New Poliburo hints at makeup of 2022 leadership

The makeup of China’s 25-member Politburo provides clues to which officials are in the front running to lead the Communist Party in 2022, Bloomberg reported. Sun Zhengcai, Communist Party head of Jilin province and an ex-agriculture minister who studied in the UK for one year, was appointed to the Politburo Thursday. As agriculture minister, he handled the party’s response to the 2008 baby milk crisis, overseeing a crackdown on poor processing methods. Hu Chunhua, the party secretary of Inner Mongolia, was also appointed to the body. Hu dealt with Mongolian protests by acknowledging “public anger” and using police to control the crowds. Both Sun and Hu are 49 years old, the youngest members of the Politburo by at least six years. Analysts say the next generation of leaders will have a different mentality, are more educated and have more experience abroad