Beijing Signals Three Recalibrations in Economic Priorities Through High-Level Messaging

What Happened
In a series of high-level writings and official readouts amplified through the Party media system, Beijing is signaling a recalibration of economic priorities on three fronts. A Qiushi piece attributed to Xi Jinping calls for building a “strong financial nation” (金融强国), explicitly linking financial strength to deeper capital-market reform and a stronger currency. Separately, Qiushi and Economic Daily commentaries argue for “reasonable price recovery,” suggesting a tentative top-level shift toward treating deflation risks more seriously. Finally, a Politburo collective study session chaired by Xi stresses that future industries will be driven by enterprises, with the government playing a supportive, enabling role.

Why It Matters

• Xi’s vision of a strong financial nation is one that supports the real economy and maintains financial stability. The emphasis on building an international financial center reinforces Shanghai’s positioning in this strategy. Language on developing multi-tier equity markets, improving the quality of listed companies, and strengthening delisting and market exit mechanisms suggests Beijing is modernizing its capital-market structure to better channel financing toward firms critical to industrial competitiveness and technology upgrading.

• Xi states that a strong financial nation should have a strong currency that is widely used in international trade, investment, and foreign exchange markets, and that holds global reserve currency status. This is likely a long-term ambition. There is no realistic path for the RMB to displace the dollar globally yet. Beijing’s more practical goal is to build financial security by expanding RMB usage, especially in trade settlements where feasible and ensuring China’s financial system can operate under external disruption including sanctions risks.

• The explicit call for “reasonable price recovery” signals a shift in leadership mindset. The commentaries push back against the instinct that low prices are inherently beneficial, warning instead of a deflationary spiral that weakens consumption, compresses profits, depresses incomes, and discourages investment. This is a notable adjustment in tone. As the Wall Street Journal reported in December 2024, Xi was described as relatively dismissive of deflation concerns even as internal advisers warned that prolonged price declines could trigger a deflationary spiral. The messaging also suggests recognition that today’s price weakness is tied to deeper structural pressures such as overcapacity, the real estate adjustment, and weak income expectations. But Beijing’s policy options remain constrained. China’s “involutionary” price competition is systemic, shaped by bureaucratic incentives, intense industry competitive dynamics, and state bank-dominated credit allocation dynamics. These forces are hard to reverse without broader structural reforms.

• Xi’s emphasis that future industries emerge through firm-level breakthroughs and that innovation resources should primarily be channeled to enterprises is notable. Beijing is signaling a willingness to unlock enterprise dynamism without loosening political supervision, a balancing act that will be difficult to sustain in practice. Recent scrutiny over domestic firms’ H200 chips purchases and the regulatory clampback on the Meta-Manus deal highlight how a security-first lens, the push for indigenous substitution, and the imperative to maintain control over critical technologies remain paramount. Enterprises may be encouraged to innovate, but they will still need to navigate tight political boundaries and shifting compliance expectations.

Section II: Data Dashboard

Chinese AI giants rolled out massive “red packet” cash giveaways

What Happened
China’s tech giants are launching large-scale “red packet” campaigns, offering cash giveaways and discounts tied directly to their AI apps. Alibaba’s Qwen app announced a RMB 3 billion (USD 410 million) Lunar New Year campaign, with cash rewards distributed across Alibaba’s consumer ecosystem, including Taobao, Tmall, and Alipay. That exceeds Tencent’s RMB 1 billion push for its AI app Yuanbao, and Baidu’s RMB 500 million campaign, tied to its AI assistant embedded in the Baidu app. The goal is to drive mass downloads, engagement, and repeat usage during the peak holiday shopping period.

Why It Matters

• ByteDance still leads China’s consumer AI market: its Doubao chatbot has about 163M monthly active users, boosted by integration into Douyin. Alibaba is catching up fast, with the revamped Qwen app now above 100M monthly active users since its November relaunch. Alibaba is also pushing Qwen beyond chat by linking it to e-commerce, travel, and Ant payments, aiming to integrate its full ecosystem into Qwen by 1H 2026.

• Lunar New Year gives Chinese AI giants a rare chance to force scale adoption. Hundreds of millions of consumers are already primed to spend, send money, and coordinate travel. While new model releases (Kimi K2.5, Qwen 3 Max Thinking) and rumors of another DeepSeek update add to China’s AI momentum, the domestic competitive battlefield has shifted to the application and commercialization layer. AI giants are racing to become the “default AI entrance,” meaning the first AI interface consumers open for daily needs.

• This strategy matters because whoever controls the default interface also controls downstream monetization and, critically, the user-behavior data feedback loops that improve models over time. But this is also a stress test of AI monetization economics. If acquisition costs remain high and retention collapses once subsidies end, these campaigns will be expensive traffic-buying.

