Party's number two woman Sun Chunlan named chief of Tianjin
New Politburo member Sun Chunlan is named top cadre in the northern city, as predecessor Zhang Gaoli moves up to Standing Committee
Sun Chunlan, one of two women on the Communist Party's new Politburo, was appointed party secretary of Tianjin yesterday, succeeding new Politburo Standing Committee member Zhang Gaoli.
Sun, 62, was previously party chief of Fujian and a Central Committee member. She won promotion to the Politburo last week.
Hu Xingdou, a political analyst at the Beijing Institute of Technology, said Sun, the second-highest-ranked woman in the party hierarchy, behind State Councillor Liu Yandong, should be well suited to her new role given her trade union background and experience in overseeing two provinces, Fujian and Liaoning.
"Although Tianjin is a place of great importance, it's smaller and easier to oversee in terms of population and size," he said. "Besides that, she should be a clear-minded person who will not wallow in the mire with others, considering the history between her and Bo Xilai."
Sun was reportedly a long-time foe of Bo, the disgraced former Chongqing party boss. After taking over from Bo as party chief of Dalian in 2001, when Bo was appointed governor of Liaoning, she removed nearly all Bo's trusted subordinates in Dalian.
Bo is also rumoured to have laughed at Sun because she used to be a worker in a clock factory.
Starting out as an ordinary worker in the clock factory in Anshan, Liaoning in 1969, Sun spent the following 40 years in the northeastern province, working in its women's federation and trade union and rising all the way to deputy party chief of the province.