SinoInsight 1
Nov. 14
Sing Tao Daily, a pro-Beijing Hong Kong newspaper, reported that Yuan Jiajun, a member of the 20th Politburo and Party secretary of Zhejiang Province, will succeed Chen Min’er as Party secretary of Chongqing, a directly-administered municipality. Sing Tao added that Chen could succeed Li Hongzhong as Party secretary of Tianjin, and Li could be transferred to the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress to serve as vice chairman.
Sing Tao also reported that Li Ganjie, a member of the 20th Politburo, member of the Central Secretariat, and Party secretary of Shandong Province, could be appointed head of the Central Organization Department.
The aforementioned personnel reshuffles are expected to be carried out in the week of Nov. 14, according to Sing Tao.
Nov. 17
South China Morning Post reported that Chen Min’er is tipped to be appointed Party secretary of Tianjin. The Post also cited analysts as saying that Chen has “opportunities for promotion in another five years.”
OUR TAKE
1. Reports of Chen Min’er’s imminent appointment as Tianjin Party secretary in both Chinese and English-language Hong Kong media suggest that the news has a ring of credibility. Analysis that Chen is due for promotion in five years, however, may be somewhat optimistic. If confirmed, Chen’s “horizontal” transfer from Chongqing to Tianjin, previous factional background, and age (he is 62 this year and will be 67 in five years) indicate that his official career has plateaued and he is unlikely to be elevated further.
We noted in analyzing Xi Jinping’s 20th Politburo appointments that Chen Min’er is one of 13 officials whose “loyalty to Xi is more or less assured and will likely stand with Xi regardless of his political status.” Chen was an old colleague of Xi’s in Zhejiang Province and is one of the first dozen or so provincial-level Party secretaries who hailed Xi as “core” leader in 2016.
Yet Chen’s status as an avowed Xi loyalist does not mean that Xi fully trusts him. In debunking popular rumors back in 2017 that Chen was a potential candidate to succeed Xi Jinping, we noted that Chen’s career background from the late 1990s to the early 2000s marked him as an official who was at least favored by the Jiang Zemin faction. For instance, Chen was appointed as head of the Zhejiang official newspaper in December 1999 and promoted to provincial propaganda chief just two years later. Chen’s rapid promotion coincided with the start and peak of Jiang Zemin’s persecution of Falun Gong; officials, particularly those in propaganda and the political and legal affairs apparatus, who proactively participated in the anti-Falun Gong campaign were often swiftly elevated up the ranks as they accrued political capital with the Jiang faction, which dominated the regime at the time. But Chen’s career in Zhejiang stagnated when Xi took over as provincial Party secretary from 2002 to 2007.
Meanwhile, Chen Min’er’s promotion in the early part of Xi’s first term appeared to be the result of regular personnel succession norms, factional struggle circumstances, and chance, rather than him being favored by Xi. Xi did not have much control over personnel arrangements early in his tenure because he lacked political strength and did not have a faction to tap into for personnel. Chen was appointed deputy Party secretary of Guizhou Province in February 2012 and governor a year later. In 2015, Chen was elevated to Guizhou Party secretary after his predecessor Zhao Kezhi was transferred to Hebei Province to take over from the purged Jiang faction member Zhou Benshun; there was nothing untoward about this promotion and was in line with Xi’s personnel reshuffle principles.
Chen’s transfer from Guizhou to Chongqing appeared to have been influenced by his political achievements in Guizhou and his declaration of loyalty to Xi. As noted above, Chen was one of the earliest provincial Party bosses who publicly referred to Xi as “core” leader in 2016. Guizhou also happened to perform well under Chen, securing the second-highest GDP growth rate by province in China for two consecutive years (10.7 percent and 10.5 percent in 2015 and 2016 respectively). Those two factors and Chen being Xi’s former colleague could have played a role in convincing Xi to move him to Chongqing in July 2017 after Jiang faction member Sun Zhengcai was purged.
