Beijing occasion chief Cai, Xi loyalist, vaults to high rank By Reuters

By Eduardo Baptista and Martin Quin Pollard

BEIJING (Reuters) -Cai Qi catapulted to the highest rung of China’s management on Sunday, capping a late profession rise that overcame a lower than supreme stretch as Beijing’s Communist Occasion boss.

Cai, 66, was not on everybody’s listing for the elite Politburo Standing Committee, however he’s seen as one among Xi’s closest political allies, having labored with him for 20 years within the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang.

His leap to the occasion’s high governing physique was paying homage to a bounce in 2017 into the Politburo with out the standard first cease on the bigger Central Committee.

China’s strongest ruler since Mao Zedong, Xi stacked the seven-man Politburo Standing Committee with allies, leaving out outstanding reform-minded officers, together with Hu Chunhua, Wang Yang, and outgoing Premier Li Keqiang. They have been seen by some occasion watchers to be in competition for a seat.

Promoted regardless of dealing with difficulties in main China’s capital, Cai is very like one other Xi ally elevated to the Standing Committee, Shanghai Occasion Secretary Li Qiang. Li, the doubtless subsequent premier, confronted widespread public anger at a botched COVID-19 lockdown this 12 months.

Cai and Li on Sunday joined a protracted listing of Shanghai and Beijing Occasion bosses which were promoted to the Standing Committee.

Cai was promoted in 2014 to common workplace deputy director on the Beijing-based Nationwide Safety Fee, a physique based and chaired by Xi. A 12 months later, he was promoted to ministerial rank, changing into Beijing’s mayor the 12 months after.

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

“The truth that Cai was promoted 4 instances over (these) 4 years suggests his significance to Xi Jinping,” stated Cheng Li, an knowledgeable on Chinese language politics on the Brookings Establishment.

Now, analysts say Cai is more likely to head the Occasion’s Central Secretariat, the physique liable for the Politburo’s routine operations.

Neil Thomas, a senior analyst for China and Northeast Asia on the Eurasia Group, stated that in addition to Cai, just one different Xi ally, Yang Xiaodu, was “helicoptered” from outdoors the Central Committee straight into the Politburo in 2017, a promotion final seen in 1992.

In 2017, simply weeks after the nineteenth Occasion Congress, Cai confronted loud public criticism over the compelled eviction of migrant staff on Beijing’s outskirts. Pictures of demolished houses circulated on-line with leaked movies displaying Cai saying the operation must be a “cut-and-thrust and difficult confrontation”.

Cai weathered the storm, adjusting his public tone in the direction of the residents affected by the crackdown.

“Cai was not common as occasion secretary in Beijing, however once more, loyalty trumped reputation,” stated Yang Zhang, assistant professor at American College’s Faculty of Worldwide Service in Washington.

Utilizing a title beforehand solely utilized by Mao’s propagandists to consult with the founding father of the Folks’s Republic, Cai instructed the Beijing delegation throughout final week’s occasion congress: “Common Secretary Xi Jinping leads the trail for all folks within the occasion and nation within the new period. He’s the folks’s chief whom we sincerely love and admire.”

SOCIAL MEDIA

Not like most top-level occasion officers, Cai was as soon as an adept consumer of social media, garnering over 10 million followers on China’s Twitter-like Weibo (NASDAQ:) whereas working in Zhejiang province.

He broke with conference in 2014, asserting his promotion to the Xi-led Nationwide Safety Fee earlier than state media reported the information, in response to the official China Each day.

Regardless of making a mark for participating frankly with residents, even serving to a number of remedy issues they raised on his Weibo account, Cai stopped posting after shifting to Beijing.

In 2011, Cai praised Fb (NASDAQ:) and lamented that it was blocked in China. He has stated officers wanted to get used to public supervision when explaining why he was so lively on social media, in response to China Each day.

A decade later, throughout a Beijing Occasion committee assembly on our on-line world and beliefs hosted by Cai, no point out was made from residents utilizing social media to carry officers accountable.

As an alternative, the assembly stated the capital would concentrate on selling “constructive power” on-line.