Former Xinjiang party boss Chen Quanguo among surprise exits from China’s top leadership body

Name: China’s 20th party congress concludes with bigger than expected leadership reshuffle
Uploaded: 2022-10-22T18:00:22.000Z
Duration: 2 min 3 s
Description: China’s 20th party congress concludes with bigger than expected leadership reshuffle

At 66, Chen is still two years short of the unofficial retirement age for party and state leaders

Central Committee roster points to increasingly malleable age norm to meet President Xi Jinping’s political needs, as forecast by observers

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Chen Quanguo tops the list of Chinese officials sanctioned by Western governments over Beijing’s policies in Xinjiang. Photo: AFP

Josephine Ma

Published: 2:00am, 23 Oct 2022

President Xi Jinping did not fully follow an unwritten retirement rule as he reshuffled the Communist Party leadership at the just-concluded 20th Communist Party congress.

An eye-catching absence from the newly elected Central Committee was Chen Quanguo, the former party boss of both Xinjiang and Tibet. Chen was not among the 205 committee members whose names were announced at the close of the week-long national congress on Saturday.

It was a glaring omission as Chen is 66, still below the accepted retirement age of 68 for party and state leaders. He was promoted to the Politburo, the party’s highest policymaking body, five years ago.

02:03

China’s 20th party congress concludes with bigger than expected leadership reshuffle

Chen was also the point man for Xi’s high-handed policies on Xinjiang, and tops the list of Chinese officials sanctioned by Western governments over Beijing’s actions relating to the Uygur autonomous region.

After he was succeeded as Xinjiang party chief last December by former Guangdong governor Ma Xingrui, Chen was named a vice-chairman of the party’s Central Rural Work Leading Group.

Observers had been watching closely to see if Xi, who is also general secretary of the party, would follow the retirement rule in the five-yearly reshuffle, as a gauge of his control of the party.

Premier Li Keqiang and Wang Yang, chairman of the advisory body Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, were also missing from the Central Committee list, indicating imminent retirement. Both turned 67 this year.

Meanwhile, Wang Huning, also 67 and the party’s top ideology tsar, stays on.

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