Chinese President Xi Jinping has been anointed as his country's most powerful leader in over a generation.
After eight days of the National Party Congress, a once-every-five-years political showcase by the Chinese Communist Party, Xi has sidelined rivals and emerged even stronger than before. Already the leader of the party, state and the military, Xi now has his name and his political philosophy enshrined in the constitution, the first living Chinese leader accorded that recognition since Mao Zedong.
On Wednesday, it emerged that Xi had replaced five of the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee, the inner core of the Beijing regime. Furthermore, none of the committee members is a clear successor to Xi, in what could be a signal of his intent to break with recent tradition by continuing to rule China past a second term.
Xi also set out plans for improving China's brand of socialism and further driving China's economic growth.
In a tweet, President Donald Trump said he had congratulated Xi on his "extraordinary elevation" and that the two discussed trade and North Korea.
In an interview with Fox Business Network, Trump described Xi's elevation as something that had "really virtually never happened in China."
"Now some people might call him the king of China. But he's called president," he said.
North Korean leader Kim Jong Un also sent a rare congratulatory message to Xi, the North's state media said, wishing the Chinese leader "great success" in his future tasks as head of the nation.
China is the North's sole major ally, and accounts for more than 90 percent of trade with the isolated country.
Reuters
