Lack of "youth" in Chinese political leadership

During last week's reading, I was surprised to see that the average age of the standing committee is 61.1 years of age. What was even more surprising was that none of the committee members are young enough to be considered a member of the 5th generation. Why is there a lack of "youthful" presence in the Chinese government?

I would think that China would want to have some type of up and coming leader on the standing committee to gain experience. What happens if several prominent members of the committee suddenly become ill, or even worse, pass away? Is there no contingency plan? When the 4th generation dwindles down, a fresh, unexperienced member of the 5th generation is going to have to step up. Having a new leader with no political experience on the national level is not something I would expect out of a major actor like China.

I was also amused to see that every single member of the standing committee has an educational background in engineering. I gleaned two things out of this:

1. It is obvious that China placed a huge emphasis on grooming it's citizens to focus on jobs that require an extensive background in math and science. This is clear proof that the United States needs to follow suit.

2. I would think that this may limit the ability for China to be well-rounded when it comes to international diplomacy. If all of the country's top leaders have training in the same area, what hapens when they have a situation that requires experience that falls outside of their expertise?
Many times, diplomacy requires the skills possessed by business men, not engineers.

Although the lack of diversity on the standing committee would seem to warrant problems, it does not seem to be a major issue.