China’s ‘two sessions’ 2023: Wu Zhenglong takes on top State Council post to help steer cabinet

Wu is expected to play a role similar to chief of staff for Li Qiang and will work closely with the new premier
He survived political aftermath around Bo Xilai in 2012 before crossing paths with Li in Jiangsu

Two Sessions 2023 (Lianghui)

Jane Caiin Beijing

Published: 5:00pm, 12 Mar 2023

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Former Jiangsu Communist Party chief Wu Zhenglong, a former subordinate of Premier Li Qiang, has been named a state councillor to help steer the new cabinet.

Wu was voted in on Sunday by the national legislature on the second last day of its annual session in Beijing.

Wu, who will be the cabinet’s secretary general, is among the five state councillors nominated by the new premier, together with Defence Minister Li Shangfu, Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong, former Guizhou provincial party chief Shen Yiqin and new Foreign Minister Qin Gang.

In a personnel reshuffle that started after the party congress in October, Wu was appointed deputy secretary general of the cabinet’s party institution, according to the official WeChat account of Heilongjiang provincial government. Wu attended a panel discussion about the government work report with lawmakers from the northeastern province on Monday, it reported.

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The appointment paved the way for Wu to replace Xiao Jie in the cabinet. Xiao was elected on Friday to be a deputy head of the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee.

Wu role’s is expected to be similar to that of Li Qiang’s chief of staff, working closely with the new premier to ensure smooth operation of the State Council. Wu is also expected to follow the premier on domestic and international trips.

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Wu, 59, a native of Nanjing, the capital city of Jiangsu, was party chief of the affluent eastern province from September 2021.

Before that, he was the provincial governor from July 2017, crossing paths with Li Qiang – the second-ranked Politburo Standing Committee member in addition to premier – when Li was in Jiangsu as the provincial party secretary.

Wu owed his early career to Bao Xuding, who was vice-minister and then minister of machinery industry, the vice-minister of the National Development and Reform Commission and the mayor of Chongqing between 1993 and 2002. Wu was secretary to Bao for about 10 years.

Later, Wu survived the political aftermath of disgraced Chongqing party boss Bo Xilai in 2012 and became an alternate member of the party’s powerful Central Committee that year. He was elected as a standing member of the Chongqing party committee the following year.

In 2014, he was “parachuted” into Taiyuan, in central Shanxi province, as party chief and a standing member of the provincial party committee, after an intense anti-corruption crackdown that brought down many officials in the coal-rich province.

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