• China’s advantage lies in diffusion capacity. Its leading AI firms are also platform owners. Their ecosystems function as deployment infrastructure, enabling rapid mass adoption through a handful of super-apps. The U.S. ecosystem, by contrast, is more fragmented across sectors and platforms.

• This diffusion advantage matters even more as AI shifts from chatbots to agentic AI that executes tasks. Agents improve when tested in real-world scenarios. China’s consumer ecosystem offers an unusually strong proving ground, thanks to its massive base of digitally native users.

• That dynamic is already visible in how quickly Chinese platforms absorb global breakthroughs. When the open-source AI agent Clawdbot went viral in late January, Alibaba Cloud launched a full cloud service stack within days, Tencent Cloud published Enterprise WeChat integration guides, and ByteDance’s Volcano Engine and others quickly followed suit to reduce adoption friction. As they push forward on their own agentic AIs, China’s tech giants are also building the infrastructure to deploy AI agents at scale.

Section Three: Corporate Closeup

Market Leaders

Alibaba has reportedly shipped over 100,000 units of its top in-house AI chip, the Zhenwu 810E — a milestone that signals rapid scale-up in China’s domestic AI hardware push. Shipments have already surpassed local rival Cambricon, with performance claimed to be comparable to Nvidia’s H20. The update comes amid continued uncertainty over U.S. export controls and reports that Alibaba is considering a potential listing of its chip arm T-Head.

ByteDance and Alibaba plan to launch new flagship models during the Lunar New Year holiday. ByteDance is expected to release three models, including Doubao 2.0, while Alibaba is preparing Qwen 3.5 focused on complex reasoning. DeepSeek is planning to release its next major model around the same time.

BYD’s lackluster sales data triggered a selloff in Chinese EV stocks in Hong Kong after weak January sales signaled cooling demand in China’s auto market. BYD shares fell as much as 5.1%, its biggest intraday drop in three months, after reporting January sales were down 30% year-on-year. Smaller rivals Xpeng and Nio also slid more than 6% following disappointing monthly sales figures.

UK-based global asset manager Schroders signed an MoU with CATL and Hong Kong-based Lochpine Capital to develop battery energy storage projects in Europe, where more than 3,000 BESS projects are already underway in over 30 countries, with the UK currently leading the market. The partnership aims to build an investment platform for European battery storage systems and was announced during UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s visit to Beijing. The announcement comes as CATL faces heightened scrutiny in the U.S.

JD.com is deepening its U.K. push while positioning itself as a bridge for bilateral commerce with China. JD and the China-Britain Business Council signed a long-term partnership to help more U.K. brands sell into JD’s platform and reach its roughly 700 million customers, with JD offering market insights, operations support, and logistics. JD also reaffirmed plans to officially launch Joybuy in the U.K. in March, alongside continued investment in local warehousing and delivery via JoyExpress.

Movers and Shakers | Enflame (燧原科技): The Final Domestic GPU “Little Dragon” Heads for IPO

What Happened

Enflame, one of China’s best-known GPU/AI accelerator startups, has had its STAR Market (科创板) IPO application formally accepted by the Shanghai Stock Exchange. The company is seeking to raise RMB 6 billion, a sizable target that underscores both the capital intensity of advanced AI compute and Beijing’s continued willingness to backstop strategic “hard tech.”

Founded in 2018, Enflame is the earliest established member of China’s so-called domestic GPU “Four Little Dragons.” Its founder, Zhao Lidong (赵立东), is a Tsinghua University EE graduate (清华无线电85系, often referred to as the influential “EE85” cohort) and spent more than two decades in Silicon Valley, including at AMD, where he helped build AMD’s China R&D presence. The company’s name, drawn from the revolutionary era phrase “芯火可以燎原” (“a spark can start a prairie fire”), reflects its ambition to ignite China’s indigenous compute ecosystem from the ground up.

Why It Matters

• Enflame’s positioning differs from its peers. While some domestic chipmakers initially pursued inference chips, Enflame leaned early into data center-grade AI compute, developing multiple generations of AI chips and related offerings spanning both training and inference. Its portfolio includes the DTU(邃思) chip series, CloudBlazer (云燧) POD, and full-stack compute cluster solutions.

• Enflame’s relationship with Tencent is particularly notable. Tencent is its largest shareholder, having invested across multiple rounds since 2018. It is also Enflame’s dominant customer: in the first three quarters of 2025, direct sales to Tencent accounted for more than half of total revenue, and the share is substantially higher when including Enflame chips sold to server manufacturers building systems specifically for Tencent.

