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Correct View of Political Achievements and China’s Shift Away from GDP

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Correct View of Political Achievements and China’s Shift Away from GDP as a Promotional Metric

Taken together, the messaging from the 15th Five-Year Plan and the Notice on “Carrying Out Education on Establishing and Practicing a Correct View of Political Achievements Throughout the Party” signals that GDP growth should no longer be the dominant metric by which local officials are promoted.

Key Takeaway
  • The logic of China’s personnel management system produces a zero-sum “promotion tournament” model of competition among local officials, requiring a metric by which officials are measured and winners promoted. The education campaign on the “correct view of political achievements” is an attempt to de-emphasize GDP growth as that metric. To complete this shift, central leadership must clearly signal a replacement metric for officials to strive toward.
Background

On February 23, 2026, the General Office of the CCP Central Committee issued a formal notice (hereafter referred to as the Notice) on “Carrying Out Education on Establishing and Practicing a Correct View of Political Achievements Throughout the Party.”1 The Notice specifies a period of five months whereby leadership cadres above the county/division level2 of each jurisdiction, especially the “top leader” (一把手), have to partake in the education campaign on the “correct view of political achievements.”

Several days after the Notice was issued, the CCP Politburo held a meeting on February 27, 2026, to discuss the draft outline of China’s 15th Five-Year Plan, to be reviewed and approved by the National People’s Congress in March 2026.3 Unlike the 14th Five-Year Plan, which did not set a GDP target due to lingering uncertainty from COVID-19, the 15th Five-Year Plan announced expected annual GDP growth of 4.5-5%, noticeably lower than the average annual GDP growth rate of 5.4% during the 14th Five-Year Plan period.4

Taken together, the messaging from the 15th Five-Year Plan and the Notice signals that GDP growth should no longer be the dominant metric by which officials are promoted. In the following sections, we explain the logic of personnel management in China, downsides of GDP as a performance metric, and alternative measures the central leadership might take to replace GDP as a metric.

The “Promotion Tournament” model and personnel management

A defining feature of the “Promotion Tournament” model is that career advancement for Chinese officials becomes a zero-sum game.

Since the 1980s and China’s pursuit of reform and opening up, fiscal decentralization reforms have granted local governments increasing autonomy over economic management and residual claims over revenue. As China’s economy follows an M-form structure in which the economy of each province is self-contained, these changes incentivize local governments to pursue economic growth independently. This structure allowed central leadership to evaluate provinces as parallel units, with GDP growth as a metric for comparison. Studies on the rural Chinese economy by Susan Whiting and others have found a positive correlation between local cadre promotion and economic growth, indicating that economic performance was a major factor to career advancement. With this recognition, local cadres began to compete on economic output. In 2004, Peking University Professor Zhou Li-An famously coined this phenomenon as the “political tournament” (政治锦标赛) or “promotion tournament” (晋升锦标赛) model.5 Understanding how personnel management works in the Chinese system helps explain why this “promotion tournament” dynamic exists in the first place.

Starting in 1984, China has adopted a “one-level down” (下管一级) management of personnel, whereby the Organization Department at each level manages the appointment of cadres one civil service rank below. Under this system, the Provincial Organization Department appoints cadres at the department/bureau level within the province and the Central Organization Department predominantly manages cadres at the sub-provincial/deputy-ministerial level and above.6 At each civil service level, a number of candidates vie for the same position — for example, there may be a handful of County Party Secretaries at the county/division level (县处级) competing for a single deputy department/sub-bureau level (副厅局级) opening on a municipal Party Standing Committee. The “promotion tournament” model of competition was especially prominent once GDP performance became the deciding factor among candidates who were otherwise similarly qualified. A defining feature of this model is that career advancement for Chinese officials becomes a zero-sum game.

Imperial examination in dynastic China.

Another key feature of China’s personnel management system is the cross-regional appointments of promoted officials. Officials who are promoted are often appointed in a different county, municipality, or province, depending on their rank. The rationale for this is twofold: firstly, cadres can potentially gain valuable experience in a different operating environment. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, cross-regional transfers prevent local power bases from forming. Studies have shown, however, that there are major drawbacks to this system of official rotation.7 Turnover of municipal- and provincial-level officials resulted in significant negative effects on the economic growth rate within the city or province. This likely occurs due to the uncertainty and unfamiliarity of incoming officials, who are often faced with substantial local debts taken by the previous administration.

