Following the Politburo Standing Committee meeting on February 12, the Party announced the dismissal of two top officials in Hubei:

Jiang Chaoliang has been removed from his post as Hubei Party Secretary. He has been replaced by Ying Yong, who had been serving as Mayor of Shanghai; and

Ma Guoqiang has been removed from his post as Wuhan Party Secretary. He has been replaced by Wang Zhonglin, who had been serving as Party Secretary of Jinan, the capital of Shandong.

(Comment: Ying Yong is assessed to be a Xi Jinping loyalist and like Chen Yixin a part of the “New Zhejiang Army”. The latter are a group of officials who worked closely with Xi Jinping when he was Zhejiang Party Secretary from 2002-2007. Ying Yong and Wang Zhonglin

have spent most of their careers in the areas of law enforcement, Party discipline, and ideology.)