• Enflame’s IPO carries symbolic weight. With Moore Threads (摩尔线程) and MetaX (沐曦) already on the STAR Market, Biren (壁仞) listed in Hong Kong, and now Enflame moving toward listing, the entire cohort of China’s domestic GPU “Four Little Dragons” completes the capital market roll call within a short window.

• China’s old “BAT” (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) era may also be returning in a new form: not just as consumer tech platform giants, but as anchor investors and ecosystem patrons of China’s AI compute stack. Baidu has Kunlunxin, Alibaba has T-Head, and Tencent has effectively “adopted” Enflame.

• Tencent’s patronage model accelerates Enflame’s pathway to commercialization. But post-IPO, Enflame will need to prove it is more than Tencent’s in-house supplier by diversifying demand, sustaining competitiveness, and surviving the brutal economics of AI hardware.

Frontline of China’s Health Economy | China Updates Drug Administration Law Implementation Regulations to Modernize Governance and Support Innovative Research

On January 27, Premier Li Qiang signed a State Council order to announce a revision of the Regulations for the Implementation of the Drug Administration Law of the People’s Republic of China (“2026 Implementation Regulations”). Set to take effect on May 15 this year, the 2026 Implementation Regulations introduce significant alterations across 89 articles designed to expand innovation incentives, enhance quality controls, and modernize China’s drug registration governance through a “clinical value-oriented” (临床价值为导) approach.

What Happened

The Drug Administration Law (DAL) was first introduced in 2002 to overhaul China’s pharmaceutical registration system, with minor amendments issued in 2016, 2019, and 2024. However, the 2026 Implementation Regulations, administered by the National Medical Products Administration (NMPA), represent the first comprehensive revision of the DAL since its imposition, with reforms suggested via a draft law and public comment solicitation in 2022. The 2026 Implementation Regulations contain the following notable provisions:

• Acceptance of overseas clinical and research data. Article 10 allows overseas-generated research and clinical data to be used in China drug registration submissions if they meet NMPA technical and quality requirements, supporting global simultaneous development strategies — a policy dial CCA has proudly helped to move forward.

• Accelerate review pathways for clinically-needed medicines and “breakthrough therapies”. In Article 15, the NMPA mandates the creation of “conditional, priority, and special approval procedures” for drugs that demonstrate significant clinical value, breakthrough potential, or meet urgent patient needs.

• Codify market exclusivity for rare disease and pediatric drugs. Article 21 of the regulations grants up to two years of market exclusivity for qualifying pediatric medicines. For qualifying rare disease treatments, the regulations provide up to seven years of market exclusivity, conditional on the market authorization holder’s (MAH) commitment to ensuring continued supply.

• Enhance regulatory data protection. According to Article 22, the NMPA will provide up to six years of protection for undisclosed clinical trial data and independently generated data submitted by MAHs for new chemical entity drugs and other qualifying products, meaning that other applicants cannot rely on the same data for their pharmaceutical registration without original MAH consent.

• Heighten drug manufacturers’ quality lifecycle responsibility. Article 32 stipulates that MAH can outsource “segmented drug production” to qualified manufacturers for urgently-needed therapies and innovate drugs with special requirements, but must maintain lifecycle quality responsibility through supplier audits, process change documentation, and management of release decisions.

Why It Matters

• The 2026 Implementation Regulations reflect Beijing’s efforts to build a full incentive stack for drugmakers. The orphan and pediatric drug exclusivity regimes — China’s first — coupled with confidential data protection create a layered commercial protection system that reduces investment risk for innovative drug developers entering the market.

• Data protection regulations signal a structural shift toward IP-driven pharmaceutical growth in China. By providing up to six years of protection for undisclosed trial data, the NMPA is moving closer toward OECD-style regulatory data protection regimes, incentivizing domestic R&D investments while creating a blueprint for launching globally competitive therapies in China.

• Allowing qualified overseas research data for registration reduces duplicative clinical trial requirements and lowers barriers for multinational sponsors, paving a path for China’s participation in simultaneous global therapy launches.

• The regulations highlight regulatory speed, clinical need, and quality control as explicit industrial policy tools. Priority review and accelerated approval pathways as well as select segmented manufacturing schemes allow regulators to channel resources toward drugs aligned with national health and industrial priorities — including rare diseases, pediatric illnesses, and therapies meeting serious clinical needs — supporting China’s emerging “clinical-value oriented” drug approval model.

• This reform reflects a meaningful step toward regulatory harmonization and global integration —an area where CCA’s sustained advocacy and convening have helped catalyze progress and advance practical policy change.

We will also monitor personnel changes among senior officers in the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), who are appointed and removed by the Central Military Commission (CMC). This is an experiment, and we welcome candid feedback—on the analysis itself, the format, and what would make this product more useful for you.

