Wang Yang – the ‘joker’ and reformer in Xi Jinping’s new pack

Wang Yang is one of the new members of the Communist Party’s Politburo Standing Committee. Here we present a snapshot of his career:

Wang Yang, who has just been named as one of China’s top leaders, is perhaps best known outside the country for the unlikely image of a senior Chinese politician cracking jokes at a Sino-US summit.

Wang broke the stereotype of the humourless and bland Chinese Communist Party technocrat by jesting that China and America’s relationship was like a marriage, but then quipping that this did not mean that he and the then US treasury secretary Jack Lew would be entering into a same-sex relationship.

“We cannot go for a divorce like Wendi Deng and Rupert Murdoch have done,” he joked. “It would be too big a price to pay.”

News reports suggested that Wang’s remarks at the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Washington four years ago had some members of the Chinese delegation squirming in their seats, but he later won plaudits from sections of the media for his easy-going manner during the trip and his attempt with a series of quips to dispel the idea that Beijing officials were cold and aloof.

Inside China, Wang is best known as a committed economic reformer and analysts have suggested that this and his loyalty to President Xi Jinping are among the reasons he has been promoted to a seat among the nation’s top leaders – the seven members of the Politburo Standing Committee.