Chen Min’er’s current career stagnation could be partly due to Xi Jinping being wary of his Jiang faction background despite his displays of loyalty and acceptable performance in Chongqing. Xi could also be looking to squash all expectations of Chen or anyone else (such as Hu Chunhua, who exited the Politburo at the 20th Party Congress) being a possible candidate to succeed him as Party boss so as to deny his factional rivals any opportunities to establish or spread undermining speculation about a “second Party Central” headed by “Xi’s heir,” keep power centralized in himself, and ensure that his “quan wei” (authority and prestige) stays unchallenged and unquestioned.
2. News that Li Hongzhong could next serve as vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress does not quite stack with Politburo personnel arrangement norms. If a vice chairman of the NPC Standing Committee makes the Politburo, then this means that either a State Council vice premier or the head of the Central Organization Department will be left out of the body.
Li’s qualifications and loyalty suggest that he stands a chance of being named as the second-rank vice premier. However, we do not rule out the possibility that Li could be appointed as a NPC Standing Committee vice chairman or even a first-rank vice premier if Xi makes unusual tweaks to the composition of the Politburo.
3. If Li Ganjie does head the Central Organization Department as reported, then the CCP General Office director will not be a secretary of the CCP Secretariat this time, which breaks from precedent.
Table 1
From Table 1, General Office directors and heads of the Central Organization Department from the 14th Central Committee to the 19th Central Committee were virtually all members or alternate members of the Politburo and secretaries of the Central Secretariat. The practice of appointing Politburo alternate members was scrapped from the 17th Central Committee (2007 to 2012) onwards.
The director of the General Office is sometimes colloquially called the “Great Steward of Zhongnanhai” (中南海大管家) or “chief of staff” (大內總管) because he is responsible for implementing the orders of the CCP general secretary and the top leadership, as well as overseeing the Central Guard Corps, which provides security for top leaders, their families, and visiting heads of state or government. Given the importance of the position, the General Office director is virtually always a secretary of the Central Secretariat, who are responsible for implementing the orders of the Politburo and tend to be ranked highly in the order of precedence of national leaders.
Table 2
Table 3
Six out of seven and five out of seven secretaries of the 19th and 20th Central Secretariat respectively are members of the Politburo. Assuming precedent holds, the General Office director and Central Organization Department head should also be Politburo members and Central Secretariat secretaries. Li Ganjie is currently the only Politburo member and Central Secretariat secretary who has not been publicly assigned a post.
State media reports of Xi Jinping’s entourage on his foreign visits after the 20th Party Congress lists new Politburo Standing Committee member Ding Xuexiang as director of the CCP General Office, the post he held in the 19th Central Committee. Given the proximity of Xi’s foreign travels with the 20th Party Congress, it is possible that Ding stayed on as CCP General Office director for a while longer to ensure important continuity during a crucial period for the Xi leadership. It also cannot be ruled out that Xi does not trust anyone other than Ding to serve as the “Great Steward of Zhongnanhai” and is looking to keep him in that post. If so, then Xi could be breaking another personnel reshuffle norm by elevating the General Office director to the Politburo Standing Committee and downgrading the first-ranked vice premier to the Politburo.
At the time of writing, there are six Politburo members—Li Hongzhong, Chen Min’er, He Lifeng, Zhang Guoqing, Liu Guozhong, and Yuan Jiajun—who have not been publicly assigned a post. Based on their respective qualifications, they will likely serve as the four vice premiers and Party secretaries of Tianjin and Chongqing. We previously noted that Ding Xuexiang has no provincial leading cadre experience, which technically makes him unsuitable to be the first-ranked vice premier; Xi, however, has already ignored the qualification requirements once in elevating Li Qiang to the premier-elect rank in the Politburo Standing Committee.