For more analysis and interactive visualizations, see:

https://asiasociety.org/policy-institute/decoding-chinese-politics

A SEISMIC PURGE IN THE PLA

This month saw one of the most significant purges of China’s military leadership in the history of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA). On January 24, state media announced that Zhang Youxia, who sits on the Politburo as the first-ranked Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and Liu Zhenli, the Chief of Staff of the CMC Joint Staff Department, had been placed under disciplinary investigation under suspicion of “serious violations of discipline and law.” Their downfall follows the purges of their fellow CMC members Li Shangfu in October 2023, Miao Hua in November 2024, and the other CMC Vice Chairman He Weidong in October 2025. The CMC, which originally had seven members, now only has two in good political standing: Xi Jinping, who leads the body as Chairman, and Zhang Shengmin, the discipline chief, who was promoted to a Vice Chairman position at the Fourth Plenum last October.

Liu’s purge was unexpected, but Zhang’s problems did not emerge overnight. Rumors have circulated for years that he is in political trouble. He oversaw the PLA’s procurement system from 2012 to 2017, which is ground zero for recent corruption scandals, including the demise of Li Shangfu, Zhang’s former deputy. Several of his former secretaries have already been investigated. Zhang’s purge seems like the culmination of a slow-burning scandal. What is somewhat surprising is that Zhang himself is being punished. Xi has often neutralized political networks while sparing senior patrons who are part of his circle—Wang Qishan being the clearest example. Zhang was also due to retire after the 21st Party Congress next year. Letting him exit quietly would have been easy. Promoting new military leaders to balance his influence would have been easy. Xi chose not to.

Xi has made “self-revolution” an organizing principle of his third term. This campaign, combining anti-corruption, ideological indoctrination, and political discipline, has brought unprecedented purges that reshaped the Party-state and the military alike. Xi is a true believer in the Party’s historic mission to restore national greatness, but he is haunted by the collapse of the Soviet Union and China’s imperial dynasties. Self-revolution is his solution to the problem of accountability without “Western- style” democracy. A PLA Daily editorial dedicated to the purge framed it as proof the Party enforces discipline with “no forbidden zones, full coverage, and zero tolerance.” That claim is not literally true, but Xi has pushed closer to it than his predecessors.

Even so, we do not know precisely why this purge happened. The rumors that Zhang was plotting a coup, actively resisting Xi’s plans to invade Taiwan in 2027, or leaking nuclear secrets to the United States are best treated with caution. What we have is the Party’s own language. PLA Daily accused Zhang and Liu of having “gravely fueled and exacerbated political and corruption problems,” implying that corruption formed part of the case against them. Under Xi’s self-revolution campaign, corruption and the failure to rein in corruption are political sins as much as they are criminal offenses. Most strikingly, the editorial charged that they had “gravely trampled upon and undermined the Chairman responsibility system of the CMC”—with “trampled upon” marking an upgrade from the accusations of violating Xi’s authority leveled in an earlier editorial about He Weidong and Miao Hua.

Even assuming the editorial accurately reflects what happened, it still admits multiple interpretations. Zhang may have accumulated more power than Xi was prepared to tolerate, particularly as other heavyweight figures disappeared from the CMC and thereby destroyed the balance of power between different networks under Xi. Alternately, he may have betrayed the Chairman’s trust by allowing corruption to fester within the procurement system or simply by failing to deliver the cleaner, more disciplined force Xi demands. Or perhaps all the above. In Xi’s political lexicon, as Politburo member Li Hongzhong puts it, “loyalty that is not absolute is absolute disloyalty.”

Xi’s purge of the top brass likely weakens China’s posture toward Taiwan in the short term while strengthening it over the longer run. In the near term, a high command in disarray makes any major military escalation a riskier proposition. Disrupted chains of command and unsettled senior leadership raise the costs of attempting complex operations against Taiwan. Over time, however, a PLA that is less corrupt, more loyal, and more capable could become a more credible instrument to coerce Taipei and deter Washington. China’s military modernization continues apace, but having advanced weapons is not the same as being able to use them effectively.

Xi wants to rejuvenate the PLA into a force that is less corrupt and unequivocally loyal to him and his agenda. PLA Daily said the purge would “promote the renewal and rebirth of the People’s Army.” Xi has roughly 18 months before the 21st Party Congress, which will select a new Central Committee, which will then select a new CMC. He may delay most promotions until then, using the interim to vet candidates more aggressively and weaken entrenched patronage networks. Notably, Xi has not rushed to fill vacant CMC seats, despite having opportunities to do so at recent plenums. That restraint suggests caution not haste, and perhaps lessons learned from earlier promotions that did not go to plan.

