Shadow of former president looms over China's new leaders

Hong Kong (CNN) -- When the new names of China's elite political committee were announced Thursday they didn't come as a surprise to one leading China expert. Rather, they reinforced the sense of "a major opportunity lost."

"This Party congress has sent a very clear signal that this leadership is politically conservative," said Cheng Li of the Brookings Institution, who predicted that the lineup wouldn't go down well with the Chinese people who he said were looking for signs of political reform.

"You can imagine the Chinese public may start to express some dissatisfaction with the dominance of princelings (sons of revolutionary leaders), with the elder and retired top leader Jiang Zemin's interference in the process of succession, and also that two liberal leaders Li Yuanchao and Wang Yang are excluded in the new Politburo Standing Committee (PSC)," he said.

As expected, the number of seats on the PSC shrank from nine members to seven and included the names at the top of many speculative lists: Xi Jinping (President), Li Keqiang (Premier), Zhang Dejiang, Yu Zhengshen, Liu Yunshan, Wang Qishan and Zhang Gaoli.