Personnel management in China has evolved over thousands of years, spanning multiple dynasties, yet the underlying logic remains remarkably consistent — competition at every level is inevitable when the ultimate goal of ambitious officials is to secure a prominent position in the capital. Historically, the imperial examination system (keju) served as the primary meritocratic filter for selecting officials. In this sense, career advancement in China has always resembled the “promotion tournament” model. In recent decades, GDP growth has served as the modern keju.

GDP as a metric for cadre evaluation

China’s economic rise since the “reform and opening-up” era has seen average GDP growth of roughly 9% per year.8 Over several decades, substantial investments in its industrial sector were possible due to complete buy-in from local governments eager to implement central directives on economic development. As career progression for local cadres hinged heavily on economic performance, GDP growth naturally became the most critical factor in determining winners of regional “promotion tournaments.”

While economic performance is not the only factor in cadre assessments, it is certainly the most measurable. However, Goodhart’s Law states that “when a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” Three primary downsides of using GDP as a metric are data falsification, overcapacity in priority sectors, and unsustainable debt-fueled growth.

An implication of the “one-level down” personnel management system is that it creates a cascading vested-interest group (既得利益集团) where participants have perverse incentives to over-report GDP numbers at each level. For example, county-level officials strive to demonstrate competence to municipal-level leadership, who themselves are measured on economic output and assessed at the provincial level. This results in a scenario where only the central leadership, who require accurate data for policymaking, have an incentive to unveil the true numbers. China’s storied history of falsifying local data contributed to the deaths of millions during the Great Leap Forward, where local officials embellished grain output even as the country faced widespread starvation.9 GDP is no exception to this phenomenon. The central government, through its consumption of internal reference (内部参考 or 内参) materials, is not oblivious to the misrepresentation of local economic data. Former Premier Li Keqiang once remarked that local GDP numbers were “man-made and unreliable.”10 Nevertheless, economic performance metrics have historically been tolerated as both a sufficient source of motivation and a useful metric by which cadres are evaluated.

Economic performance as a metric motivates local cadres to take on substantial investments. Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash.

A secondary adverse effect of GDP as the metric for “promotion tournaments” is the phenomenon of destructive regional competition or “involution” (内卷). Regional officials attempt to replicate success cases in sectors of national priority, such as the “New Three Things” (新三样) of electric vehicles, solar panels, and lithium-ion batteries.11 The result is relentless price wars and overcapacity that the domestic market struggles to consume. Thin profit margins ultimately eat into the profits of hundreds of similar companies betting on becoming the next CATL or BYD. The state’s attempt to crack down on “involution” is an ongoing effort and the underlying issue it needs to address is correcting cadre incentives.

Tenure and turnover of local officials become an issue when economic performance is used as the primary target for promotion. Average tenure for provincial-level leadership has seen a noticeable decline over the past several decades from an average of 4.5 years for provincial Party secretaries in 1985 to just 1.6 years in 2021.12 A shorter tenure naturally means officials need to prove competence quickly, often resulting in reckless investments in flashy projects. Officials who are promoted or transferred into a new region often have to deal with the mess (烂摊子) left behind by the previous administration. This creates a scenario where officials are caught in a vicious cycle of repairing damages and proving competence, all of which must happen within a couple of years.

China’s 15th Five-Year Plan signaled a clear de-emphasis of GDP growth as a national priority. Instead, the shift toward high-quality development, technological self-reliance, and social stability leaves much to be interpreted by local officials. The next section explores possible measures China might take to change cadre incentives through alternative metrics.

Changing cadre incentives and alternatives to GDP as a metric

In China’s personnel management system, competition is inevitable — wherever competition exists, there must be some metric by which winners are promoted.

Changes in the local cadre incentive structure have been noted by China analysts in the past several years. An excellent article by Zhuoran Li pointed out in December 2024 that “economic development is no longer a priority for local cadres.”13 Li noted that local cadres, especially those past the promotional age for their rank, lost motivation to work due to the “de-emphasis of individual responsibility” under the new cadre evaluation system. On the contrary, overly ambitious officials who irresponsibly take on local debt to fund flashy projects have also been under intense scrutiny.14

China analysts noted a shift from “hard targets” such as GDP to softer bureaucratic targets for cadre assessments. However, in a zero-sum “promotion tournament” model of competition, de-emphasizing individual responsibility and implementing soft targets is not conducive to incentivizing cadres to take action in accordance with central priorities. In China’s personnel management system, competition is inevitable — wherever competition exists, there must be some metric by which winners are promoted. To replace economic growth measured by GDP, the central leadership will inevitably need to signal the adoption of a new metric.

