Qiao Shi - Rise To Power

Rise To Power

After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, Qiao Shi worked in the Communist Youth League system for a number of years. From 1954 to 1962 he worked at Anshan Iron and Steel Development Company. From 1963, he worked in the Communist Party's central International Liaison Department, which was responsible for policy formation in foreign affairs. Starting as an analyst, he rose to be Department Head in 1982, and became an alternate member of the central Secretariat. Subsequently he also held the positions of head of the General Office, and of the Organization Department.

During the Cultural Revolution, Qiao Shi and his family members were persecuted due to their distant biological relation to Chiang Kai-shek; moreover, Qiao Shi's name in Chinese was very similar to that of Chiang Kai-shek. Fed up with the persecution and humiliation, one of Qiao Shi's son convinced the rest of the family to change the surname by either adopting their mother's last name Li, or simply dropping the original surname Jiang. Such move was viewed as revolutionary by Red Guards and other Cultural Revolution zealots at the time because it was viewed as severing the tie to the evil past. Qiao Shi, at the mean time, like many other persecuted cadres, was in jail and powerless to do anything to prevent his children's action, and in the post Cultural Revolution era, nobody in the family bothered to change the names again, so the names remained as they were, including that of Qiao Shi.

In 1985, after a major defection by Yu Qiangsheng, a director of the National Security Department, which resulted in the arrest of Larry Wu-Tai Chin, the Chinese agent in Central Intelligence Agency, Qiao Shi succeeded Chen Pixian and was placed in charge of national security and intelligence. From 1985 to 1998 he was the head of the Communist Party's central Secrets Committee (中央保密委员会). From 1986, he became a Vice Premier of the State Council. During this time, he also took charge of law and order, and became prominent in the promulgation of new laws as the Communist Party sought to establish a Rule of Law to counteract the excesses of Mao-era dictatorship.

From 1987 to 1997, Qiao Shi was a member of the Politburo Standing Committee. From 1987 to 1992, Qiao Shi was also the Secretary of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

From 27 March 1993 to 16 March 1998, he was the Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. As head of the legislature, he was officially ranked third in political positions in the People's Republic of China. Qiao Shi gained popularity during this time because of a stated commitment to the Rule of Law, in contrast to then-General Secretary Jiang Zemin's tendency for self-promotion.

In 1998 Qiao Shi, then 74, retired from politics officially due to his age. However, media speculation from Hong Kong, Taiwan and the west hold that Qiao was involved in a power struggle with Jiang Zemin, and eventually lost.