SinoInsight 2
‘Zero-COVID’ and epidemic prevention and control ‘optimization
Nov. 13
The municipal government of Shijiazhuang in Hebei Province issued an open letter to local residents (致全體市民的一封信) regarding Beijing’s 20 measures to further “optimize” epidemic prevention and control work (henceforth referred to as the “20 measures”). The letter emphasized the epidemic prevention and control “optimization” “is not relaxing prevention and control, not opening up, and not ‘laying flat.’” The letter added that some local authorities and departments were guilty of adopting “one-size-fits-all” (一刀切) approaches and taking excessive policy steps (層層加碼) by arbitrarily extending and expanding the scope of lockdowns, and such incidents “must be promptly investigated and dealt with seriously, and rectified well.”
According to mainland media reports, the local authorities of Shijiazhuang have already organized the return of risk-free people to schools, closed free nucleic acid testing sites in the city, and no longer require a negative nucleic acid test certificate for those taking public transportation or entering most public places. However, some people express “insecurity” after the scrapping of testing requirements, mainland media reported.
A day after publishing the open letter, Shijiazhuang Party secretary Zhang Chaochao said that the local government will “resolutely manage what should be managed and let go of what should be released.” He added that the city government will not “lay flat” on epidemic prevention and control or carry out so-called “comprehensive opening up.”
On Nov. 15, Shijiazhuang again reopened nucleic acid testing sites.
On Nov. 20, the Shijiazhuang authorities announced a series of measures that effectively put the city under quasi-lockdown, including:
- Mass nucleic acid testing over five consecutive days in four of its eight municipal districts and two economic management districts, namely, Qiaoxi District, Chang’an District, Yuhua District, Xinhua District, High-tech Industrial Development Zone, and Xunhuan Chemical Industrial Park.
- Residents in high-risk areas are to strictly stay at home and those in other areas are to stay at home “in principle.” Each family can send out one person with a 24-hour negative nucleic acid test taken that day for two hours a day to purchase daily necessities.
- Residents who have not been tested for more than 24 hours will be assigned yellow or red health codes.
- Residents are encouraged not to leave the city other than for essential travel. Airports, bus stations, and other transportation stations are to strictly check for negative nucleic acid certificates taken twice within 48 hours.
Nov. 17
Wang Baosen, deputy director of Guangzhou’s housing and urban-rural development bureau and a spokesman for the bureau, said in a press conference that the “current epidemic situation in Guangzhou is still very severe.” He added that the municipal government is accelerating the construction of makeshift “fangcang” hospitals and quarantine facilities, and will mobilize emergency staff and supplies as soon as possible.
Wang noted that the city has planned as of 12:00 p.m. that day to construct more than 246,000 beds in “fangcang” hospitals and quarantine facilities. Of those 246,000 beds, 39,000 have have already been set up in 16 “fangcang” hospitals. Additionally, the Guangzhou authorities plan to quickly build 40,000 quarantine rooms with a total of 160,000 beds on 3,814 mu (about 254 hectares) of land outside the city’s urban area.
Nov. 18
The PRC Ministry of Culture and Tourism issued five guidelines for epidemic prevention and control work at tourist markets, internet cafes, entertainment venues, theaters and other performance venues, and murder mystery game business venues.
Key guidelines include:
- The aforementioned industries and places shall not be arbitrarily shut down, and shall be removed from lockdowns when the conditions are met.
- In places without outbreaks, there is no limit in principle to the number of people in the aforementioned places and activities.
- In low-risk areas, normalized epidemic prevention and control should be done well in the aforementioned places. In high-risk areas, businesses should be suspended and the reception of tour groups should be temporarily suspended.
‘Zero-COVID’ propaganda and ‘rumors’
Since the rollout of the “20 measures” on Nov. 10, Party mouthpiece People’s Daily has been publishing several articles explaining the “20 measures” and emphasizing that the “general direction” of “zero-COVID” remains unchanged.
