China’s Environment Ministry Appoints New Communist Party Head

What’s new: After 17 years spent in provincial governments including Anhui, Hunan, and Xinjiang, 58-year-old Sun Jinlong is now the new Communist Party chief of China’s Ministry of Ecology and Environment, an update on the ministry’s website Monday announced.

Sun, currently a member of the party’s 19th Central Committee, comes on board to replace Li Ganjie, who was appointed the deputy party chief of Shandong province earlier this month.

Li was the first minister and party chief of the environment ministry when it was formed in 2018 after a round of government restructuring in Beijing.

Background: A graduate of geology in Wuhan in the early 1980s, Sun was made a member of the Youth League Central Committee when he was 33, where he became a colleague of Premier Li Keqiang.

In 2003, he was sent to work in local government to continue his career development, and has served in five different vice-governor level positions in three provinces.

His latest role was the deputy party chief of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region before returning to Beijing.

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Contact reporter Isabelle Li (liyi@caixin.com)