China removes Hong Kong affairs veteran Zhang Xiaoming from senior role at top advisory body
- Zhang remains a Communist Party and CPPCC member but is no longer the body’s deputy secretary general
- No reason given for removal of 60-year-old official
The decision was endorsed on Saturday at the close of a two-day meeting of the Standing Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), state broadcaster CCTV reported.
The CCTV report was brief and did not give the reason for the removal but did refer to him as “comrade”, a title reserved for Communist Party members.
He remains a member of the CPPCC and the party, a source told the South China Morning Post.
Zhang, 60, was a minister-level official and is below the usual retirement age of 65.
He began working at the Hong Kong and Macau Affairs Office (HKMAO) in 1989 after graduating from Renmin University of China’s law school, serving as the agency’s deputy director from 2004 to 2012.
He was then promoted to director of Beijing’s liaison office in Hong Kong, and became director of the HKMAO in 2017.
In 2022, Zhang was appointed to the deputy role in the nation’s top advisory body.
“[I] respect and trust the central government’s personnel arrangements,” Starry Lee Wai-king, the city’s sole representative on the National People’s Congress Standing Committee, told the Post.
Additional reporting by Fiona Sun