Much has been made of the idea that Zhang’s downfall marks the first time Xi has purged someone genuinely close to him. There is some truth to his, as Xi and Zhang’s fathers—Xi Zhongxun and Zhang Zongxun—hailed from the same part of Shaanxi Province and were comrades-in-arms during the revolutionary war. Their sons grew up as “princelings” in elite Beijing circles in the 1950s and 1960s, although they went to different schools. They did not work together early in their careers, but Xi oversaw Zhang’s rise: his appointment to the CMC in 2012, his elevation to CMC vice chairman and Politburo member in 2017, and his promotion to first CMC vice chairman in 2022, complete with a rare exemption from retirement-age norms. But Xi almost certainly spent far more time during his career with civilian officials in the Party-state bureaucracy than with PLA officers like Zhang. The exact nature of his personal relationship with Zhang is less certain than sometimes assumed.

From an elite-politics perspective, the key question is whether this episode represents the culmination of a military purge or merely another step in an expanding campaign to discipline the Party’s top echelon. We lean toward the latter. That said, the impact to date is unlikely to extend meaningfully into the economic sphere, where the top leadership remains committed to delivering tangible, positive outcomes (as they perceive them). Still, it would not be surprising to see further high-level purges ahead of the 21st Party Congress. It is safe to assume that nobody is safe. If Xi’s discipline campaign does continue to move upward, elite politics is likely to become increasingly brittle, policy implementation more uneven, and China’s longer-term trajectory more uncertain.

CENTRAL PURGES

Ministerial-Level Officials

Sun Shaocheng (孙绍骋), 65, Male, Han, Former Vice Chairman of the NPC Social Development Affairs Committee

Sun Shaocheng was born in July 1960 in Haiyang, Shandong, and was purged on January 28, 2026. Sun was long regarded as a politically trusted troubleshooter under Xi Jinping. He spent more than two decades in the Ministry of Civil Affairs, rising steadily to become a vice minister even as the ministry was rocked by repeated corruption scandals. He was later dispatched to provincial leadership roles in Shandong and then Shanxi, a province plagued by coal-sector corruption, further reinforcing his reputation as a reliable fixer for the center. Sun went on to serve as Party Secretary of the Ministry of Land and Resources from 2017 to 2018, the founding Minister of Veterans Affairs from 2018 to 2022, and Party Secretary of Inner Mongolia from 2022 to 2024. He was then shifted into a semi-retirement role at the National People’s Congress as Vice Chairman of the Social Development Affairs Committee. His ability to manage both a scandal-ridden ministry and a purge-heavy province marked him as a dependable problem-solver, and he has been a Central Committee member since 2017. That is precisely why his sudden fall is striking: even a long-serving fixer with no obvious factional label proved expendable.

Wang Xiangxi (王祥喜), 63, Male, Han, Former Minister of Emergency Management
Wang Xiangxi was born in August 1962 in Xiantao, Hubei, and was purged on January 29, 2026. He rose through Hubei’s power industry and local governments before joining the Hubei Party Standing Committee as secretary-general and subsequently as head of the Political and Legal Affairs Commission. Wang was later transferred to Beijing to lead the state-owned China Energy Investment Corporation and, in 2022, became the third minister of the recently created Ministry of Emergency Management, a ministerial-level post that also secured him a seat on the 20th Central Committee. The ministry absorbed personnel and functions from the former People’s Armed Police firefighting units, giving it a quasi-military character and underscoring the degree of trust and authority Wang enjoyed at the time. However, his key promotions within the Hubei Party Standing Committee occurred during the tenure of former provincial Party Secretary Jiang Chaoliang, who was later purged. Jiang’s downfall has been widely linked to investigations into financial risks and corruption under his watch, including the massive Kingold Jewelry “fake gold” scandal, in which tons of gold bars used as collateral for billions of yuan in loans were allegedly revealed to be gilded copper. Wang’s subsequent investigation has therefore been interpreted as part of a broader clean-up of the Hubei political–financial nexus.

Deputy Ministerial-Level Officials

Bao Hui (包惠), 62, Female, Han, Former Deputy Chair of the Chengdu City People’s Congress

Bao Hui was born in Xuanwei, Yunnan in March 1963 and was investigated on January 27, 2026. She spent her entire career in Sichuan’s local politics, serving as a senior Party official in the provincial capital Chengdu, Party Secretary of Dazhou, and Vice Chairman of the Sichuan Provincial People’s Congress from 2018 to 2022, before semi-retiring as a Vice Chairman of the Chengdu City People’s Congress. During her five years leading Dazhou, local media and residents credited her with visibly accelerating the city’s development, praising her as the driving force behind major improvements. She championed large infrastructure and industrial projects, including transport upgrades, urban renewal, and the high-profile relocation of the Dazhou Steel plant. These initiatives generated substantial flows of land, contracts, and capital—now obvious targets for corruption investigators. Among residents, she was popularly known as “Bao Mama,” conveying familiarity and gratitude. Her purge came just ten months after retirement, serving as a warning to popular local bosses whose success was built on expansive, deal-heavy development strategies. Xi is becoming more insistent that local cadres toe the line on implementing his new policy agenda of “high-quality development.”

