Jia Qinglin - at The National Level

At The National Level

Because of his high local position and his ties with then-General Secretary Jiang Zemin, in November 2002 Jia became the fourth-ranking member of the 16th Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) of the Communist Party of China. Although his ceremonial role as the Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a quasi-consultative upper house in China's political system, makes him fourth in the order of precedence, it is widely accepted that the position has very little power, perhaps the least amount of power in the nine PSC members. Jia Qinglin was the most senior Chinese official to attend the funeral of Zhao Ziyang. With the transition of authority to Hu Jintao in 2005, Jia appears to have been given the job of coordinating policy on Taiwan.

Jia was reelected to the 17th Politburo Standing Committee during the CPC 17th national congress, a move that analysts predicted partly because of Jia's loyalty to his patron, former party general secretary Jiang Zemin.