Senior CCP cadres are competing to show their loyalty to Chinese President Xi Jinping in the
run up to the 20th Party Congress, indicating that personal loyalty to Xi Jinping has become an
important criterion for promotion in the CCP. Among the Party Secretaries of Provinces who
have frequently expressed their views to Xi Jinping recently, many are vying for a seat in the
CCP CC Political Bureau. These include: On June 22, Lou Yangsheng, Party Secretary of
Henan, who wrote (June 22) in the "Learning Times" that he should "hold high the ideological
banner and keep in mind the leader's entrustment", regard Xi Jinping's political theory as a
"lifelong career", and call for "item-by-item" implementation of Xi Jinping's decree; Li
Hongzhong, Party Secretary of the Tianjin Municipal Party Committee, who was the first to
shout the slogan of "Xi's core", also mentioned "two safeguards" in the report of the Tianjin
Party Congress (June 17), calling on officials to strengthen "Xi's "core status", political identity,
ideological identity, and emotional identity,” and unswervingly follow Xi; Jiangxi Provincial Party Secretary Yi Lianhong in his speech (June 13) called Xi Jinping "the leader at the helm",
and urged cadres to "keep in mind the entrustment and keeping up with the leader's pace";
Shandong Party Secretary Li Ganjie published (May 30) an article on the front page of the
"Study Times" calling Xi Jinping "the man at the helm" and describing Xi's instructions as
"compass", "golden key" and "fulcrum". A total of 11 Party Secretaries have been noticed till
now (June 29) praising Xi Jinping and extolling his leadership qualities in their reports to the
respective Provincial People's Congresses. In addition, provinces and Municipalities have held
several seminars to study the red pocket book and some have organised special exhibitions.
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