Originally published by Asia Times,19 May 2010

By Wu Zhong

HONG KONG – It was not much of a surprise when the power center of the Chinese Communist party (CCP) announced in April that Wang Lequan, the “King of Xinjiang”, was being removed as party secretary of the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in northwest China.

It was a surprise, however, when the People’s Daily, the CCP’s flagship newspaper, published a lengthy special report on May 7 praising Wang’s “contributions to the stability and prosperity in Xinjiang” over the past two decades. Publishing a report that salutes a provincial leader who has just been removed is rare – if not unprecedented – for a government mouthpiece.

The CCP has taken extreme care over the reshuffle of the party leadership in Xinjiang, fearing it could impact on the seemingly stable situation in this “new frontier” province where riots last July by the Uyghur ethnic group left nearly 200 dead.

The CCP’s politburo, of which the 66-year-old Wang is a member, held a special meeting in April to discuss Xinjiang. A consensus was reached that “Xinjiang has a special, important strategic status in the party’s overall cause and the nation’s overall development … Therefore, promoting development and long-term stability [in Xinjiang] is of extremely important significance for strengthening the unity of ethnic groups and safeguarding the motherland’s unification,” according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency.

Follow-up reports in other Chinese media said the politburo also decided to sharply increase the budget for Xinjiang, to stimulate local economic development so more people in the region, especially groups like the Uyghurs, could benefit from economic growth.

It was obvious, though not reported, that the decision to appoint Zhang Chunxian, then party chief of southern Hunan province, to replace Wang in Xinjiang was also taken at that politburo meeting.

The next day, Vice President Xi Jinping, number six in the nine-member politburo standing committee, which oversees the party’s organization and personnel affairs, was flown to Urumqi, the provincial capital of Xinjiang. He personally announced the removal of Wang and the appointment of Zhang at a special meeting of the Xinjiang party committee.

This was an extraordinary arrangement. According to party protocol, the director of the party’s Central Organization Department, currently Li Yuanchao, or one of the deputy directors, would travel to a province to announce the reshuffle of a provincial party leadership.

The special approach was not taken because Wang is a politburo member. In the recent past, appointments of new party chiefs who were also politburo members – in Guangdong province and Chongqing municipality – were handled by Li.

At the Xinjiang party meeting, Xi spoke highly of Wang, saying he was “loyal to the party”, “hard-working” and that he had made “important contributions to Xinjiang’s development and stability”.

After his removal, Wang was immediately appointed vice secretary of the party’s Central Commission for Political and Legal Affairs, which oversees law enforcement. Western media claimed this was a demotion, but the Central Commission for Political and Legal Affairs ranks higher than a province in the party’s hierarchy. This commission also plays an increasingly important role in the party’s new focus on maintaining social stability. (See Beijing hears dissenting voice on unrest, Asia Times Online, Apr 27, ’10)

The People’s Daily report was likely dispatched to affirm the government’s message that Wang was still in favor. But an editor’s note on the report has raised questions. It said that a rotation system was now in place for senior officials under which they had to be transferred after a certain period of time – normally a decade.

This time period would make Wang’s nearly two-decade long tenure in Xinjiang unusually lengthy. However, the People’s Daily article tried hard to stress that there was nothing strange about the Xinjiang reshuffle. This may be the case, but why did the People’s Daily publicly defend his removal? There are a number of reasons.

Firstly, the party mouthpiece wanted to counter speculative comments by overseas media that Wang had been “sidelined” or “demoted” due to his failure to prevent the unrest in Xinjiang last year.

“The reshuffle in which Wang Lequan, who also has a seat on the 25-member ruling politburo, will leave a post he has held for an extraordinary 15 years is a tacit recognition by Beijing that his authoritarian policies may have been to blame for the deadliest ethnic violence in China in 50 years,” wrote the Times of London.

Another reason, according to a sociology researcher in Beijing, was that a scathing removal of Wang could impact on stability in the province. “Wang Lequan has worked in Xinjiang for nearly two decades. He has built up a network of personal connections. Any word to disgrace him would inevitably cause an earthquake in Xinjiang officialdom which might result in unrest in the region again – this is the last thing Beijing wants to see,” said the researcher.

“I don’t think Beijing really wants to hold Wang accountable for last year’s unrest. Wang alone could not be held responsible for the policy toward ethnic minorities. After all, he successfully kept the region in peace for a long time until last July. He now has to be removed out of Xinjiang simply because he has lost his popular support in the region after the violence in Urumqi,” he added.

But in the aftermath of the violence, many Urumqi residents – including Hans – blamed Wang Lequan for his “failure to adequately anticipate the occurrence of the violence and take proper precautions against it”. [1]

In early September, when Hans took to the streets to protest a string of bizarre syringe attacks supposedly orchestrated by Uyghur separatists, they demanded: “Wang Lequan, step down!” Urumqi municipal party chief Li Zhi was quickly sacked and held responsible, but he was widely seen as a scapegoat. [2]

It was, therefore, only a matter of time before Wang had to leave. However, Beijing did not want to remove him while the region was unstable. This would have created the impression that he was being held responsible – now things have calmed down, it is seen as the right time for a reshuffle.

At the Xinjiang party meeting on April 24, Wang said “it is the best time” for the central party to appoint Zhang to replace him.

It is not especially significant whether Wang was demoted or promoted. Given his age, he will be retired and out of the political arena by 2012, when the party holds its 18th National Congress.

On the other hand, with his Xinjiang appointment, Zhang Chunxian has gained a ticket to the elite club. He will likely become a member of the politburo in 2012, given the precedence of Wang and the special importance the party has attached to Xinjiang; provided he commits no serious “political mistakes” or “economic crimes” prior to the congress.

Zhang’s resume is quite impressive. Born in 1953, he joined the People’s Liberation Army when he was 17. Five years later, he became a village cadre. He then studied machinery in northeast China before working as an engineer in a state-owned enterprise. In 1997, he became a senior official with the Ministry of Transport and in 2002 he was appointed transport minister. In 2005, he was appointed as the party provincial party chief of Hunan province. Outspoken and media-friendly, Zhang was voted by Hong Kong journalists as “the most open-minded party secretary” on the mainland.

On May 14, three weeks after Zhang started his new job, Xinjiang’s regional government announced it was lifting a ban on access to Internet inside the region, which was imposed after last July’s violence, as the authorities blamed rumors on the web for intensifying tensions.

This is a “gift” to the Xinjiang people by Zhang, since the situation been stabilized. Zhang was referred to as the “Internet secretary” during his time as governor of Hunan province, as it was said he valued public opinion being expressed online.

Notes

1. ‘King of Xinjiang’ faces blame for riots, Asia Times Online, July 16, 2009.

2. Beijing scrambles to find scapegoats, Asia Times Online, September 9, 2009.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/China/LE19Ad01.html