The titles of notable commentary pieces include:
- Nov. 12: “Resolutely Win the Battle of Normalized Epidemic Prevention and Control” (堅決打贏常態化疫情防控攻堅戰)
- Nov. 13: “Unswervingly Adhere to People First, Life Foremost” (堅定不移堅持人民至上、生命至上)
- Nov. 14: “Unswervingly Implement the General Strategy of Preventing Both Imported Cases and Domestic Resurgences” (堅定不移落實“外防輸入、內防反彈”總策略)
- Nov. 15: “Unswervingly Implement the General Policy of ‘Dynamic Zero-COVID’” (堅定不移貫徹“動態清零”總方針)
- Nov. 17: “Calculate the Big Picture and Look at the Advantages” (算大賬 看優勢)
From Nov. 17 to Nov. 19, state mouthpiece Xinhua published on its website three Q&A articles on the “20 measures”:
- Nov. 17: “Further Improving the Scientificity and Precision of Epidemic Prevention and Control — Hot Q&A Topics on the 20 Measures Part 1” (進一步提升防控的科學性、精準性 — 二十條優化措施熱點問答之一)
- Nov. 18: “Implement Epidemic Prevention and Control Optimization Measures With Scientific Precision and Without Compromise — Hot Q&A Topics on the 20 Measures Part 2” (不折不扣、科學精準落實疫情防控優化措施 — 二十條優化措施熱點問答之二)
- Nov. 19: “Necessary Measures Are Not to be Relaxed — Hot Q&A Topics on the 20 Measures Part 3” (必要措施不放鬆 — 二十條優化措施熱點問答之三)
Nov. 16
Yang Fan, a Chinese economist and professor at the China University of Political Science and Law, posted in an article on Weibo some requirements that were reportedly laid out by the State Council’s Joint Epidemic Prevention and Control Office during an emergency meeting on Nov. 15, including:
- All areas are to open up all public places before 0000 hours on Dec. 1, 2022. Nobody will be obstructed, no nucleic acid certificates will be checked, and no venue codes will be scanned.
- Negative nucleic acid certificates are no longer required and venue codes will no longer be scanned in communities.
- All convenience nucleic acid sampling points are to be closed and all medical institutions with nucleic acid sampling points are to stop serving the community. In principle, only one medical institution in each region is allowed to provide self-payment services, and all medical institutions are forbidden from suspending their services for more than 72 hours.
- Work units and areas that cannot exit lockdown at 0000 hours on Dec. 1, 2022 are to be classified as high-risk areas, and will be adjusted to low-risk areas after five days of epidemic prevention and control.
- All people with positive nucleic acid tests will be “removed from society” (i.e. quarantined) before 0000 hours on Dec. 1, 2022. No area will be allowed to collect and publish the main activity tracking of asymptomatic infected persons.
- Unauthorized mass nucleic acid testing is forbidden in any area from 0000 hours on Dec. 1, 2022. Nucleic acid testing shall only be carried out for key groups of people, in key places, and for people returning from other places.
Subsequently, Yang Fan’s Weibo article was deleted. The following day, Yang said in a statement that he did not post the article and that its contents were purely rumors intended to undermine the implementation of the “20 measures.”
Nov. 17
Mi Feng, a spokesman of the PRC National Health Commission, said at a press conference of the Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism of the State Council that the general policy of “dynamic zero-COVID” remains unchanged. That is, the problem of areas taking excessive policy steps should be rectified to prevent “utter lockdowns” (一封了之), but irresponsible attitudes should also be opposed to prevent “utter opening up” (一放了之).
Mi stressed that the “20 measures” should be implemented without compromise.
Return of Belt & Road forum?
Nov. 18
In a speech at the 29th APEC Economic Leaders’ meeting in Bangkok, Xi Jinping said that the PRC will consider hosting the third Belt and Road Forum for International Cooperation in 2023 to “inject new impetus into the development and prosperity of Asia-Pacific and the world.”
OUR TAKE
1. Some observers believe that the contradiction between the CCP’s insistence on “zero-COVID” and promotion of the “20 measures” for “optimizing” epidemic prevention and control is a sign of pushback by interest groups within the system against the Xi leadership. Others believe that the contradictory messaging signals that Beijing does not really want to let go of “zero-COVID.”