Gu Jun (顾军), 62, Male, Han, Former General Manager of China National Nuclear Corporation

Gu Jun, born in June 1963, was purged on January 19, 2026. A nuclear-industry technocrat from Nantong, Jiangsu, Gu spent his career in China’s state nuclear sector. He rose through the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) and affiliated nuclear-power enterprises in Zhejiang Province to become Deputy Party Secretary and General Manager of CNNC from 2015 to 2024, a deputy ministerial-level position overseeing one of China’s most sensitive state-owned conglomerates. Gu had been formally retired for two years before the CCDI announced its investigation. Media reports have linked his fall to a broader purge of China’s military-industrial complex since 2023, highlighting the expanding scope of anti-corruption scrutiny across defense-related SOEs.

Tian Xuebin (田学斌), 62, Male, Han, Former Vice Minister of Water Resources

Tian Xuebin, born in December 1963, was purged on January 5, 2026. Hauling from Jiangsu Province, Tian is best known for his long service in the CCP General Office and the State Council General Office as a close aide to former premier Wen Jiabao. During Wen’s tenure, Tian rose rapidly from a mid-level official to Director of the First Secretary Bureau and was widely described as Wen’s political secretary. Was then promoted to a deputy ministerial-level position as Deputy Director of the State Council Research Office, which he held from 2008 to 2015. After Xi Jinping came to power, he was move farther from the center of power, serving as a Vice Minister for Water Resources from 2015 to 2023. By the time the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection announced his investigation, Tian had already been retired for over two years. His fall may be part of a broader effort to discipline and deter retired senior officials, especially following Wen Jiabao’s censored essay mourning his mother in 2021, which drew attention to new Party rules barring retired cadres from making negative political statements.

Zhang Jianlong (张建龙), 68, Male, Han, Former Director of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration

Zhang Jianlong, born in January 1958, was purged on January 22, 2026. A forestry technocrat from Gansu Province, Zhang spent his entire career in China’s forestry system, eventually becoming Party Secretary and Director of the State Forestry and Grassland Administration. He is widely seen as part of the broader Jiang Zemin-era political network due to his long and close career overlap with Jiang Zemin’s younger sister, Jiang Zehui, who was a powerful figure in China’s forestry establishment for decades as head of the Chinese Academy of Forestry. Zhang previously served as Director of the China Centre of the International Bamboo and Rattan Organization, a flagship platform that Jiang Zehui built and tightly controlled. His purge underscores the lingering vulnerability of technocratic networks tied to Jiang-era institutional fiefdoms.

Centrally Managed Bureau-Level Officials

Li Xu (李旭), 52, Male, Han, Former Secretary-General of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps
Li Xu, born in February 1973, was purged on January 8, 2026. From Cangzhou, Hebei, Li rose through the ranks in Xinjiang under former regional Party Secretary Ma Xingrui. Holding centrally managed bureau-director rank, Li was a classic “aid Xinjiang” (yuan Jiang) cadre—transferred from outside the region to assume a senior post. He first served as Party Secretary of the 9th Division of the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps (XPCC), a powerful quasi-military government entity that governs several cities, farms, and enterprises in Xinjiang. He was later promoted to the XPCC Party Standing Committee, made a Deputy Commander, and appointed Secretary-General, placing him at the heart of the organization’s daily operations and making him one of Ma’s key lieutenants in the region. Ma himself is now widely believed to have been purged after disappearing from major public events in late 2025, adding to the political significance of Li’s downfall.

Yang Hongyong (杨宏勇), 63, Male, Han, Former Discipline Chief of Harbin Electric Corporation

Yang Hongyong, born in September 1962, was purged on January 24, 2026. A Party disciplinarian by training, Yang became a victim of the very system he once served. He built his career under Wang Qishan, who served as Secretary of the CCP Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (CCDI) from 2012 to 2017 but is now out of political favor. He was originally in the People’s Liberation Army, moving from the General Staff Department’s Second Department (focused on military intelligence) into the Central Inspection Teams during Xi’s first term. He rose quickly to centrally managed bureau-chief rank and was later parachuted into Tibet’s discipline inspection apparatus. After Zhao Leji took over the CCDI in 2018, Yang was removed from the core discipline system and effectively demoted to discipline chief at the state-owned Harbin Electric Corporation. The CCDI announcement of Yang’s purge said he had “voluntarily turned himself in,” a formulation that typically signals some degree of leniency, while accusing him of “serious violations of discipline and law.” His case aligns with the CCDI’s recent emphasis on combating “darkness under the lamp,” or corruption within internal watchdog institutions.

