3rd Inning Score: CCP National Congress

The Fat Lady won’t be singing in Beijing until Sunday but we know who’s in the lead after three innings. In the deciding game of this once-every-five year series, the Emperor For Life team currently holds a three-to-nothing lead over the Court of Rivals team.

Who scored? As reported by Josh Chin in today’s Wall Street Journal (see below), Ding Xuexiang, Xi’s Chief of Staff, and Li Qiang, party boss in Shanghai, are both being widely mooted in Beijing as favorites to land Standing Committee appointments. Both are “Xi’s men.” Given the nature of the National Congress process, a candidate whose name is being touted loudly at this stage of the process is almost guaranteed to be formally anointed come Sunday. Additionally, the fact that Li Qiang’s name is being advanced as the likely Premier to replace Li Keqiang means another run based on the scoring system set up in my Chutes and Ladders post last Friday. So, after three innings, score three for the Emperor For LIfe team.

The third name being picked in today’s reporting by Josh Chin is Li Xi, the top party official in Guangdong Province. This player is harder to score in the sense that Guangdong is the province most committed to international trade and investment and Xi has been actively narrowing that space. For instance, during his nearly two hour speech during the opening of the Congress on Sunday, Xi mentioned “security” (read, “surveillance”, “lack of consumer data protection” and “insecurity for private investors”) more than sixty time while giving lip-service to market forces only three ties. Of course, Xi may be bringing Li Xi on board precisely to keep Guangdong on a tight leash but there’s at least some possibility that Li Xi could represent a balancing perspective representing power blocs more committed to maintenance of international trade linkages, if not economic liberalization. We’ll score Li Xi as a Court of Rivals batter who was stranded on second without scoring. After three innings, no runs in for Court of Rivals team.

Final comment: The score may only be 3-0, but the game is shaping up as a total rout by Team Emperor For Life.

Stay tuned for further updates as we get to the later innings. For now, take a look at Josh Chin’s fine reporting below from today’s Wall Street Journal.

China’s Xi Jinping Likely to Pack Party Leadership With Allies in Show of Strength

Shanghai party chief is a front-runner for premier, people close to party leaders say, despite outrage over Covid-19 lockdown

Chinese leader Xi Jinping is preparing to name loyalists to top positions in the Communist Party hierarchy, according to people close to party leaders, in a move that would strengthen his hand as he confronts mounting challenges at home and abroad—from a sluggish domestic economy to Western resistance to Beijing’s ambitions on the world stage.

One of the allies Mr. Xi aims to promote is Li Qiang, currently the top party official in Shanghai, the people said. Earlier this year, Mr. Li shouldered blame for a weekslong Covid-19 lockdown during which tens of millions of residents in the country’s financial center struggled to access food and medical care.

Mr. Li is likely to be elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee, the party’s top decision-making body, according to the people, who say the 63-year-old is also considered a leading contender to be named premier at China’s annual legislative gathering next spring.

China’s premier has traditionally assumed responsibility for the country’s economy, which has been battered in recent months by Mr. Xi’s zero-tolerance approach to Covid-19, a dramatic downturn in the property market and a regulatory crackdown that has created uncertainty for business.

China’s National Bureau of Statistics postponed the release of third-quarter gross-domestic-product data on Monday, a day before it was set to be published. An official at the statistics bureau cited unspecified work arrangements as the reason for the delay.

Others likely to join the Standing Committee include Mr. Xi’s chief of staff, Ding Xuexiang, and the top party official in Guangdong province, Li Xi, who once worked as a secretary to a veteran of the Communist revolution with close ties to Mr. Xi’s family.

The people close to party leaders cautioned that final deliberations on the makeup of the Standing Committee won’t be revealed until Sunday when the party elite is due to complete the membership of its top decision-making bodies for the next term.

China’s State Council Information Office didn’t respond to requests for comment.

The makeup of the next Standing Committee and the identity of the next premier have been the subject of intense speculation among Chinese politics watchers ahead of this week’s twice-a-decade party congress in Beijing, where Mr. Xi is poised to break with recent precedent and claim a third term as party leader.

While Mr. Xi seems assured of securing another five years in power, growing public frustration over his management of Covid-19 and the economy has provided ammunition to potential rivals trying to check his power by ensuring his allies don’t monopolize senior appointments.

