China: Youth Movement

Li Tieying is the very model of what China's paramount ruler Deng Xiaoping, 80, calls a "third echelon" party leader: young, educated and experienced. Last week Li, 48, became the youngest of nine up-and-coming officials named to head key government agencies. The average age of the new appointees is below 55, and all of them have the equivalent of university degrees as well as other professional qualifications. That meets Deng's criteria for bringing up a new third echelon of party leaders in their 40s and 50s. Deng represents the first echelon, while Party General Secretary Hu Yaobang, 69, is in the second.

As if to stress Deng's emphasis on education, the Education Ministry was upgraded to a State Commission, a body with higher status than a ministry. It will be headed by Deputy Prime Minister Li Peng, 56, an engineer who is widely regarded as a possible successor to Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang. More important changes may come at a September party conference, when reformists will attempt to make leadership changes in party organizations by including more young, well-educated men and women in the Central Committee and even in the ruling Politburo.