Hu Haifeng, the 46-year old only son of former President Hu Jintao is tipped to be elevated to Vice Ministerial rank and become the new Communist Party chief of Xian, China’s ancient capital and current capital of Shaanxi Province. Xian is the biggest city in China's  northwest. Hu Haifeng is now the Party Secretary of Lishui, a much smaller city in the coastal province Zhejiang. Hu Haifeng will also become a member of the provincial party’s standing committee. Sources are quoted as saying that Hu Haifeng has been brought to steady the boat and will burnish his credentials if he can pass this first major test of his political career. A source added “Hu will have the support of the senior provincial leadership.” Beijing-based political analyst Zhang Lifan said Hu’s promotion could be seen as a gesture by Xi to pacify Hu Jintao’s supporters as the president faces greater challenges at home and abroad. He said “Xi is facing a difficult situation now.” But Zhang Lifan warned that Xian would be a tough assignment for the relatively inexperienced politician and Hu Haifeng needed to prove he was up to the task.

 

(Comment: Hu Haifeng, like his father, is described by insiders as a “reticent person” who prefers to have a low profile.  He is a graduate of computer science from Beijing Jiaotong University and did not enter into politics until 2013. He worked as a senior engineer at state-owned Tsinghua Holdings and later became the president of Nuctech, a security scanning equipment maker controlled by Tsinghua Holdings. Hu was president of Nuctech until 2008 and became the party boss of parent company Tsinghua Holdings in 2009. One of the rare occasions when his name appeared in overseas media was in 2009 when Nuctech – which has a near-monopoly in security scanning equipment in China – was embroiled in a corruption scandal in Namibia. At the time, Namibian authorities said Hu was not a suspect but they still wanted him to testify. News of the case was completely censored in mainland China.

An acquaintance of Hu Haifeng said “[Hu] Haifeng initially was not very happy about becoming an official. He planned to become a technician and academic. But the [party’s Organisation Department] picked him because the central government needed to bring in brilliant young people born in the 1970s.” Hu started his political career as the deputy mayor of Jiaxing, another city in Zhejiang, in 2013, just months after his father retired. He was promoted to mayor of Jiaxing in 2016, and to Lishui’s party boss in July, making him the youngest prefectural-level party chief in the province. While in Lishui, Hu promoted environmental protection and eco-friendly industry, causes in line with Xi’s message that “green hills and clear waters are the true gold and silver mines”. Xi Jinping openly praised Hu Haifeng’s greener development strategy in April last year. Last month, Hu published an article in a party magazine in Zhejiang, vowing to live up to the president’s praise and achieve a healthy balance between economic growth and environmental protection.)