Xi Jinping takes over as China's leader Xi Jinping, China's new leader, files on to stage ahead of the other Politburo standing committee new members, Li Keqiang, Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengsheng, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli. Photograph: Reuters/Xinhua Xi Jinping has taken over as leader of China, securing the Communist party's top spot and oversight of the military after 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 week-long 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 on to the 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 second-largest economy 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.