CENTRAL PROMOTIONS

Ministerial-Level Officials

Tang Fangyu (唐方裕), 63, Male, Han, Director of CCP Central Policy Research Office
Tang Fangyu was born in August 1963 in Nanchong, Sichuan. He began his career in local organization departments in Sichuan before transferring to the CCP Central Policy Research Office in the late 1990s. He rose steadily through the office, serving as Director of the Research Department from 2017 to 2023, Deputy Director from 2018 to 2023, Party Secretary of the Chongqing Municipal CPPCC on secondment from 2023 to 2024, and Executive Deputy Director from 2024 to 2026. In January 2026, he replaced the retiring Jiang Jinquan as Director of the Central Policy Research Office. Like his predecessor, Tang brings extensive experience in central policymaking, complemented by a background in local governance in southwest China that is relevant for assessing regional governance and overseeing major inland development initiatives. He is a protégé of Wang Huning, Xi’s top ideologue and a longtime CPRO director, and has frequently traveled with Xi Jinping on his domestic inspection tours. If he stays in this role, he should win a spot on the Central Committee at the 21st Party Congress in late 2027.

Zou Jiayi (邹加怡), 62, Female, Han, President of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank

Zou Jiayi was born in June 1963 in Wuxi, Jiangsu. She spent nearly three decades at the Ministry of Finance, including roughly twenty years managing World Bank affairs and then serving as China’s Executive Director at the World Bank. From 2015 to 2018, she held senior disciplinary and supervisory roles as Head of the Discipline Inspection Group stationed in the General Office of the CCP Central Foreign Affairs Leading Group and then as a Vice Minister of Supervision. She returned to the Ministry of Finance as a Vice Minister in 2018 and was appointed Deputy Secretary-General of the CPPCC National Committee in 2021, with full ministerial rank. In January 2026, she became President and Chair of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank. Like her predecessor Jin Liqun, Zou combines deep policy expertise with operational experience. Her CCDI background positions her well to address governance and anti-corruption challenges in development finance. In her inaugural address, she emphasized the AIIB’s mission and the need for stronger global cooperation to tackle shared challenges. Since its launch in 2016, the AIIB has grown to 111 members and approved 361 projects totaling nearly US$70 billion, benefiting 40 member economies. Zou is a member of the 20th CCP Central Committee.

Deputy Ministerial-Level Officials

Cai Yungge (蔡允革), 54, Male, Han, Standing Committee Member, Guangxi Party Committee
Cai Yungge was born in December 1971 in Bazhou, Hebei. He began in financial regulation, serving at the People’s Bank of China and the China Banking Regulatory Commission from 1996 to 2004, while completing an MBA at the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom and a PhD in finance at the Graduate School of the People’s Bank of China. He later transitioned to provincial government and state-owned banking leadership, serving as Deputy Director of the Guangdong Provincial Development and Reform Commission, holding executive roles at China Everbright Bank and Everbright Group, and becoming Chairman of the Bank of Communications in 2020. Since 2021, he has held senior political roles in Chongqing, including as Vice Mayor and Director of the Organization Department, and in January 2026 was appointed to the Guangxi Regional Party Standing Committee. Chongqing serves as the hub of the New Western Land–Sea Corridor, with Guangxi as its maritime gateway, making Cai’s lateral move consistent with strategic coordination between the two regions. He is an alternate member of the Central Committee and is young enough to win promotion to full membership at the 21st Party Congress.

Chen Yuhang (陈育煌), 57, Male, Han, Vice Governor of Jilin (Public Security)
Chen Yuhang was born in August 1969 in Xianyou, Fujian. He spent 34 years in Fujian’s public security system, mainly at the prefectural and municipal levels, where he was a junior official during Xi’s tenure as Deputy Party Secretary and then Governor of Fujian. In 2021, he was promoted to Vice Mayor of Xiamen—a role Xi held from 1985 to 1988—and concurrently served as Director of the Xiamen Public Security Bureau. In May 2025, he was appointed Director of the Jilin Provincial Public Security Department, and in January 2026 he was promoted to Vice Governor of Jilin while retaining oversight of provincial public security. At 57, he lacks a clear age advantage, but as a Fujian native with decades in the province’s security apparatus, he likely maintains strong ties within Fujian-linked networks in the central government, potentially including Public Security Minister Wang Xiaohong.

