China’s upcoming Party Congress, in which as many as two-thirds of CCP leadership roles will change hands, deserves a close examination of the processes and procedures behind the vetting and selecting of new leaders.

This fall, the CCP will convene the highly-anticipated 20th Party congress, setting the stage for significant leadership turnover. Li predicts that, while Xi Jinping will surely remain Party chief, as many as two-thirds of the Central Committee, half of the Politburo, and more than half of the Politburo Standing Committee will be newcomers.

The new leadership structure of the central political commissions demonstrates a fundamental shift in the division of responsibilities between members of the Standing Committee since the 1980s. Policymaking on the top priority issues of Xi Jinping’s agenda will effectively be shifted from the Politburo’s Standing Committee to the special political commissions in the upcoming years.