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China's ruling Communist Party has unveiled an older, conservative leadership that appears unlikely to take the drastic action needed to tackle pressing issues like social unrest, environmental degradation and corruption.
New party chief Xi Jinping, premier-in-waiting Li Keqiang and vice-premier in charge of economic affairs Wang Qishan, all named as expected to the elite decision-making Politburo Standing Committee, are considered cautious reformers. The other four members have the reputation of being conservative.
The line-up belied any hopes that Xi would usher in a leadership that would take bold steps to deal with slowing growth in the world's second-biggest economy, or begin to ease the Communist Party's iron grip on the most populous nation.
"We're not going to see any political reform because too many people in the system see it as a slippery slope to extinction," said David Shambaugh, director of the China Policy Program at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs.
"They see it entirely through the prism of the Soviet Union, the Arab Spring and the Colour Revolutions in Central Asia, so they're not going to go there."
Vice-Premier Wang, the...