China’s State Council makes big changes as heads of nine of 15 agencies are replaced in 2018
- Some chiefs arrive after predecessors removed by party anti-corruption watchdogs
- New leadership for energy, tobacco, defence sciences and immigration bureaus
China’s State Council has replaced more than half of the heads of agencies under its direct control this year.
A count by the South China Morning Post found that nine of the 15 bureaus directly under State Council supervision are under new leadership, meaning changes at vice-ministerial level.
The most recent was in mid November, when former PetroChina president Zhang Jianhua was appointed to lead China’s National Energy Administration (NEA). The NEA was without a leader for two months after Nur Bekri was detained by the Communist Party watchdog in a corruption investigation.
Zhang, 54, is the first NEA head to have a background in the energy sector since the authority’s founding in 2008. Besides formulating and implementing energy strategies, he will have to repair the agency’s reputation after Nur Bekri and Liu Tienan, Nur’s predecessor, faced corruption investigations.
Liu, who was removed as head of the NEA in March 2013, was sentenced to life imprisonment in 2014 for taking more than 35 million yuan (US$5.1 million) in bribes.
Zhang is a member of the party leadership in China’s National Development and Reform Commission, which oversees the NEA.
The commission is the country’s most senior economic planning authority. Directors of agencies typically hold deputy positions in supervising ministries.
