Senior Personnel Changes, 4 Provincial Party Secretaries Appointed in One Day

Nearly a month after the 5th Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Committee, Xinhua News Agency, the official media, announced today that there have been changes in the Party Secretaries in four provinces: Jing Junhai, Xu Dazhe, Chen Yeguqin, and Ruan Chengfa, who have been appointed as Party Secretaries in Jilin, Hunan, Guizhou, and Yunnan.

According to a report by the Central News Agency today, there have been changes in the Party secretaries of the four provinces since the Fifth Plenary Session of the Communist Party of China.

According to the report, Jing Junhai was born in December 1960 in Baishui, Shaanxi Province. He joined the workforce in July 1982 and worked in Shaanxi for many years, serving as deputy governor of Shaanxi Province; after 2015, he was transferred to Beijing, where he served as deputy minister of the Central Propaganda Department and deputy secretary of the Beijing Municipal Party Committee; in 2017, he was appointed deputy secretary and governor of Jilin Province.

Xu Dazhe, born in September 1956 in Nanchang, Jiangxi province, and originally from Liuyang, Hunan province, joined the Party in December 1975, and served as chairman of the board of directors of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC), vice minister and deputy secretary of the Party group of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the People’s Republic of China, director of the National Space Administration (NASA), director of the National Atomic Energy Agency (NAA), and director and secretary of the Party group of the National Defense Science and Technology Industry Bureau (NDSTIB) in January 1982. He became Vice Secretary of Hunan Provincial Party Committee in August 2016, and later served as Vice Governor and Acting Governor of Hunan Provincial People’s Government and was elected Governor of Hunan Province in December 2016.

Chen Yiqin, born in December 1959, is a member of the Bai ethnic group in Wejin, Guizhou Province, and has never left Guizhou. It is noteworthy that she is currently the only female provincial Party Secretary among the 31 provinces (cities) in mainland China.

Ruan was born in October 1957 in Wuhan, Hubei province, and served as Wuhan Party Secretary for many years. In December 2016, she was appointed Deputy Secretary of the CPC Yunnan Provincial Party Committee, and also served as Vice Governor and Acting Governor of Yunnan Province.

The news did not mention the appointment and removal of the former provincial party secretaries in these four provinces.