China’s gig economy represents roughly 40% of the total workforce. Photo by Yunming Wang on Unsplash.

Logically, the new metric should address the most pressing issues in China’s socioeconomic environment and top concerns for China’s leadership. Some of these concerns include social stability, youth unemployment rate, military and civilian corruption, fertility rate, and percentage of flexible employment in the economy.

  • Social stability maintenance (维稳)
    • Historically, social stability maintenance (维稳) has been the top priority for China. Data on political unrest and “mass incidents” is already monitored closely within China, despite the nondisclosure of public figures since 2005.15 With its vast surveillance apparatus, public protests are tracked and suppressed in a timely manner by local public security officials. However, large-scale protests such as the bank runs in Henan over frozen funds16 and the White Paper protest over COVID-19 lockdowns17 still occur under extreme circumstances. Officials pay close attention to public uprisings within their jurisdiction, as any such news that reaches Beijing adversely impacts their career prospects. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic showed, personal connections and implementation of central leadership directives matter more than the public outbreaks themselves. Hubei Party Secretary Jiang Chaoliang was ousted from his post in February 2020 due to supposed mishandling of the coronavirus, yet Shanghai Party Secretary Li Qiang was promoted to Premier of the State Council despite the protests in Shanghai over harsh lockdowns.

  • Anti-corruption (反腐败)
    • Since Xi took office, he has embarked on a persistent anti-corruption campaign. While there is reason to believe that a percentage of anti-corruption purges are politically motivated, corruption is nonetheless a real and pervasive issue in China.18 However, anti-corruption investigations are a double-edged sword; a genuine attempt to prove compliance with anti-corruption directives can be interpreted in two ways. On the one hand, an increased number of investigations within a region can indicate a genuine cleanup effort that Beijing advocates for. On the contrary, it can also reflect gross mismanagement by regional leadership cadres. Perhaps this is why surges of anti-corruption investigations occur after regional official turnover, motivated primarily by the incoming officials’ desire to get rid of political rivals and instate their own patronage networks. The most prominent example of this is Bo Xilai’s “sing red and strike the black” anti-crime campaign in 2009 as Party Secretary of Chongqing. While Bo made significant headlines with the campaign, the crackdown was a slap in the face of Wang Yang, Chongqing’s former Party Secretary, who was implicitly labeled as “having tolerated ‘the black’ during his tenure.”19 If Beijing continues to highlight anti-corruption as a priority, a core metric for regional cadres could be the number of anti-corruption investigations conducted.

  • Fertility rate (生育率)
    • China’s famous one-child policy, implemented from 1979 to 2015, has significantly impacted the country’s demographic in the decades that followed. While overpopulation was the concern during China’s economic growth, the recent trends of declining birth rates have turned the population issue upside down. With one of the lowest fertility rates in the world, China has failed to promote population growth despite lifting the one-child policy in 2016. A plethora of issues due to the aging population will soon follow. As parents of only children retire, the financial burden of caring for elderly further disincentivizes having children, exacerbating the issue. Central leadership has repeatedly signaled the importance of promoting childbirth across China through reversing the one-child policy, boosting childcare subsidies, limiting wedding expenditure, and eliminating family stress through the “Double Reduction Policy.”20 Thus far, however, these policies have yet to result in nationwide population growth. An approach Beijing may take is to set fertility rates as a metric and allow local officials to formulate creative strategies to boost population growth within their regions. Successful regional pilot programs (试点) can then look to be scaled up on a national level in a process called “from point to surface” (由点到面).

  • Flexible employment (灵活就业)
    • Since 2017, central leadership has repeatedly emphasized the importance of “high-quality growth” (高质量发展) in the economy.21 The rationale behind this statement is China’s attempt to reduce the percentage of economic activity in real estate and nonproductive sectors. In 2025, the number of workers participating in flexible employment reached 280 million, growing every year since 2019.22 The 15th Five-Year Plan signaled an anticipated rise over the next five years in innovation-driven development (创新驱动) through three indicators: growth of R&D expenditure, high-value invention patents, and value add of core industries of the digital economy.23 Interestingly, the Five-Year Plan also mentioned promoting “healthy development of flexible employment and new forms of employment,” including insurance and subsidized housing for those in flexible employment. In theory, supporting workers in the gig economy seems counterintuitive to promoting “high-quality growth” in key sectors such as AI, semiconductors, and high-quality manufacturing. In the long term, it remains to be seen if Beijing attempts to limit the percentage of flexible employment by setting metrics to shift employment toward more productive sectors.

