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More evidence of city losing special status
Yu Zhengsheng's appointment as Shanghai's Communist Party secretary, announced by Xinhua yesterday, is yet another signal that the city's privileged status has eroded.
Before his predecessor, Xi Jinping, Shanghai's previous three party secretaries had all built their careers in the city.
Shanghai Mayor Han Zheng held the party secretary position on a temporary basis after Chen Liangyu was ousted last year but did not win the top spot, spurring rumours he might be transferred out of the city in a leadership shuffle at the National People's Congress meeting in March.
Mr Yu's 'princeling' background - his father was the party secretary of Tianjin  and head of the machinery ministry - is believed to have given him links to former president and party general secretary Jiang Zemin, who heads the 'Shanghai Gang' of leaders from the city.
He also has experience running coastal cities, having been mayor of both Qingdao and Yantai in Shandong province .
'He's from the right stock,' a western diplomat said.
However, one retired state company worker voiced her worries about Mr Yu bluntly: 'What does someone from Hubei  know about Shanghai?'
Mr Yu was the party secretary of inland Hubei province from 2001.
Despite the city's pension fund embezzlement scandal, which implicated more than 25 government and state company officials, including Chen, Shanghai has continued to boom, and Mr Xi kept many local officials in place.
Still, officials said the central government was keeping tighter control. 'Shanghai can't develop as quickly as before because of macroeconomic controls,' one official said.
Although Chen was sacked for corruption, his removal was viewed as a move by President Hu Jintao to eliminate a political opponent who had defied central government orders to slow the economy and property market.
Mr Yu has a strong background in urban planning, making him a good candidate to manage the 2010 World Expo, a cultural event laden with political significance for the mainland. He was minister of construction under former premier Zhu Rongji from 1998 to 2001, when the mainland moved to privatise its housing stock.
Associates say he has the ability to think creatively and the tendency to pay unannounced visits to areas under his control. 'Yu is a low-key, hard-working and prudent person. He is a thoughtful leader with a creative work philosophy,' said Liang Musheng , a professor at Huazhong University of Science and Technology  in Hubei.
Mr Yu is an engineer  who originally specialised in ballistic missiles at the Harbin  Military Engineering Institute in Heilongjiang province . He worked in the radio industry in Hebei province  before joining an off-shoot of the Ministry of Machine Building Industry,  where Mr Jiang also worked.
He later worked at the Ministry of the Electronics Industry and moved to Shandong province in leadership posts. His political life was marred by the defection of his brother, Yu Qiangsheng, a spy, but he salvaged his career.
'Yu was a good planner as the party secretary of Qingdao. He contributed a lot to the development and urbanisation of the city,' said Gu Haiming, a professor at the Qingdao University of Science and Technology.



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