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Thursday, Nov 15, 2012 4:15 AM UTC

Xi Jinping takes helm of China amid reform calls

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Xi Jinping takes helm of China amid reform callsA People's Liberation Army officer walks down stairs with a document holder inside the Great Hall of the People, where the closing ceremony for the 18th Communist Party Congress is held, in Beijing, China, Wednesday, Nov 14, 2012. President Hu Jintao has stepped aside as Communist Party leader to clear the way for Vice President Xi Jinping to take the helm in China. (AP Photo/Alexander F. Yuan)(Credit: Alexander F. Yuan)

BEIJING (AP) — Xi Jinping became leader of China on Thursday, securing the Communist Party’s top spot and oversight of the military in a political transition upset by scandals that have added fuel to public demands for change as the country faces slower economic growth.

Xi’s elevation to party general secretary and chairman of the commission that oversees the People’s Liberation Army was announced in a dispatch by the state Xinhua News Agency, following a weeklong party congress that underlined the communists’ determination to remain firmly in power.

Xi will lead a new seven-member collective leadership of technocrats: Li Keqiang, the presumptive premier; Vice Premier Zhang Dejiang; Shanghai party secretary Yu Zhengsheng; propaganda chief Liu Yunshan; Vice Premier Wang Qishan; and Tianjin party secretary Zhang Gaoli.

The members of the new panel filed onto stage at the Great Hall of the People and Xi addressed the gathered reporters.

The son of a party elder, and vice president for the past five years, Xi will lead the world’s No. 2 economy and newest diplomatic and military power amid increasingly vocal calls for economic and political reform — including from within the 82-million-member party itself.

At ease with colleagues, Xi takes over the party leadership from the stiff and technocratic Hu Jintao, and is expected to assume the presidency in March.

More Christopher Bodeen.

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