounds (Li is a protege of ex- President Hu Jintao, while Xi is the son of a revolutionary veteran) they have declared their intentions to combat widespread official corruption, reverse a widening income gap and repair China’s severely polluted environment — issues that are driving public discontent, according to The South China Morning Post.
Li, a 57-year-old English-speaking bureaucrat, is the Communist Party’s No. 2 and has already served as China’s Vice-Premier.
Taking over for Wen Jiabao as premier, Li will oversee a large portfolio of domestic affairs and try to mend the financial woes of the world’s second-largest economy, BBC News reports.
Watch Li Keqiang and Xi-Jinping shake hands in the video below.