If Mr. Xi gets his way, despite the pushback, he would surround himself with like-minded officials and upend succession norms that the party had honed over recent decades to prevent a return to Mao-style dictatorship. This might make it easier for Mr. Xi to pursue his priorities, but it also raises the stakes should that agenda fail, political analysts said.

“The risk of things going wrong and him getting the blame is much greater,” said Ryan Manuel, managing director of Bilby, a Hong Kong-based artificial intelligence firm that analyzes Chinese government documents.

With more allies holding key positions, Mr. Xi, who turns 70 next year, may start to delegate some of his authority to his trusted lieutenants as he gets more advanced in age, some of the people said. He has fewer political opponents to worry about, having neutralized many of them with anticorruption purges and cut off retired party elders from meddling in politics, they said.

A promotion for Li Qiang would mark a surprising political comeback. He appeared to be given extra leeway in handling a local Covid-19 outbreak in Shanghai in February, but infections spread out of control. A wave of online anger over the ensuing lockdown spilled over into physical clashes with officials, prompting several analysts to predict Mr. Li had lost his chance at making the Standing Committee.

China’s current premier, Li Keqiang, is due to step down next spring after completing two five-year terms—the maximum allowed under China’s constitution. He has occasionally contradicted Mr. Xi and pressured the Chinese leader to dial back policies seen as hurting growth. Political analysts nevertheless consider him one of China’s least influential premiers, whose sway over the economy dissipated as Mr. Xi centralized decision-making in his own hands.

Li Qiang, Li Xi and Li Keqiang aren’t related.

Analysts say other candidates to succeed Li Keqiang include Wang Yang, the head of China’s top government advisory body, the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, and Hu Chunhua, currently the youngest among the country’s four vice premiers. In recent decades, Chinese premiers had prior experience as vice premier, a criterion that both Messrs. Wang and Hu satisfy.

Some foreign officials and academics have regarded Messrs. Wang and Hu as standard bearers for liberal-minded overhauls that favor market principles. Both are seen as being outside Mr. Xi’s orbit, having been brought along by other political patrons, though both have publicly backed the Chinese leader’s policies. The people close to party leaders said Mr. Hu may fall short of making the Standing Committee.

Among likely new members of the Standing Committee, Li Xi, Guangdong’s party chief since 2017, could step up as the next chief of the party’s top anticorruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, the people said.

Mr. Ding, the 60-year-old aide to Mr. Xi, is positioned to be named executive vice premier early next year, according to the people.

Top party theorist Wang Huning and anticorruption czar Zhao Leji are likely to join Mr. Xi as the only members of the current Standing Committee to get another term, though both are likely to be given new responsibilities, the people said.

He Lifeng, the top official at China’s state economic-planning agency and a friend of Mr. Xi since the 1980s, is likely to assume control over economic and financial policy, The Wall Street Journal previously reported. In this role, Mr. He would succeed Vice Premier Liu He, who has been Mr. Xi’s top economic adviser and his point man in trade talks with Washington.

The people close to party leaders and political analysts say Mr. Xi isn’t expected to elevate any potential successors to the Standing Committee, as doing so would undermine his own authority as paramount leader.

Both Li Qiang and Li Xi are too close to Mr. Xi in age to be considered viable successors. While Mr. Ding is younger, he has never served as a regional party boss—an experience long considered an unwritten prerequisite for candidates seeking China’s top political office.

Many in the business community see Li Qiang as a relatively liberal party leader who prefers discussing commercial deals to politics. In the early 2000s, he served as the top commerce official in the coastal province of Zhejiang, home to what would become major private companies including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. He was later promoted to party secretary of Wenzhou, a city in Zhejiang that became a thriving entrepreneurial hub after China opened up its economy in the late 1970s.

After Mr. Xi became party leader in 2012, Mr. Li took top jobs in the relatively affluent regions of Zhejiang and Jiangsu, before he was elevated to Shanghai party boss in 2017.

If Mr. Xi can make Li Qiang premier, he would be able to consolidate control over the formulation of economic and social policy, said Chen Gang, a senior research fellow at the National University of Singapore’s East Asian Institute. “China’s reform and opening will continue, but the pace will slow down. Zero-Covid policy will continue, and Li may rely on stimulus policies to boost the economy,” he predicted.

Write to Josh Chin at Josh.Chin@wsj.com