Wang Yang

Wang Yang (born March 12, 1955 in Suzhou, Anhui) is the current Secretary of the Guangdong Committee of the Communist Party of China, the southern Chinese province's top office. He served as the party chief of Chongqing, an interior municipality, from 2005-2007. As the holder of one of the most important regional posts in China, Wang also holds a seat on the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, the country's top ruling council. He is believed to be one of the emerging leaders of China's next generation of leadership.

Early life
Between 1972 and 1976 he worked as a food processing factory hand before being promoted to supervisor. He joined the Communist Party of China in 1975. He subsequently joined the local Party School as an instructor, before going on to study political economics at the dawn of Deng Xiaoping's economic reforms at the Central Party School in 1979. He returned to his hometown as a party policy instructor before joining the local Communist Youth League organization - where he would ascend to the provincial organization by 1984. He then moved on to work as the Deputy Director and Director of the Anhui Provincial Sports Bureau until 1988.

His first tenure with civil administration was in Tongling, Anhui, beginning in 1988. He would serve on the municipal administration as its deputy party chief, acting Mayor, and Mayor, while also concurrently attempting to earn a degree in political administration at the Central Party School. He would rise to become the provincial Governor's assistant the following year, and promoted to Vice-Governor of Anhui between 1993 and 1998. He was finally sent to work in the central government as the deputy head of the National Development and Planning Agency, and then as deputy secretary general of the State Council between 2003 and 2005.

Chongqing
Wang served as the CPC party chief in Chongqing, a western interior municipality, from 2005 to 2007. Wang's track record in Chongqing earned him national attention, for his work of bringing a geographically remote and relatively underdeveloped region onto the international scene.

In 2007 Wang was succeeded as Chongqing party chief by Bo Xilai. After taking Wang's place, Bo orchestrated a sweeping campaign against local gangsters. Political observers noted that Bo's crime-fighting efforts were implicitly critical of Wang Yang, since Wang may now be criticized for tolerating the mafia-related corruption of the police and judiciary of Chongqing, and for tolerating organized crime in general.

Guangdong
As the part of a party-wide reshuffle of regional leaders, Wang Yang was slated to become Party Secretary of Guangdong after the 17th Party Congress, and took on the post in November 2007. As the post is one of the most important regional leadership offices in China, he also earned a seat on the Communist Party's Politburo, the country's top ruling council.

He is known as a reformer and has been instrumental in pushing the more liberalized Guangdong province towards greater economic and political freedoms. This has been part of a broader movement to make Shenzhen a pioneer city in China's new economy. Amidst the Global financial crisis of 2008, Wang disagreed with the central government's policies on small and medium-sized businesses, remarking in controversy that they are "not productive and will eventually be eliminated by the market." He also made remarks such as "those businesses going bankrupt should go bankrupt". After a visit to the Pearl River Delta by Premier Wen Jiabao, who was in favour of protecting small and medium-sized enterprises, there was little sign that the Wang-led Guangdong government would follow central government directives. A politically motivated Beijing was sensitive to this move.

In 2009, Wang wished to re-instate the May Day week long holiday in Guangdong. The holiday was removed from the calendar by central authorities a few years earlier. However, the decision was subsequently reversed by the central government.

External links and further reading

 * Biography of Wang Yang, Xinhua News Agency.
 * "A Chinese Official Tests a New Political Approach" article by Sharon LaFraniere in ''The New York Times, December 30, 2011