Guo Xi (郭西), 48, Male, Han, Chief Auditor, National Audit Office
Guo Xi was born in May 1977 in Nanxi, Sichuan. He began his career at the National Audit Office, serving in its Taiyuan and Chongqing Special Offices, later becoming Deputy Special Commissioner in Kunming and Zhengzhou. He subsequently served as Deputy Director of Sichuan’s Audit Department and as Special Commissioner of the National Audit Office in Xi’an. In 2026, he was promoted to Chief Auditor of the National Audit Office and Director of the Enterprise Audit Department. Guo’s promotion makes him the 19th “post-1975” deputy-ministerial cadre, the second youngest to begin such a role, and the first post-1975 deputy minister in a State Council ministry. As the state’s chief “accountant,” he oversees national finances and fiscal discipline. A technocrat by training, he is known for articulating “Five Major Principles” emphasizing political awareness, high-quality development, livelihood protection, institutional improvement, and truth-telling in audits. Xi Jinping has made audits a key tool to detect malfeasance in his intensifying anti-corruption campaign.

Jia Guide (贾桂德), 59, Male, Han, Permanent Representative to the UN Office at Geneva
Jia Guide was born in October 1966. He began his diplomatic career at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after graduating from Peking University, serving in overseas embassies, at China’s Permanent Mission to the United Nations in Vienna, and in the Department of Treaty and Law, where he rose to Counselor and Deputy Director-General. From 2002 to 2003, he earned an LLM in Environmental Law at George Washington University in the United States. He served as Ambassador to Peru from 2015 to 2019, Director-General of the MOFA Department of Treaty and Law from 2019 to 2023, and Ambassador to Italy from 2023 to 2025. In December 2025, he was promoted to deputy-ministerial rank and appointed Permanent Representative to the United Nations Office at Geneva and other international organizations in Switzerland. Jia has been deeply involved in negotiating major international treaties, including UNCLOS implementing agreements, the Kyoto Protocol, and the Convention on Jurisdictional Immunities of States and Their Property, and has led bilateral consultations on maritime and polar affairs with the United States, the United Kingdom, and France.

Jiang Chenghua (蒋成华), 48, Male, Han, Deputy International Trade Representative

Jiang Chenghua was born in March 1977. He has held multiple posts in the Ministry of Commerce’s Department of Treaty and Law, including section member in the WTO Legal Affairs Division, Director of the Investment Legal Affairs Division, and Deputy Director. In 2021, he was appointed Director of MOFCOM’s Bureau of Industry Security and Import-Export Control. From 2023 to 2026, he was a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the National People’s Congress. In January 2026, he was promoted to deputy-ministerial rank and assumed the role of Deputy International Trade Representative in the MOFCOM leadership group. Jiang gained high-level recognition for leading major specialized initiatives, most notably the Sino-U.S. Investment Treaty negotiations (from 2012 to 2016) and revisions to China’s foreign investment legislation. His elevation suggests the rising importance of export controls in Beijing’s diplomatic arsenal and of managing trade tensions with the United States.

Lu Shan (卢山), 53, Male, Han, Vice Mayor of Shanghai
Lu Shan was born in May 1972 in Xiajin, Shandong. After training as an engineer at Beijing Jiaotong University, he began his career in technology media and consulting, holding roles at CCID Consulting, Beijing CCID Information Technology Evaluation, and China Computer News, before becoming Vice President of the China Center for Information Industry Development in 2009. He later received appointments as Director of the Software and Integrated Circuit Promotion Center under the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT) in 2014, President of CCID in 2015, and Director of MIIT’s Planning Department in 2020. In 2021, he was appointed Vice Governor of Zhejiang, and as of January 2026 has taken on a senior leadership role in Shanghai. Prior to his transfer, he oversaw education, science and technology, commerce, foreign affairs, and port administration in Zhejiang, managing major institutions such as Zhejiang Lab and the Yangtze Delta Region Institute of Tsinghua University while coordinating with customs and industry associations. Shanghai is a politically important city and Lu’s promotion reflects the rising fortunes of technologists as Xi pursues industrial self-reliance.

Zhang Yingchun (张迎春), 56, Female, Han, Executive Vice Governor of Xinjiang
Zhang Yingchun was born in November 1970 in Changsha, Hunan. She completed her education and spent her entire early career in Hunan, never working outside the province prior to 2026. Over nearly four decades, she served as Executive Vice Mayor of Changsha, Mayor of Xiangtan, and Vice Governor and Executive Vice Governor of Hunan. In 2026, she was transferred laterally to become Executive Vice Governor of Xinjiang. At present, her specific contributions to Xinjiang governance remain unclear, as her career record does not feature particularly distinctive policy achievements. Her reassignment likely reflects Beijing’s broader effort to break up entrenched local networks and curb regional protectionism.