Both views reflect a lack of understanding of CCP elite politics and how the Party regularly operates. From our read, Xi Jinping appears to be set on carefully easing “zero-COVID” over an extended period while taking measures to counter tendencies within the officialdom to veer to extremes in implementing policy. In particular, Xi floating the idea of a third Belt and Road forum in 2023 shows that he is committed to relaxing “zero-COVID” and focusing on economic recovery. Put another way, the seemingly “contradictory” signals from the CCP are par for the course.
We explained the current phenomenon in earlier newsletters:
- Oct. 11: Xi “could move to swiftly ‘rehabilitate’ his negative image after securing his political agenda items at the 20th Party Congress to allow himself and the Party to survive its current crises and rework pathways to dominate in the future. For instance, Xi could conceivably get rid of ‘zero-COVID’ or modify it to the point where it no longer entails draconian lockdowns and control measures; open up China’s markets and economy to a greater degree; tone down the PRC’s belligerence towards Taiwan; dial down ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy even more, and make other moves that would shock his critics.”
- Nov. 3: “To ensure the CCP regime’s continued survival and dominance, Xi has a strong incentive to find ways to help the Chinese economy recover and attract investments to the mainland. This means that Beijing will find ways to gradually move away from “zero-COVID” even though it may never remove the policy from its books.”
2. Efforts by propaganda outlets, the National Health Commission, and the Ministry of Culture and Tourism to promote the “20 measures” are intended to signal clearly to local governments that they should refrain from resorting to draconian and costly “zero-COVID,” including mass testing and strict lockdowns.
Meanwhile, the People’s Daily articles explaining the “20 measures” and Beijing’s new direction are likely meant to preserve Xi’s political legacy as he slowly moves away from “zero-COVID” while telegraphing to local officials that they should avoid going to extremes and completely abandon epidemic prevention and control even as they relax “zero-COVID” measures.
3. The “loosening” and “tightening” of “zero-COVID” in Shijiazhuang is an example of how local officials will struggle to read what the central government really wants and correctly implement policy per Beijing’s requirements. The Shijiazhuang authorities’ promotion of the “20 measures” to residents shows that local officials quickly grasped what the new “political correctness” was and wanted to show that they were onboard with Party Central so as to accrue political capital to benefit their respective careers.
However, Shijiazhuang’s rapid return to strict “zero-COVID” controls days after relaxing restrictions suggests that local officials are still working out exactly how far they should go in “optimizing” epidemic prevention and control. The flip-flopping demonstrated by Shijiazhuang officials is precisely the sort of extreme behavior (“bureaucratism,” “undesirable practices,” “taking excessive policy steps (層層加碼),” “one-size-fits-all” (一刀切) approaches) that Beijing was likely concerned about and had cautioned against in introducing the “20 measures.”
Meanwhile, efforts by the Guangzhou authorities to plan and construct “fangcang” hospitals and quarantine facilities do not contradict the “20 measures.” Guangzhou is currently dealing with what appears to be a serious outbreak and is considered a “high-risk” area. Therefore, local officials are warranted in “increasing healthcare resources, including hospital beds” per the “20 measures.” The Guangzhou authorities do not want to be later held liable for “laying flat” in dealing with an outbreak, and are also likely thinking about using those additional healthcare facilities to “maintain stability” should the need arise.
We previously observed that the “deficiencies of the CCP’s autocratic system will inevitably lead to policy confusion and create new risks for the regime as officials go to extremes or display incompetence in adhering to the new ‘political correctness.’”
4. China University of Political Science and Law professor Yang Fan’s Weibo article with the “rumors” about greater “zero-COVID” relaxations may not be entirely hearsay because some of the details in his piece correspond to the tentative “optimization” efforts being carried out in Shijiazhuang City. However, Yang was likely forced to retract his article and issue a denial because the information was likely released prematurely and in a manner that could undermine Xi Jinping’s efforts to cautiously ease “zero-COVID.”
Beijing still needs time to come up with a “scientific” explanation to transition the regime away from “zero-COVID” and prepare society to “live with COVID-19” through stepping up vaccinations and other measures. Premature signals of easing could result in local officials taking extreme measures and cause public panic or overreaction.