In addition to these metrics, another solution China might explore to solve the perverse incentives problem is an increase in official tenure duration and lower turnover rate of municipal- and provincial-level cadres. Establishing longer tenure incentivizes long-term planning as officials will need to see through the results of their initiatives. As mentioned previously, the issue with this approach is the risk of local power bases and patronage networks. Another necessary adjustment is to the age limits for promotions if time spent at each civil service rank is increased. It remains to be seen if tenure will continue to decrease as China begins to shuffle provincial-level leadership before the 21st Party Congress next year.

What is the “correct view of political achievements”?

To shift cadres away from a focus on GDP growth, central leaders must decide on and clearly signal adoption of a new metric for officials to strive toward.

The first mention of the “correct view of political achievements” was by former General Secretary Hu Jintao during the Central Economic Work Conference in 2003. Hu stressed that a “correct view of political achievements” meant carrying out the Party’s true purpose — serving the people through doing solid work, producing real results, and abstaining from comparing achievements for the sake of appearance.24 More than twenty years later, China under Xi Jinping has resurfaced this topic and initiated a five-month education campaign. Only this time, China faces a different set of socioeconomic challenges that can no longer be overshadowed by economic growth.

CCTV footage on March 21st, 2026, on the correct view of political achievements

As the five-month education campaign on “correct view of political achievements” comes to an end, Beijing has yet to announce the outcomes of this campaign. Perhaps the central leadership is waiting for the regions to develop the best interpretation of “the correct view of political achievements,” with the intention of scaling successful approaches nationally. What is unlikely to change is the Party’s personnel management system and the “promotion tournament” model of competition. To shift cadres away from a focus on GDP growth, therefore, central leaders must decide on and clearly signal adoption of a new metric for officials to strive toward. The campaign to study the “correct view of political achievements” is an ongoing process to determine that metric.

