New Party chiefs named in 4 provinces

The central leadership has named new Party chiefs in four provinces in the latest reshuffle of provincial leadership ahead of the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China later this year.

The changes of the top officials in Heilongjiang, Hainan, Gansu and Shandong provinces, decided by the CPC Central Committee, were announced on Saturday.

Zhang Qingwei, 55, former governor of Hebei province, was appointed Party chief of Heilongjiang. Zhang was formerly an aerospace engineer.

Liu Cigui, 61, was named Party chief of Hainan. Liu, the former head of the State Oceanic Administration, has been governor of Hainan since February 2015.

Lin Duo, 61, former governor of Gansu, was appointed Party chief of the province. He was the former Party chief of Beijing's Xicheng district from October 2006 to July 2010 and later worked in Northeast China's Heilongjiang and Liaoning provinces.

Liu Jiayi, who holds a doctorate in economics, was named Party chief of Shandong province. The 60-year-old has been head of the National Audit Office since March 2008.

The former Party chiefs of these four provinces－Wang Xiankui, Heilongjiang; Luo Baoming, Hainan; Wang Sanyun, Gansu; and Jiang Yikang, Shandong－have reached or are nearing 65, the standard retirement age for ministerial-level officials.

Also on Saturday, Xu Qin, 55, former Party chief and mayor of the southern metropolis of Shenzhen, was appointed deputy Party chief of Hebei. Wang Weizhong, former Party chief of Taiyuan, the provincial capital of Shanxi, was named Shenzhen's Party chief on Sunday. A new Shenzhen mayor is yet to be announced.

Shen Xiaoming, former deputy minister of education, was named deputy Party chief of Hainan.

Xu and Shen are widely expected to be nominated governors of Hebei and Hainan. Government leaders must be approved by local provicial legislatures.

Xu, who holds a doctor's degree in business administration from Hong Kong Polytechnic University, worked from 2003 to 2010 at the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's top economic planner.

He became mayor of Shenzhen in June 2010 and Party chief of the city in December 2016.

Xu's appointment as a senior official in Hebei is believed to be beneficial to the development of the Xiongan New Area－whose creation in Heibei has national significance－as Xu has rich experience at Shenzhen, the country's first special economic zone.

Shen, 54, formerly a pediatrician, worked in Shanghai for 28 years before he joined the Ministry of Education in 2016.