With his Youth League experience and his association with then paramount leader Hu Jintao, Li was seen from early on in Hu's term as a contender to succeed Hu when his term as party leader ends in 2012. Li gained membership to the Politburo Standing Committee at 17th Party Congress held in October 2007. He was succeeded in his provincial party chief post by Governor Zhang Wenyue. While Li's political future seemed promising, he was outranked on the Standing Committee by Xi Jinping, who had just left his role as party chief of Shanghai to join the central leadership ranks in Beijing. This rank order ostensibly signaled that it would be Xi, not Li, who would eventually succeed Hu as party General Secretary and President. At the 2008 National People's Congress, Li was elected Vice-Premier, first in rank, reinforcing the speculation that Li would become Premier and was being groomed to succeed then-Premier Wen Jiabao.