Beijing party chief Cai, Xi loyalist, vaults to top rank By Reuters

By Eduardo Baptista and Martin Quin Pollard

BEIJING (Reuters) -Cai Qi catapulted to the leading rung of China’s management on Sunday, capping a late career rise that overcame a much less than ideal stretch as Beijing’s Communist Get together manager.

Cai, 66, was not on everyone’s record for the elite Politburo Standing Committee, but he is witnessed as a person of Xi’s closest political allies, obtaining worked with him for 20 many years in the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang.

His leap to the party’s leading governing entire body was reminiscent of a soar in 2017 into the Politburo without having the typical initial prevent on the much larger Central Committee.

China’s most potent ruler due to the fact Mao Zedong, Xi stacked the 7-man Politburo Standing Committee with allies, leaving out popular reform-minded officers, like Hu Chunhua, Wang Yang, and outgoing Premier Li Keqiang. They have been found by some occasion watchers to be in rivalry for a seat.

Promoted even with struggling with challenges in leading China’s capital, Cai is substantially like a different Xi ally elevated to the Standing Committee, Shanghai Occasion Secretary Li Qiang. Li, the possible future leading, faced widespread community anger at a botched COVID-19 lockdown this year.

Cai and Li on Sunday joined a prolonged list of Shanghai and Beijing Get together bosses that have been promoted to the Standing Committee.

Cai was promoted in 2014 to typical office environment deputy director at the Beijing-primarily based Nationwide Stability Fee, a system launched and chaired by Xi. A yr later, he was promoted to ministerial rank, becoming Beijing’s mayor the calendar year soon after.

He joined the Politburo in 2017, when he was named Beijing’s celebration secretary.

“The truth that Cai was promoted 4 moments in excess of (individuals) four several years implies his relevance to Xi Jinping,” reported Cheng Li, an professional on Chinese politics at the Brookings Establishment.

Now, analysts say Cai is probably to head the Party’s Central Secretariat, the body liable for the Politburo’s program functions.

Neil Thomas, a senior analyst for China and Northeast Asia at the Eurasia Group, stated that in addition to Cai, only a single other Xi ally, Yang Xiaodu, was “helicoptered” from outside the house the Central Committee straight into the Politburo in 2017, a advertising final found in 1992.

In 2017, just months after the 19th Social gathering Congress, Cai faced loud general public criticism over the compelled eviction of migrant staff on Beijing’s outskirts. Photographs of demolished residences circulated on line with leaked films showing Cai saying the operation ought to be a “cut-and-thrust and difficult confrontation”.

Cai weathered the storm, changing his public tone towards the inhabitants affected by the crackdown.

“Cai was not well-known as occasion secretary in Beijing, but once again, loyalty trumped popularity,” said Yang Zhang, assistant professor at American University’s College of Worldwide Support in Washington.

Working with a title previously only utilised by Mao’s propagandists to refer to the founder of the People’s Republic, Cai explained to the Beijing delegation all through very last week’s party congress: “Normal Secretary Xi Jinping sales opportunities the path for all people in the celebration and nation in the new period. He is the people’s leader whom we sincerely appreciate and admire.”

SOCIAL MEDIA

Contrary to most leading-level celebration officers, Cai was once an adept consumer of social media, garnering about 10 million followers on China’s Twitter-like Weibo (NASDAQ:) when doing work in Zhejiang province.

He broke with convention in 2014, saying his marketing to the Xi-led Nationwide Protection Commission prior to state media reported the information, according to the official China Everyday.

In spite of generating a mark for engaging frankly with citizens, even serving to a couple fix issues they elevated on his Weibo account, Cai stopped posting following relocating to Beijing.

In 2011, Cai praised Facebook (NASDAQ:) and lamented that it was blocked in China. He has mentioned officials essential to get employed to public supervision when conveying why he was so energetic on social media, according to China Everyday.

A decade afterwards, throughout a Beijing Occasion committee assembly on cyberspace and ideology hosted by Cai, no mention was manufactured of citizens making use of social media to maintain officials accountable.

Rather, the conference stated the funds would aim on endorsing “optimistic energy” on the net.