On October 30, the CCP official news, Chen Yixin, secretary-general of the CCP’s Political and Legal Committee, succeeded Chen Wenqing as the minister of the CCP’s Ministry of State Security.
Chen Yixin, 63 years old this year, is from Taishun, Zhejiang. During the period when General Secretary of the Communist Party of China Xi Jinping was in power in Zhejiang, Chen Yixin served as Deputy Secretary-General of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and Director of the Policy Research Office of the Provincial Party Committee.
After 2011, he successively served as secretary of the CPC Zhejiang Jinhua Municipal Party Committee and Wenzhou Municipal Party Committee. In 2014, he was promoted to the Standing Committee of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee.
In November 2015, he went to Beijing to serve as the full-time deputy director of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Comprehensively Deepening Reforms. A year later, he was airborne to Hubei to serve as the deputy secretary of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee of the Communist Party of China and the secretary of the Wuhan Municipal Party Committee.
In March 2018, Chen Yixin returned to Beijing and served as the Secretary-General of the Political and Legal Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
Chen Yixin is an alternate member of the 19th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and was elected to the Central Committee at the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China just held.
Chen Yixin is considered to be a direct confidant of Xi Jinping, and Chen Wenqing, the former Minister of National Security of the Communist Party of China, became the Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee of the Communist Party of China after becoming a member of the 20th Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China.
In recent years, the CCP has strengthened the rectification of the political and legal system, and Chen Yixin has cooperated with the relevant purging campaigns. In July 2020, Chen Yixin emphasized the need to launch a “bone-scraping treatment of poison… ‘Yan’an Rectification Movement'” on the national political and legal system.
On October 23, 2022, Chen Wenqing, the former Minister of Security of the Communist Party of China, was promoted to a member of the 20th Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China as the Minister of State Security of the Communist Party of China, becoming the first intelligence chief to enter the Political Bureau after the establishment of the Ministry of State Security. On October 28, Chen Wenqing succeeded Guo Shengkun, a retired Politburo member, as secretary of the Political and Legal Committee, and two days later stepped down as Minister of State Security.
Chen Wenqing was born in January 1960 and graduated from the Law Department of Southwest University of Political Science and Law in July 1984. He has served as a grassroots police officer, the chief of Leshan City Public Security, the Sichuan Provincial Security Department, and the Sichuan Provincial Procurator. In August 2006, Chen Wenqing was transferred to be the secretary of the Fujian Political and Legal Committee, and successively served as the secretary of the Fujian Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection and the deputy secretary of the Provincial Party Committee.
In November 2012, Chen Wenqing was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Central Discipline Inspection Commission, and in April 2015, he was appointed Secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of National Security of the Communist Party of China, participating in the purge of the national security system. On October 23, 2022, he was promoted to member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and secretary of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee.
The Voice of America report believes that this is the first time that a key national security official or spy chief (spy chief) has entered the CCP’s highest decision-making body and controls the extremely powerful Political and Legal Committee, which shows that Xi Jinping attaches great importance to national security issues.
The American online media Axios also reported that Alex Joske, a senior researcher at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, believes that the Chinese Minister of State Security has entered the CCP’s highest decision-making body for the first time and entered the top leadership, revealing the CCP’s national security issues. attention, and will devote more resources to the security field.
Wang Xiaohong entered the Central Secretariat
During the top-level transition of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Wang Xiaohong, the direct relative of the deputy director of the Fuzhou Municipal Public Security Bureau when Xi Jinping was the secretary of the Fuzhou Municipal Party Committee of the Communist Party of China in the mid-1990s, the Minister of Public Security of the Communist Party of China and the deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Committee, also entered the Central Secretariat. The selection of two security-related secretaries by the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee echoes Xi Jinping’s emphasis on the importance of national security in his political report to the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, as the top leader who broke the convention for a third term.
The outside world noticed that Wang Xiaohong was the only deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Committee of the Communist Party of China. Moreover, the position of the Ministry of Public Security of the Communist Party of China is very special.
Yuan Hongbing, a jurist based in Australia, pointed out that the Ministry of Public Security of the Communist Party of China has always been under the control of the State Council of the Communist Party of China in name only, but in fact it is directly under the control of the general secretary of the Communist Party of China. The Prime Minister cannot control the Ministry of Public Security. The Political and Legal Committee used to be a coordinating agency, and now it is basically a coordinating agency.
Yuan Hongbing said, “The Secretary of the Political and Legal Committee can’t control the Minister of Public Security. In fact, the Ministry of Public Security is directly responsible to the General Secretary.”
Gao Xin, an expert on China issues, wrote an article in the Zhongnanhai column of the Free Asia Night Talk on October 28, saying that the composition of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee this year is different from the previous one. Two of them are only members of the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, not members of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee. . As for Chen Wenqing, on the basis of being both a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China and secretary of the Secretariat, he will be promoted to Xi Jinping’s “general manager” and concurrently the director of the Central Office, and will be in charge of the “knife handle” for Xi Jinping.
Gao Xin noticed that in the Secretariat of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, in addition to the “first secretary” who served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, there are three professional police officers among the other six secretaries, except for the plainclothes police chief (secret leader) Chen Wenqing. , as well as Wang Xiaohong, the head of the uniformed police, and Liu Jinguo, the former executive vice minister of the Ministry of Public Security of the Communist Party of China.
Chen Wenqing is the only one of the three “police secretaries” in the Secretariat of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China with a serious university degree. The other two, one is the so-called “Party School Undergraduate” and the other is the so-called “Party School Correspondence”.
Check Chen Wenqing’s resume. He has served as the first political commissar of the Anti-aircraft Artillery Division of the Fujian Army Reserve of the Communist Party of China since January 2012. This is also the post that Xi Jinping held concurrently when he was the full-time deputy secretary of the provincial party committee and governor of Fujian. After the 17th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, Chen Wenqing was transferred to the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China.
During his work at the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, Chen Wenqing was mainly in charge of cadre and personnel work; after the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, he also served as the deputy head of the special group for the reform of the CPC’s disciplinary inspection system, promoting the reform of the internal organs of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the full coverage of the reform of stationed institutions. It can be seen that his immediate boss at the time, Wang Qishan, then member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, trusted him.
In April 2015, Chen Wenqing no longer served as deputy secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China, member of the Standing Committee, and president of the China Academy of Discipline Inspection and Supervision, and was transferred to the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of State Security.
In October 2017, Chen Wenqing successfully entered the ranks of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.
It should be reminded that, a year and a half after being officially announced as the Minister of State Security of the Chinese Communist Party, Chen Wenqing was assigned another more important position: the “Deputy Director in charge of daily work” of the Office of the National Security Committee of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China. This means that since then, he has directly accompanied Xi Jinping.
Gao Xin pointed out that Xi Jinping personally served as chairman of the National Security Committee of the CPC Central Committee, which shows its importance. Since the establishment of the committee, its office director has been concurrently held by the director of the Central Office. Cai Qi, the former executive deputy director of the office, was promoted to the Politburo member five years ago at the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China. The expected promotion to the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China reflects Xi Jinping’s attention and trust in Chen Wenqing. On the 21st National Day in five years, Chen Wenqing is likely to succeed Cai Qi.