"Xi fended off a bid by influential former president Jiang Zemin to install propaganda tsar Liu Yunshan in the job, the source said.
"His [Liu's] rival, Li, had been widely considered a top contender for a spot on the standing committee in November but party elders led by Jiang used a last-minute straw poll to block him from joining the body, sources have said.
"If Li makes it, it would mark the first time since 1998 that the vice president is not a member of the standing committee - the apex of power in China. Li sits on the 25-member Politburo, one notch below the standing committee. But both Li and Liu are too old to be potential successors to Xi. 'This time it's kind of a holding position,' said Kerry Brown, executive director of the China Studies Centre at the University of Sydney.
David Stanway, INTERVIEW-Bloated China Steel Sector Facing Closures, Big Miners to Suffer. Reuters, Mar 11, 2013 http://uk.reuters.com/article/20 ... UKL3N0C318H20130311
(ZHANG Wuzong, the chairman of the privately-owned Shandong Shiheng Special Steel Group)