China’s No 5 official Cai Qi named President Xi Jinping’s new chief of staff

Cai Qi is the most senior official to become director of the General Office of the Central Committee since Mao Zedong’s time
67-year-old Politburo Standing Committee member takes over from Ding Xuexiang, who is now the executive vice-premier

China’s Communist Party

Vanessa Caiin Shanghai

Published: 6:00pm, 21 Mar 2023

Why you can trust SCMP

Cai Qi, China’s No 5 leader and ideology chief of the ruling Communist Party, has been named President Xi Jinping’s new chief of staff, the most senior official to be appointed to the role in more than 40 years.

His appointment was confirmed on Monday as Xi kicked off his three-day trip to Russia. In a report by state news agency Xinhua on Monday evening, Cai, who is a member of Xi’s entourage, was referred to in his new capacity as director of the General Office of the Central Committee.

‘US strategy becoming more rampant’: Putin slams West as Xi hails Russia ties

The confirmation of Cai’s appointment comes about 10 days after Xi began an unprecedented third five-year term as president of China.

The position of chief of staff demands absolute loyalty to the president. The office is responsible for arranging important meetings, sharing, recording and archiving key documents, and has access to sensitive and confidential information.

The office is also responsible for the top leader’s bodyguards and doctors.

It also marks the first time that a Politburo Standing Committee member will hold the title concurrently since Wang Dongxing, who served as late leader Mao Zedong’s chief of staff for over a decade from 1965.

Cai, 67, is a long-time Xi protégé whose political career has rapidly advanced over the past two decades.

After spending nearly a decade at Xi’s side when he led Fujian and then Zhejiang province, Cai rose from a modest provincial official to take the top municipal job in the national capital within seven years.

He was promoted to the Politburo Standing Committee at the party’s 20th five-yearly national congress in October, after serving as the Beijing party boss for five years.

That saw him take over from Wang Huning as first secretary of the party’s secretariat – which runs the major day-to-day affairs of the party – to become China’s No 5 highest ranked official.

His new Central Committee General Office role will require Cai to oversee logistics support for the party’s top leadership bodies, and jointly oversee the Central Guard Bureau, the unit responsible for the security of top leaders, alongside the Joint Staff Department of the Central Military Commission

Cai will work closely with Xi and is likely to accompany him on most of his international and domestic trips. He is also expected to lead the communication mechanism with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff office.

Cai takes over from Ding Xuexiang, who was confirmed as the executive vice-premier on March 12 during the annual session of the national legislature.

Ding was appointed as Xi’s chief of staff after he gained a seat on the 25-member Politburo in 2017, and was promoted to the Politburo Standing Committee in October, alongside Cai.

Li Zhanshu, China’s No 3 official when he led the National People’s Congress (NPC) – the country’s top legislative body – was Xi’s first chief of staff when he became party chief in 2012.

Li, 72, chairman of the NPC from 2018, stepped down this month after reaching retirement age.

Earlier holders of the title have wielded a great deal of political clout, although they were not members of the Politburo Standing Committee like Cai or Wang Dongxing.

In 2016, Ling Jihua, who served as former president Hu Jintao’s chief of staff from 2007 to 2012, was sentenced to life in prison for taking bribes, illegally obtaining state secrets and abuse of power.

Cai is a native of Fujian province whose political career took off in 2014, when he moved to Beijing and was promoted to general office deputy director of the Central National Security Commission, a body founded by Xi as part of his reforms of foreign policy security.

He was promoted to a ministerial rank a year later, and then to mayor and deputy party chief of Beijing. In May 2017, he was further promoted to Beijing party secretary.

But just six months into the job, Cai came under fire over the forced mass eviction of migrant workers from the capital.

Why Xi protégé came under fire over eviction of migrants

After entering politics in 1983, Cai worked in his home province of Fujian for 16 years after he started working as a cadre at the provincial party committee’s general office, rising to mayor of the city of Sanming in 1997.

Two years later, he was reassigned to Zhejiang to serve as the mayor and deputy party chief of the city of Quzhou. Over the next decade, he worked his way up the ranks to eventually become chief of the provincial organisation department and deputy provincial governor, advancing quickly during Xi’s term as Zhejiang party boss from 2002 to 2007.