Former Xi Aide to Head Organizing Unit of Party’s Key Decision Making Body

A former aide of President Xi Jinping has been appointed to head the administrative arm of one of the Communist Party’s key decision making bodies, as director of the General Office of the party’s Central Committee.

There was no official announcement of the new appointment of 55-year-old Ding Xuexiang, who earlier headed the Presidential Office. But, Ding was spotted in his new capacity next to Xi at a gathering at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing on Monday when the Chinese president met representatives from an advisory board for Tsinghua University’s School of Economics and Management.

His predecessor in the post is Li Zhanshu, who was recently elected a member of the party’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee — the nation’s highest political body — during the 19th National Party Congress last week.

Ding previously served as a deputy director of the General Office. Last week, he was elected to the 25-member core team of the party’s Central Committee, its Politburo.

Ding, a native of Nantong in the eastern province of Jiangsu, spent much of his career in Shanghai, rising through the ranks to become the secretary of the Committee of Political and Legal Affairs of the municipal party committee. Ding’s stint in Shanghai briefly overlaps with Xi’s time as Shanghai party chief in 2007. Ding was summoned to Beijing in 2013 to be a deputy to Li and serve as Xi’s chief of staff.

In another major reshuffle, Huang Kunming, who was also elected to the Politburo last week, was made director of the Publicity Department of the party’s Central Committee. The state-run Xinhua News Agency reported that Huang spoke in his new capacity during a teleconference at the publicity department on Monday. The party’s publicity department controls the country’s state-run media network including Xinhua.

Huang, who will turn 61 next month, had overseen daily operations at the publicity department as one of its deputy chiefs between 2014 and 2017. There has been no official announcement on the future of Huang’s predecessor as department director, Liu Qibao, who reached the age of 64 in January 2017.

Contact report Li Rongde (rongdeli@caixin.com)