Xinjiang: another official transfers to sensitive region ahead of Communist Party congress

Zhang Zhu will head up the Organisation Department, which handles human resources and assigns roles to cadres, government source says
He has a background in poverty alleviation work and is the latest senior cadre to be sent to the far western region in recent years

Xinjiang

William Zheng

Published: 9:37pm, 3 Sep 2021

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A senior cadre with a background in poverty alleviation work will take over as head of the Communist Party’s human resources unit in the sensitive Xinjiang region, according to a government source.

Zhang Zhu is the latest senior official to be sent to the far western region amid an ongoing crackdown, and ahead of a top-level leadership reshuffle at the party congress in Beijing next year.

China faces growing international criticism and pressure over its policies in Xinjiang and alleged human rights abuses against the region’s Uygurs and other Muslim minorities. Beijing has defended its policies, saying it is trying to prevent terrorism and religious extremism and to reduce poverty in the region.

At 53, Zhang – who is transferring from the Ningxia Hui region – is the youngest person to be appointed to Xinjiang’s Communist Party Standing Committee, the official Xinjiang Daily reported on Friday.

The report did not say what his role would be, but a Xinjiang government source speaking on condition of anonymity said Zhang would head up the party’s Organisation Department – a division which handles human resources and assigns roles to cadres.

The position was left vacant when Li Yifei, who has only been in Xinjiang since May, was promoted to the job of deputy party chief, in charge of education – a policy priority for Beijing.

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In recent years, the region has seen a steady flow of senior officials from other parts of China taking up key party and government positions. Of those key jobs, only party secretary Chen Quanguo, 65, and government head Shohrat Zakir, 68, have not been replaced, yet both have reached the official retirement age of 65.

Most recently, two cadres from President Xi Jinping’s coastal power bases of Zhejiang and Fujian have also landed plum roles in Xinjiang. Former Fujian police chief Tian Xiangli was appointed as the party’s disciplinary chief for the region in May. And in June, Chen Weijun, former party boss of Wenzhou in Zhejiang, took up the executive deputy chairman job – making him No 2 in the regional government hierarchy.

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Zhang, the latest transfer, has spent his entire career in his home region of Ningxia, one of China’s poorest areas and home to the Hui Muslim minority. His training is in botany and he began with the agriculture department, working his way up to become party chief of Guyuan. It was an impoverished part of the country and one of the areas the party hailed as a success story in its campaign to wipe out extreme poverty.

This new blood from the more affluent coastal regions as well as poorer places like Ningxia is an effort by Beijing to bring more “economic development and poverty alleviation ideas” to Xinjiang, according to a public administration professor at the Central Party School.

“Officials from places like Zhejiang can help to liaise with the country’s more affluent provinces on ways to support Xinjiang, while Zhang’s appointment can be seen as a message from Xi to other cadres working in China’s poorer regions: … don’t lose heart … because they will be treated fairly,” said the professor, who declined to be named as he was not authorised to speak to the media.

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: New human resources chief for Xinjiang