Recently, the movement of Chinese Vice Premier Hu Chunhua has received attention from the outside world. The Hong Kong media said that Hu Chunhua’s top secretaries have already made a change, signaling a possible change in Hu Chunhua’s position.
The Wall Street Journal earlier cited information from a Chinese Communist Party official that Hu Chunhua might replace Liu He and lead the U.S.-China trade talks. But the news was officially denied by the Chinese Communist Party.
At a regular press conference on May 13, CPC Ministry of Commerce spokesman Gao Feng said, “The report by the Wall Street Journal is not true. However, there are still divergent views on whether Liu He will be replaced.
On May 18, an opinion piece in Hong Kong’s Ming Pao newspaper said that now that trade talks between the U.S. and China have come to a halt, and the 20th Communist Party of China (CPC) General Assembly personnel reshuffle is imminent, there is no urgency to replace him in the trade talks, and that it is “probably a miscommunication” that Hu Chunhua will replace Liu He in the U.S.-China trade talks.
However, the article points out that Hu Chunhua’s first secretary, Deputy Secretary General Gao Yu, has recently been reassigned as the director of the State Council Counselor’s Office, signaling a possible change in Hu Chunhua’s position.
Hu Chunhua recently accompanied Xi Jinping on a visit, a rare move that also sparked speculation.
The outside world noticed that when Xi Jinping visited Nanyang in Henan Province on May 12 for research, Hu Chunhua accompanied him around, but Liu He did not accompany him. And when Xi Jinping visited Henan in September 2019, Liu He was among those accompanying him, and Hu Chunhua did not accompany him.
Hong Kong media said these changes are unusual in connection with some recent arrangements and rumors of personnel changes. In particular, Gao Yu, Hu’s first secretary and deputy secretary-general of the State Council, was recently reassigned as director of the State Council Counselor’s Office, signaling a possible change in Hu’s position.
The Wall Street Journal on the 14th quoted Chinese Communist Party officials as saying that the Chinese government is considering whether to replace Liu He, the Chinese lead of the U.S.-China Comprehensive Economic Dialogue, with a younger Vice Premier Hu Chunhua.
But the officials also said that no final personnel decision has been made and that Liu He may also continue in that role.
Whether Hu Chunhua will replace Liu He or not, his own movements have been a source of concern. Hu Chunhua is considered to be the heir to the regiment of former President Hu Jintao, but affected by the fall of another successor choice, Sun Zhengcai, Hu Chunhua has escaped a disaster, but for a long time was put in the cold, not in the 19th Congress into the Politburo Standing Committee.
Currently, Hu Chunhua ranks third among the four vice premiers, behind Han Zheng and Sun Chunlan, but ahead of Liu He, who is in charge of industry, finance and technology and U.S.-China negotiations.
Hu Chunhua is in charge of agriculture and rural areas, natural resources, human resources and social security, and commerce, and heads two State Council leading groups on poverty alleviation and employment.
After the outbreak of the epidemic in 2020, Hu Chunhua launched a rare “mob” trip. Since April 14 of that year, he visited Guangdong, Hunan, Henan, Shandong, Jilin, Hebei, Beijing, Shaanxi, Anhui Liuan, Chongqing, Zhejiang Yiwu and other places one after another.
When Hu Chunhua arrived in Shaanxi, he also made a special pilgrimage to Liangjiahe, where Xi Jinping was a team member. It is worth mentioning that Hu Chunhua’s aforementioned activities were all reported by CCTV. This means that Hu Chunhua may have been reappointed by the authorities.
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