Key terms
  • “Political Tournament” (政治锦标赛) or “Promotion Tournament” (晋升锦标赛) model — zero-sum competition among regional officials for promotion, historically with an emphasis on GDP growth
  • “One-level down” management (下管一级) — process by which Organization Departments at each level manages the appointments, dismissals, and transfers of cadres one civil service rank below
  • “Neican or Internal Reference” (内部参考 or 内参) — reporting by Xinhua News Agency to each level of government, providing officials with updates on current domestic trends
Notes:
  1. 《关于在全党开展树立和践行正确政绩观学习教育的通知》, translated as “Carrying Out Education on Establishing and Practicing a Correct View of Political Achievements Throughout the Party.” Original source from https://www.12371.cn/2026/02/23/ARTI1771848099115606.shtml. ↩︎
  2. For more information on China’s civil service ranking, see https://thinkprc.com/civil-service-ranking/. ↩︎
  3. “中共中央政治局召开会议 讨论“十五五”规划纲要草案和政府工作报告. 中共中央总书记习近平主持会议” CCP Central Committee Politburo holds meeting to discuss draft outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan and government work report. CCP Central Committee General Secretary Xi Jinping presides over the meeting. https://www.mee.gov.cn/ywdt/szyw/202602/t20260227_1145049.shtml. ↩︎
  4. According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s average annual growth rate between 2021-2025 was 5.4%. https://www.stats.gov.cn/sj/sjjd/202606/t20260602_1963864.html ↩︎
  5. Zhou, Li-An. (2004). The incentive and cooperation of government officials in the political tournaments: An interpretation of the prolonged local protectionism and duplicative investments in China. Economic Research Journal. 6. 33-40. ↩︎
  6. Prior to this change, the Central Organization Department oversaw the appointments of all cadres above the department/bureau level in what was known as the “two-level down” (下管两级) system. ↩︎
  7. Zhou Li-An. Promotion Tournaments—Literature Review and Future Directions[J]. Quarterly Journal of Economics and Management, 2022, 1(1): 1-34 ↩︎
  8. China Power Team, “Unpacking China’s GDP,” China Power (CSIS), December 20, 2022, updated March 16, 2026, accessed August 8, 2026, https://chinapower.csis.org/tracker/china-gdp/. ↩︎
  9. Yang Jisheng, Tombstone: The Great Chinese Famine, 1958–1962, trans. Stacy Mosher and Guo Jian (New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012). ↩︎
  10. Andreas Illmer, “China’s Growth Data — Can You Trust It?” BBC News, January 2016, https://www.bbc.com/news/business-35341869. ↩︎
  11. Brian Wong, “The Foreign Policy Significance of China’s ‘Anti-Involution’ Campaign,” China-US Focus, September 19, 2025, https://www.chinausfocus.com/finance-economy/the-foreign-policy-significance-of-chinas-anti-involution-campaign. ↩︎
  12. Cheng Li, “Provinces: The Ongoing Reshuffling of Provincial Party Committees,” China-US Focus, March 27, 2022, https://www.chinausfocus.com/2022-CPC-congress/provinces-the-ongoing-reshuffling-of-provincial-party-committees. ↩︎
  13. “Changing Cadre Incentives: The Untold Story of China’s Economic Challenge,” The Diplomat, December 7, 2024, https://thediplomat.com/2024/12/changing-cadre-incentives-the-untold-story-of-chinas-economic-challenge/ ↩︎
  14. Chun Han Wong, “A Rising Star’s Abrupt Fall Shows Xi’s Crackdown on Overambitious Officials,” Wall Street Journal, August 5, 2026, https://www.wsj.com/world/china/a-rising-stars-abrupt-fall-shows-xis-crackdown-on-overambitious-officials-3d7dfb92. ↩︎
  15. “Looking at Protesting in China,” USC U.S.-China Institute, July 22, 2021, https://china.usc.edu/looking-protesting-china. ↩︎
  16. Vincent Ni, “China: Violent Clashes at Protest Over Frozen Rural Bank Accounts,” The Guardian, July 11, 2022, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jul/11/china-violent-clashes-at-protest-over-frozen-rural-bank-accounts. ↩︎
  17. Laura McQuillan, “Filling in the Blank: Why Protesters in China Are Holding Up White Sheets of Paper,” CBC News, November 30, 2022, https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/blank-pages-china-protest-1.6668661. ↩︎
  18. For more information on anti-corruption investigations, see “The Logic of Purges in the PRC”. ↩︎
  19. “China: Ten Years Since the Fall of Bo Xilai (1),” China Worker, March 20, 2022, https://chinaworker.info/en/2022/03/20/33023/. ↩︎
  20. Daria Impiombato and Nis Grünberg, “When Giving Birth Is a National Duty: Beijing’s Struggle to Reverse Demographic Decline,” MERICS (Mercator Institute for China Studies), October 8, 2025, https://merics.org/en/report/when-giving-birth-national-duty-beijings-struggle-reverse-demographic-decline. ↩︎
  21. Why China’s Xi Jinping Is Pushing ‘High-Quality Development’ at Third Plenum,” Bloomberg, July 16, 2024, https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-07-16/why-china-s-xi-jinping-is-pushing-high-quality-development-at-third-plenum. ↩︎
  22. Analysis: China’s Booming Gig Economy Masks Job Market Pain, Strains Welfare System,” Reuters, July 6–7, 2026, https://www.reuters.com/business/world-at-work/chinas-booming-gig-economy-masks-job-market-pain-strains-welfare-system-2026-07-06/. ↩︎
  23. National Development and Reform Commission (国家发展和改革委员会), Outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan for National Economic and Social Development of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国国民经济和社会发展第十五个五年规划纲要), March 2026, https://www.ndrc.gov.cn/fggz/fzzlgh/gjfzgh/202603/U020260317369114704096.pdf. ↩︎
  24. Hu Jintao, “坚持立党为公、执政为民，树立正确的政绩观” [Uphold the Party’s Public-Spirited Governance and Commitment to Serving the People, Establish a Correct View of Political Achievements], speech at the Central Economic Work Conference, November 27, 2003, 改革大数据服务平台 (Reform Big Data Service Platform), http://app.reformdata.org/print.php?contentid=4923. ↩︎

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Entering and Exiting the Central Organization Department (进出中组部)

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Entering and Exiting the Central Organization Department (进出中组部)

“青年干部局是太庙，个个菩萨都要好的” – 陈云, 1981年 7月

“The Youth Cadre Bureau is like the Imperial Ancestral Temple, [everyone] in it must be of high quality.” – Chen Yun, July 1981

Background

For China watchers, the importance of the Central Organization Department is well understood. Even for those in the system, personnel management is opaque and carefully handled. It is rare that an individual with experience working in the department publishes insights into the department and even more noteworthy when one has worked in perhaps the Central Organization Department’s most important bureau. That is the case with Yan Huai (阎淮), the author of Entering and Exiting the Central Organization Department (进出中组部).

