Saturday, October 20, 2007
Powerful Chinese leaders retire
By Jaime FlorCruzCNN Beijing Bureau Chief
BEIJING, China (CNN) -- Three aging members of the nine-member committee that rules China are retiring and their replacements will be selected by the Community Party 17th National Congress on Monday.
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Chinese President Hu Jintao speaks at the 17th Communist Party Congress.
A fourth new member of the Politburo's standing committee will also be elected to replace Executive Vice Premier Huang Ju, who died earlier this year.
The congress is also expected to give President Hu Jintao another five year term.
The retiring leaders include State Vice President Zeng Qinghong, 68, Wu Guanzheng, the 69-year-old head of China's anti-corruption body, and 72-year-old Luo Gan, who is in charge of the country's police and security apparatus.
There is an unwritten rule among party leaders that they retire when they approach the age of 70. The Congress, comprised of 2,235 delegates from all over China, meets only every five years.
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The elite standing committee, which is China's top policy-making body, is made of up nine members of the 20-member Politburo, which will also be named Sunday.
The three retirements became known when the congress announced the 200 members of the Communist Party's central committee Sunday and the list did not include them full story...
by Novie at 11:23 PM.
