BEIJING BREAKS UP ELITES TO FIRM ITS GRIP ON PROVINCES
Guangdong reshuffle is a case study in growing practice of the central government appointing its own loyalist outsiders to powerful local roles
Shenzhen’s new party boss Meng Fanli made his first public appearance last month at Lianhuashan Park to honour late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping for his pioneering market reforms.
But Meng also made sure to be seen first and foremost as a loyalist to President Xi Jinping, who also visited Deng’s statue in the park two years ago to mark the 40th anniversary of the Shenzhen special economic zone.
“We must consistently align our ideology, politics and actions with the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core,” he said, according to media reports from Shenzhen.
The 56-year-old, from Shandong province in the east, is the latest addition to Guangdong’s senior leadership, in a reshuffle in which an increasing number of outsiders have taken key positions that traditionally went to locals.
The shift to promoting outsiders is not unique to Guangdong. Numerous studies measuring provincial leadership rotations show an intensifying trend towards centralisation of power.
Meng, ex- party boss in Baotou in Inner Mongolia, is widely seen as a rising star, on a similar career path to his predecessors in Shenzhen and as deputy provincial party chief. Ma Xingrui and Wang Weizhong were both also appointed from outside Guangdong. Ma was the first non-local governor until his promotion in December to Xinjiang party secretary, when Wang stepped up as acting governor, paving the way for Meng’s appointment as the third most powerful man in Guangdong.
Observers say the Guangdong reshuffle serves as a prime example of the marginalisation of its historically powerful political elites as Beijing tightens control ahead of the 20th Communist Party national congress, slated for the autumn.
Guangdong’s importance can be traced to Ye Jianying, one of the 10 founding marshals of the People’s Republic, and his two sons. They wielded enormous political and economic influence in Beijing and the military from their Guangdong power base.
Ye Xuanping, the eldest son, served as governor and remained an influential figure in the affairs of the province and Hong Kong and Macau for two decades, from the late 1970s. Their influence began to subside after Ye Xuanping’s promotion away from Guangdong to vice-chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
Political scientist Victor Shih, an associate professor at the University of California San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy, said an outsider could break up local power dominance in the well-resourced province and impose the central government’s preferences. “This has worked well for the central government since the late 1990s.”
Until Ma’s appointment, it had been a tradition to appoint a local as governor, while bringing in an outsider hand-picked by Beijing as provincial party boss, according to Bo Zhiyue, a leading expert on elite politics.
“This has been the case for Guangdong until the arrival of Ma Xingrui, who became the first outsider to serve as governor and the practice was followed by Wang Weizhong’s appointment.” he said.
For three decades until 2014, all of Guangzhou’s party secretaries were either locals or had served extensively in the region.
That changed when Ren Xuefeng, a Hebei native from the north, was picked. His successors Zhang Shuofu, from Hunan, and Lin Keqing from Hubei, were also parachuted into Guangzhou.
According to Zhang Dong, assistant professor of Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s division of social science, the central leadership sent loyalists into key positions in Guangdong and Shenzhen “to allow them to accumulate political capital for future promotion”.
Rana Mitter, a professor of history and modern Chinese politics at the University of Oxford, said the ties to local networks of Guangdong natives had enabled Beijing to get the most out of the entrepreneurial province.
“There is much less stress on being politically attuned to local cultures, and much more interest in having technocratic, savvy leaders who can move from role to role without much friction and who are able to give the impression that China is more equal but also less diverse than it once appeared,” he said.
Cheng Li, director of Brookings Institution’s John L. Thornton China Centre, has also noted an extensive reshuffling across provincial party committees.
His research found a significant drop in the average tenure of provincial chiefs in China’s 31 administrations, between 1985 and 2021. Average tenure among provincial party secretaries fell from 4.5 years in 1985 to just 1.6 years in 2021.
Tenures for governors and mayors fell from an average of 2.5 years to 0.8 years, he said.
There is much more interest in having technocratic, savvy leaders who can move from role to role without much friction
RANA MITTER, OXFORD UNIVERSITY