BEIJING: The Chinese Communist Party’s top body will have no full women members for the first time in 25 years, according to the new Politburo roster released on Sunday.

Sun Chunlan, the only woman sitting on the previous Politburo, has retired, and no other women were appointed.

Sunday’s announcements came after a week-long Congress of 2,300 hand-picked party delegates during which they endorsed Xi’s “core position” in the leadership and approved a sweeping reshuffle that saw Li and other former Xi rivals relegated.

Analysts had closely watched for whether the party charter would be amended during the Congress to enshrine “Xi Jinping Thought” as a guiding philosophy, a move that would put Xi on a par with Mao.

That did not take place, though a resolution did call the creed “the Marxism of contemporary China and of the 21st Century”, adding that it “embodies the best Chinese culture and ethos of this era”.

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2022