The Central Organization Department manages the appointment, dismissals, and dossiers of centrally-managed cadres, the bulk of which are at the provincial/ministerial level and above. The most interesting section of the book is Yan’s account of his tenure from 1982 to 1986 in the department’s then-newly created Youth Cadre Bureau, stood up for the purpose of identifying the next generation of leaders.

The book starts with the author’s account of his upbringing in Beijing. Of particular importance is his longstanding relationship with Chen Yuan, the son of conservative PRC elder Chen Yun. The duo had met in Tsinghua University in 1966 as Red Guards, at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution. Along with Chen Yuan, a third student by the name of Song Kehuang, son of PRC elder Song Renqiong, also became an accomplice of Yan. Unforeseeable to Yan, both Chen Yun and Song Renqiong would go on to play key roles in reestablishing the Central Organization Department in the post-Mao era, and Yan would be invited along for the ride.

Left: Yan Huai (author). Right: Chen Yuan, son of Chen Yun

Entering the COD’s Youth Cadre Bureau

In the early 1980’s, China’s political elites began to ponder the issue of succession planning. A famous phrase by Chen Yun, then the de facto second-in-command within the Party, states that “power must be handed to our offspring, or our tombs will be dug up in the future.”1 While the attribution of this quote is contentious, the concept of hereditary succession is a core institutional feature of imperial China. It is unsurprising that, in a system lacking formal checks and balances, Chinese elites hold a similar view over generational power transfers.

The first mention of the term “Youth Cadre Bureau” (青年干部局) came from a document2 drafted by Chen Yun in May 1981. Over the next year, Yan’s childhood friend Chen Yuan would persuade Yan to join the Youth Cadre Bureau. Li Rui, the former secretary for both Chen Yun and Mao Zedong, would be chosen to lead the bureau. In March of 1982, the CCP Central Committee formally approved the creation of the Youth Cadre Bureau under the Central Organization Department. Crucially, this marked the start of an effort by the Central Organization Department to systematically develop leadership talent for provincial- and ministerial-level positions.

Third echelon and selected graduates

In May of 1983, at a symposium of the Sixth National People’s Congress, CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang first put forward the concept of the “third echelon” (第三梯队), referring to a planned cohort of young and educated cadres selected for cultivation as future party and state leaders. At the time, the PRC elders were regarded as the “first echelon” and the Party and State Council leaders were the “second echelon.” As both groups were aging, the Party needed a mechanism to select the next generation of leadership cadres.

In the same month, the Central Organization Department published a document3 that stipulated the selection and cultivation of “selected graduates” (选调生), which would later become a crucial stream for which talented graduates entered civil service. Youth Cadre Bureau chief Li Rui passed on Xi Zhongxun’s directives that each province would select a cohort among young university graduates to be sent to communes, production brigades, and factories for cultivation before selecting the best of which to be promoted to leadership posts at various levels. Yan Huai recalls his encounter with Li Keqiang, then-Secretary of the Communist Youth League at Peking University, during which Li’s humility and maturity left a lasting impression. By July of 1983, there were over 2,000 selected graduates who were sent down to the grassroots for training. By 1985, there were a total of 12,700 selected graduates nationwide. The selected graduates stream carries on into present day China. In February of 2008, Xi Jinping, then-newly promoted member of the Politburo Standing Committee, commented on the importance of upholding and improving the selected graduates system, exactly twenty-five years after his father’s initial proposal.

Left: CMC Chairman Deng Xiaoping with CCP General Secretary Hu Yaobang. Right: Li Rui, bureau chief of the Youth Cadre Bureau and former secretary to Mao Zedong

In 1983, the Central Organization Department published a document4 for each province to select candidates as reserve cadres for leadership positions at both the provincial and central level. Each province was to nominate twenty candidates and each central ministry or department was to nominate five candidates, for a total of 1,000 reserve cadres. Criteria to select these candidates included performance during the Cultural Revolution, political correctness, vocational college experience, and approximately between the ages of forty to forty-five. This important document was the first institutional attempt to create the “third echelon” of cadres, and subsequently became top priority of the Central Organization Department’s Youth Cadre Bureau.

