Shanghai - Politics

Politics

Like virtually all governing institutions in mainland China, the politics of Shanghai is structured in a dual party-government system, in which the Communist Party Chief, officially termed the Communist Party of China Shanghai Municipal Committee Secretary (currently Yu Zhengsheng), outranks the Mayor (currently Han Zheng).

Political power in Shanghai is widely seen as a stepping stone to higher positions in the national government. Since Jiang Zemin became the national party chief in June 1989, all but one former Shanghai party chief was elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee, the de facto highest decision-making body in China, including Jiang Zemin (General secretary and President), Zhu Rongji (Premier), Wu Bangguo (Chairman of the National People's Congress), Huang Ju (Vice Premier), and Xi Jinping (Vice President). Zeng Qinghong, a former deputy party chief of Shanghai, also rose to the Politburo Standing Committee and became the Vice President and an influential power broker. The only exception is Chen Liangyu, who was fired in 2006 and later convicted of corruption. Officials with ties to the Shanghai administration form a powerful faction in the national government, the so-called Shanghai Clique, which often competes against the rival Youth League Faction over personnel appointments and policy decisions: Xi Jinping, the presumptive successor to Hu Jintao as General Secretary and President, is a compromise candidate between the two groups with supporters in both camps.