Chen Xiaojiang, newly appointed party secretary of the National Ethnic Affairs Commission of China
There have been recent personnel changes at China’s National Ethnic Affairs Commission. Chen Xiaojiang, former deputy head of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), has taken up the post of party secretary and is expected to take on the post as head of the PARTY committee. The move would break a 70-year tradition in which ethnic minorities have been the party’s top leaders.
The National Ethnic Affairs Commission has been headed by an ethnic minority since 1954, but that pattern is likely to be broken by Chen Xiaojiang, deputy head of the National Supervisory Commission.
Chen Xiaojiang, deputy head of the CENTRAL Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI), replaced Mongolian ethnic Bateer as the party chief of the CCDI, according to the ccDI website. The decision was made at a politburo meeting on Friday. Mr Chen is also expected to succeed Mr Battelle as head of the COMMISSION.
In the eyes of Yang Haiying, a professor at Japan’s National Shizuoka University, the NPP, which has been in existence for nearly seven decades, is just a “vase” lacking real power.
Yang HAIYING: “The National Ethnic Affairs Commission doesn’t really have any real power, but the Chinese Communist Party, in order to show that it values all ethnic groups and flauses national unity, has set up such a nominal unit. Our ethnic groups ask the COMMISSIONS to make flower bottles, but they have also done some cultural work, such as conducting surveys in various ethnic areas and collecting cultural relics, but basically they have no political power.”
Yang haiying, who was born in Inner Mongolia, believes Mr Bateer’s departure is directly related to the continuing public protests over the introduction of Chinese language teaching in the region.
Yang HAIYING: “The Communist Party’s policy is to assimilate all ethnic groups. It sees this as a cultural and political failure. Without the Inner Mongolia movement for the protection of the mother tongue, the Communist Party would probably keep the Mongolians as its Democratic Party director because it doesn’t trust the Uighurs or the Tibetans now.”
In September, Yao Qiang, an expert in thermal energy, became the first Han Chinese president of Xinjiang University in nearly four decades. Shi Jianyu, secretary general of the Association of Central Asian States in Taiwan, said Chen’s upcoming appointment shows that han Chinese are taking up more ethnic-related positions, and that the change is no longer limited to the local level.
Shi JIanyu: “It means that any region where ethnic minorities live in concentrated communities, the so-called autonomous regions, need not follow the tradition of the past: certain positions should be occupied by ethnic minorities. If you are going to break down the lines between races, you are also going to put minorities in positions that they would not have held before. For example, if the party secretary of Xinjiang University is an ethnic minority, the whole so-called ethnic policy change will only be completed to a certain extent. Otherwise, the original autonomy of ethnic minorities will be continuously reduced, and they will not be treated as equal members of China.”
Chen xiaojiang, a 58-year-old native of Zhejiang province who had long worked in water conservancy, was transferred to the CENTRAL Commission for Discipline Inspection as head of its publicity department in 2015. He was parachuted into Liaoning province the following year to head the discipline inspection commission. Mr Chen was transferred back to Central Beijing three years ago to become a minister-level official, deputy head of the central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and later appointed deputy head of the National Supervisory Commission.
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