In August of 1984, the list of provincially-nominated “third echelon” reserve cadres totaled 632 candidates. Yan Huai and his colleagues wrote 500-word summaries on each candidate to be sent to the Politburo. Some interesting stats for the candidates include:

  • Demographic: average age of 43.5, 14% females, and 10% ethnic minorities
  • Education: 91% university graduates (including post-graduates), 7% high-school graduates, and 2% middle-school graduates
  • Family background: 84% working class, 11% exploiting class, and 5% revolutionary cadres
  • Performance during the Cultural Revolution: 39% were targeted, 46% untargeted, 14% offered resistance, and 1% committed errors
  • Current position: 1% at provincial/ministerial level, 26% at department/bureau level, 57% at deputy department/bureau level, and 16% at county/division level

It is especially noteworthy that, of the 632 candidates, only 5% came from revolutionary families (红色家族). However, as one observes the career trajectories of these reserve cadres, it appears that these revolutionary descendants hold disproportionately high positions of importance in the decades that followed. The most obvious example of a “princeling” who benefited from family background is Xi Jinping, whom Yan Huai personally assessed. Yan also notes the interesting case of Bo Xilai, son of Chinese revolutionary Bo Yibo, who did not make the original list of “third echelon” cadres but nonetheless rose to the pinnacle of Chinese leadership several decades later before his ultimate downfall.

At the end of 1985, the finalized list of provincial reserve cadres totaled 1,009 candidates, combining provincially-nominated candidates with nominees from Central Party and State Council organizations. Yan Huai notes that from the 15th to 18th Party Congress, over half of the Politburo were on the original “third echelon” list, and all but two members of the 17th and 18th Politburo Standing Committee were “third echelon” reserve cadres.

Evaluation of Xi Jinping

As a face-saving gesture, the decision to include Xi in the assessments likely owed more to his father’s prestige rather than his own qualifications.

Within the Youth Cadre Bureau, Yan Huai was responsible for assessing candidates in the North and Northeast regions of China. During a trip to Hebei province in October of 1983, Yan conducted a special evaluation of Xi Jinping, then the thirty year-old Party Secretary of Zhengding County in Hebei. Yan notes that the assessment of Xi was special in three aspects. First, the assessment was requested by Youth Cadre Bureau chief Li Rui, which was unusual in the case that Li had not singled out any other candidates by name previously. Secondly, Xi had only been sent down to Zhengding County the previous year and thus lacked consistent political achievements otherwise required from potential candidates. Lastly, Xi had not been recommended by the province as a reserve cadre, and was thus not in the usual purview of Youth Cadre Bureau assessments. As a face-saving gesture, the decision to include Xi in the assessments likely owed more to his father’s prestige rather than his own qualifications.

Due to peculiarity of the Xi case, Yan Huai and the team conducted a quick routine assessment consisting of three stages. The first stage was a group interview with leadership within the county’s Party and government, including department heads under Xi while Xi was Deputy Party Secretary of Zhengding County from 1982 to 1983. The individuals were asked to speak to Xi’s political achievements and errors, as well as personal strengths and weaknesses. The second stage consisted of one-on-one interviews with the same individuals, aimed at prying for details from those that had reservations during the group interview to speak negatively of Xi in public. The last stage was an interview with Xi Jinping himself, during which Xi was asked to discuss his work achievements, personal assessment of strengths and shortcomings, as well as explanations of any negative sentiments that were brought up from peer interviews.

Left: Li Zhanshu, Party Secretary of Wuji County from 1983-1985. Center: Xi Jinping, Party Secretary of Zhengding County from 1983-1985. Right: Li Zhanshu, Chairman of the National People’s Congress and Xi Jinping, CCP General Secretary

In 1984, Xi Jinping and Li Zhanshu, then Party Secretary of the neighboring Wuji County, underwent formal evaluations by the Central Organization Department’s “third echelon” assessment group and were both selected as provincial level “third echelon” reserve cadres for Hebei Province. Few could have imagined that Xi and Li would go on to become the first- and third-ranked Party leaders of the CCP several decades later.

Inner workings of the Central Organization Department

Yan Huai reveals that provincial personnel approvals were a two-part process. First, approvals from the corresponding Central Organization Department Deputy-Heads were required. Once approved, officials visited the department’s archives to examine provincial leadership dossiers, where no written notes were permitted in or out of the archives. Officials had to commit to memory key details on provincial leadership candidates. The second, and arguably most important, step was to consult with and seek approval from PRC elders and central leaders. This was an unspoken rule of the personnel decision-making process during the 1980s, as Party elders often had the final say over personnel placements in their hometowns. Some examples provided by the author were the following: Beijing was overseen by Peng Zhen and Wan Li, often with conflicting views; Shanghai was overseen by Chen Yun; Guangdong was overseen by Ye Jianying; Hubei was overseen by Li Xiannian; and Shanxi was overseen by Bo Yibo.

