From China Brief:
The latest reshuffle in the provincial-party leadership has validated a seminal trend in Chinese politics: the rise of party apparatchiks and the relative decline of technocrats. Early this month, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Organization Department announced two promotions: Hebei Governor Hu Chunhua was made Party Secretary of the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, while Agriculture Minister Sun Zhengcai became Party Secretary of northwestern Jilin Province. Hu and Sun, both 46, have thus become the two most senior members of the Sixth-Generation leadership, a reference to top-level cadres born in the 1960s. Other personnel movements in the past year have reinforced the ascendancy of danggong or party affairs specialists over professional administrators. The Politburo will, early next year, begin preparations for the 18th CCP Congress of 2012, when the bulk of Central Committee and Politburo members will retire in favor of Fifth- and Sixth-Generation cadres. The preeminence enjoyed by a cohort of party functionaries can have a lasting impact on not only the composition of China’s ruling team but also the country’s policy orientations in the coming decade or so.
