Xi Jinping Confirmed As New Chinese President

By Mark Stone, China Correspondent

Xi Jinping has been declared the new leader of China's 1.3 billion people at a meeting of the National People's Congress in Beijing.

Mr Xi's appointment marks the end of a leadership transition which began last November when he was appointed General Secretary of China's Communist Party.

From that moment, his position as President was a certainty.

However, in keeping with Chinese Communist Party rules, the National People's Congress (NPC) "voted" on his position.

The 2,956 members of the NPC, who are said to represent every corner of China, gathered in the Great Hall of the People on the western flank of Tiananmen Square to cast their votes.

Of all the votes cast, just one was against Mr Xi.

The NPC is the world's largest parliament but is widely seen simply as a rubber-stamp body which gives a pre-agreed nod to decisions already made by the ruling Communist Party.

Xi Jinping is set to lead China for 10 years

The 59-year-old stuck to tradition in not making an acceptance speech. Instead, he sat centre stage and offered a bow to close proceedings.

He will rule over one fifth of the world's population for the next ten years, if all goes to the Communist Party's plan. 

His challenges are numerous: a strong but slowing economy with growing resentment over corruption, an urban-rural wealth gap, continued calls for wholesale political reform and countrywide worries stemming from countless environmental scandals.

These are all challenges which must be balanced against the his overriding objective: to ensure continuity of Communist rule, five generations after the revolution which brought Chairman Mao to power.

Xi has spent the past three months preparing for his presidency.

Televised appearances have provided clues of his priorities and hints at a more relaxed style of leadership.

With Chinese state television cameras in tow, he has visited military barracks, impoverished mountain villages and the Shenzhen Economic Zone in southern China where the country's economic reforms were first introduced two decades ago.

Tackling corruption has also been a key theme.

Xi has promised to bring down the "tigers" and the "flies", a reference to bureaucratic corruption at all levels of society.

He also called for traditionally extravagant official banquets to be toned down.

"We must uphold the fighting of tigers and flies at the same time, resolutely investigating law-breaking cases of leading officials and also earnestly resolving the unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems which happen all around people," Xi said in a January speech to senior Communist Party delegates.

"The style in which you work is no small matter, and if we don't redress unhealthy tendencies and allow them to develop, it will be like putting up a wall between our party and the people, and we will lose our roots, our lifeblood and our strength," he said.

The anti-corruption drive has been widely welcomed among China's vast population. There are daily protests online and on street corners across the country against corruption.

However, he risks a backlash from hard liners within the top political circles if they are forced to give up their perks of power too quickly.

Mr Xi also faces criticism over his own personal wealth. Many question whether the "back-room" dealings he now wants to stamp out helped to put him where he is now.

As a so-called "princeling", he comes from a thoroughbred Communist background.

His father, Xi Zhongxun, was a Communist revolutionary and former Vice-Premier.

However, political direction and possible reform in China is judged as much on what the leaders look like as it is on what they do or do not say.

And by appearance, Xi is markedly different from his predecessor Hu Jintao.

President Hu was stiff, impenetrable and unreadable. In contrast, President Xi appears to be relaxed, self-assured and, trivial as it may seem, smiley.

In Chinese politics, a smile is rare.

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