This is a great little insider-China political story which I’ve never seen reported before. Thanks ‘Zhongnanhai Nightalk’ (中南海夜谈). It’s a bit bagua (gossipy), so details are impossible to check etc. but it makes a lot of sense. It also answers an under-studied question: /1

how does a rising political star ensure his faction (“my people”) rises when he is moving around different places/jobs? (Let’s put aside the ‘how important/useful are factions as a framework?’ question.) https://www.rfa.org/mandarin/zhuanlan/yehuazhongnanhai/gx-11162020163832.html /2

OK, so Xi Jinping is in Zhejiang from 2002-07, latterly as Party Secretary. He moves to Shanghai in March 2007, which, with hindsight, was the key signal that he was on the path to greater things. Five months later at the 17th Party Congress../3

... he’s in Beijing on the Politburo Standing Committee. /4

Problem: how to ensure that the people he liked/trusted/who owed him loyalty in Zhejiang, can be useful for him in Beijing? Party secretaries hold great sway over promotions in their province; after they leave not so much. /5

And so Xi needs someone reliable to replace him in Zhejiang, but he can’t chose his replacement. /6

Enter Zeng Qinghong, who many credit with choosing and nurturing Xi. Zeng chose one of his people, Zhao Hongzhu (赵洪祝, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhao_Hongzhu), to replace Xi in Zhejiang. Zhao then follows instructions and continues to promote key Xi people during his term (2007-12) - /7

- Cai Qi, Chen Min-er, Li Qiang, Xia Baolong. Without these promotions up the ladder, getting to deputy minister/minister level etc., it would have been tougher for Xi to get them into Politburo-level jobs in his time. /8

Cai Qi experiences a super-helicopter rise. Xi appoints him mayor of Hangzhou in 2007, just before he leaves, which gets Cai deputy province minister level (fushengbuji) rank. But it’s only in 2010 (under Zhao) that Cai gets deputy national minister rank (fuguoji).../9

...as head of Zhejiang’s Organization dept, late at 55 years old. Within seven years, though, Cai’s on the Politburo at the 19th Party Congress in 2017. At the 18th, he was a “double-nothing” (shuangfei), not even an alternate member of the Central Committee. /10

It was Zhao who promoted Xia Baolong into his job when he left, after Xi had promoted him to be secretary to the provincial party committee. /11

Zhao had never had a provincial job before landing in Zhejiang in 2007. He’d just worked within the Central Discipline and Inspection Commission (CDIC) and in the Party’s Organisation department in the 2000s. Zeng Qinghong ran Organization 1999-02 and.../12

...then oversaw it as head of the CCP secretariat. So it looks like Zeng, Go master that he is, put his loyalist in behind Xi to enable Zhao to nurture Xi’s faction, now known as the “new Zhejiang army”. /13

(Also useful in case there’s any mess/corruption in the province which needs cleaning up quietly.)  /14

Having served loyally in Zhejiang, Zhao comes back to Beijing and as the deputy party secretary at CDIC in 2012 and works with Wang Qishan, heading up, according to this piece, all the key investigation teams (Zhou Yongkang, Sun Zhencai, Ling Jihua etc.). /15

That’s what you do when you’ve proven your loyalty to the boss. (also maybe gives Zeng some assurance he’s not next.) And then he goes on to lead the small group on supervision/CDIC reform, which leads to the new supervision commission. He’s now officially retired. /16

There’s much more in the RFA piece. One other nice thing is that you don’t often see work tracking administrative ranks (rather than just official posts). That stuff is really important. /17

So, that’s Zhao Hongzhu – a relatively unknown figure but looks like a critical cog in the machine that got Xi to where he is today, and a useful study for those trying to understand how factions are created. //18

Forgot to add a picture of the protagonist. here’s Zhao at the 18th