The Xi-era Shanghai talent leaping up the Chinese Communist Party’s job ladder
A clutch of officials from the president’s stint in the city have landed in top posts, continuing financial hub’s tradition of influence on political stage
Shanghai-based officials continue to show their influence on the national political stage through several senior appointments unveiled ahead of the Communist Party’s five-yearly leadership reshuffle late next year.
Despite President Xi Jinping spending less than a year as party chief of Shanghai, several of his colleagues from that era have been promoted to key jobs in the last few months after rising from modest positions.
Since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949, Shanghai has been the talent pool of senior officials in the party.
Such figures range from Chen Yun, a Shanghai native and the second most powerful man in the party in the Deng Xiaoping era, to former president Jiang, who spent most of his career in the city.
Shanghai is also regarded as a power base of former president Jiang Zemin, who continues to wield influence on the national political stage. Like Zhejiang and Fujian provinces, where Xi spent much of his career, the financial hub has become another source of senior officials for the president.