As the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) draws near, much attention is being paid to the personnel layout of the top echelons of the Communist Party. Nearly half of the current members of the Politburo will retire at the end of their terms, and it is even more interesting to see who will fill the vacancies.
There is an unwritten rule of “seven up and eight down” for the top level of the CPC. Since the 16th CPC Congress held in 2002, no Politburo member or Politburo Standing Committee member has been re-elected or re-elected in the year they reached 68 years old.
At least 11 of the 24 current Politburo members will reach the retirement age limit of 68 at the 20th Congress of the CPC next year.
According to an April 7 op-ed in the Hong Kong newspaper Ming Pao, there are currently six local senior officials who are also provincial party secretaries, including Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai and Chongqing, as well as Guangdong and Xinjiang, and the secretaries of these six places have become ex-officio members of the Politburo.
The secretaries of these six places, Cai Qi, Li Hongzhong, Li Qiang, Chen Miner, Li Xi and Chen Quanguo, will not reach the age limit next year, but according to the CCP’s practice, they will not stay in place, and if they all stay in the bureau, there is a great chance that they will go to Beijing.
If the above-mentioned six places of the hand into the Beijing, the article believes that, according to the current practice of the Chinese Communist Party officialdom, the second in command is the first candidate to replace, historically, Beijing, Shanghai secretary vacancies, mostly by the mayor to take over. The second in command in Xinjiang, the chairman of the regional government (equivalent to the governor) is unlikely to take over the post of secretary. In the past 30 years, no one has been able to take over as Guangdong’s governor, because the secretary is mostly parachuted in from outside the province, and the governor is mostly produced locally, reflecting the central government’s distrust of Guangdong’s local cadres.
The situation in Chongqing and Tianjin is more complicated. Chongqing’s leadership has been unstable since Bo Xilai, with four secretaries in nine years, except for Zhang Dejiang, who was temporarily replaced for a period of time after the Bo case, and Sun Zhengcai, who was also investigated for corruption and did not serve a full term. Tianjin is similar to Chongqing.
The current provincial (regional) mayors of six places, not counting Xinjiang, Tianjin Mayor Liao Guoxun seniority is the most shallow, in addition to it, Beijing Mayor Chen Jining, Guangdong Province Mayor Ma Xingrui and Shanghai Mayor Gong Zheng, Chongqing Mayor Tang Liangzhi, as long as before the 20th Congress does not leave his current position, the 20th Congress may be due to the succession of the Secretary and into the Bureau.
In addition to the above-mentioned people, the article believes that Ma Xingrui, the governor of Guangdong Province, and Ying Yong, the secretary of Hubei Province, are popular candidates to enter the Bureau.
Ying Yong originally belonged to Xi Jinping’s direct line of Zhijiang new army, before the 19th Congress has been the mayor of Shanghai, after the outbreak of the Wuhan epidemic last year, the leadership of Hubei was replaced, Ying Yong became the secretary of Hubei. The second ten should be Yong or a higher level.
The current secretary of Liaoning, Zhang Guoqing, who gave way from the mayor of Chongqing to Tang Liangzhi and then from the mayor of Tianjin to Liao Guoxun, is now the youngest secretary of the provincial party committee, but unless there is a blowout, it is difficult to get into the game.
This year and next are the political years of the Chinese Communist Party. Next year, the Communist Party will hold the 20th National Congress, and local officials at all levels will enter the “peak of the new term”, and various factions will be in position for the “20th National Congress”. At the same time, the 20th Congress will also decide whether Xi Jinping will stay or go.
This year, Xi Jinping has made a number of big moves, including initiating a study on the history of the Chinese Communist Party, a high-profile commemoration of Hua Guofeng, and asking young Chinese officials to dare to fight. According to outside analysis, Xi’s actions are all centered on maintaining the “Xi core” and paving the way for him to remain in power at the 20th CPC National Congress.
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