The Chinese Communist party’s most trusted crisis manager has returned to front-line politics just in time to face one of the biggest challenges of his long career — managing the fallout from what is likely to be the most dramatic deterioration in Sino-US relations in 30 years.
This weekend China’s rubber-stamp parliament, the National People’s Congress, appointed Wang Qishan as vice-president, ending an official “retirement” that lasted just five months.
Mr Wang’s appointment was approved with 2,969 votes in favour and just one against. President Xi Jinping was unanimously reappointed to a second five-year term in office, after pushing through an amendment that removed a two-term limit on the presidential position.