From left to right: Peng Zhen, Wan Li, Chen Yun, Ye Jianying, Li Xiannian, Bo Yibo

It is important to note that in today’s China, the ability for CCP elders to influence personnel decisions on their home turf is likely nonexistent. The CCP takes great precaution in ensuring regional leadership cohorts are not appointed in their home province, for the purpose of minimizing the potential for rising factions and the consolidation of power in any region. The Central Organization Department likely places a strong emphasis on interprovincial shuffles to avoid power bases from forming.

As expected of a department as sensitive as the Central Organization Department, there were also strict requirements on document-handling. According to Yan, all notebooks, documents, and personnel lists must be returned to the department upon an official’s resignation or departure. An interesting question is whether operational guidelines have evolved over the past decades and whether cadre dossiers are now digitally stored with the same amount of security.

Elevation of Jiang Zemin

Left: Chen Yun with Jiang Zemin. Right: Jiang Zemin with Deng Xiaoping

Yan notes an interesting interaction with former CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin in 1985, a time when Jiang was at a crossroads of taking on the role of Shanghai Mayor or continuing to work as a ministerial head. Jiang had approached Yan with a question of whether ministers or mayors had more potential for future advancements. Yan’s response was that there were only slightly more than twenty provinces and municipalities in China, whereas there were over a hundred different ministries and institutions under the Party and State Council. Although these positions were all at the provincial/ministerial level, and the governor or mayor of a province or municipality may not be as important as the top ministries in China, they are certainly more prominent than the Ministry of Electronics Industry5. Yan added that taking on the role of mayor in a key municipality could position oneself on the path to becoming party secretary and elevation to the CCP Politburo.

Ultimately, Jiang took on the role of Shanghai Mayor in the summer of 1985 and subsequently became the Shanghai Party Secretary in 1987 and the CCP General Secretary in 1989. Jiang Zemin’s rise to the top was largely influenced by the ousting of Zhao Ziyang following June 4th, 1989, but it is important to note that Jiang had the support of the two most powerful men in China during the 1980’s, Chen Yun and Deng Xiaoping. Nonetheless, the willingness of a ministerial-level official to approach the much lower-ranked author speaks to the outsized influence and importance of the Central Organization Department.

Classified documents

Yan mentions several key terms related to document dissemination within the CCP. Classified documents are broadly categorized into “formal documents” (正式文件), “situation briefings” (动态简报), and “reference materials” (参考资料). Understanding the scope and intended audience of these documents is essential to deciphering information flow to Chinese leadership and its subsequent decision making.

  • Formal documents:
    • Used by central Party and Government organizations to disseminate speeches and directives of top leaders. The most authoritative document is the red-header CCP Central Committee Document (《中共中央文件》).
  • Situation briefings:
    • Used by PRC organizations to report situations upwards, directives downwards, and information laterally. Examples included the Central Organization Department’s Organizational Work Bulletins (《组工通讯》), the Central Publicity Department’s Publicity Trends (《宣传动态》), and the Ministry of Public Security’s Adversarial Trends (《敌情动态》)
  • Reference materials:
    • Used by news agencies to provide actual situational developments within the country. Examples included the Xinhua News Agency’s Domestic Dynamic Proofs6 (《国内动态清样》), used to report sensitive domestic developments to central leadership, the Internal Reference (《内部参考》) for prefecture and department-level leadership, and the Internal Reference Selections (《内部选编》) for county-level officials.

Whether today’s documents follow the same naming conventions is unclear, but the Chinese leadership’s reliance on multiple information channels to triangulate and form an unfiltered picture of events at home and abroad is unlikely to have changed.

Key Terms
  • Selected graduates (选调生) — a pathway to civil service by which promising university graduates are selected and cultivated by the Central Organization Department
  • “Third echelon” (第三梯队) — the first systematic approach to succession planning, whereby a cohort of young and educated cadres selected for cultivation as future party and state leaders
  • Revolutionary family (红色家族) — descendants of revolutionary veterans who participated in the Long March in 1934-1935
  • Youth Cadre Bureau (青年干部局) — an important bureau within the Central Organization Department responsible for assessing young party members for future leadership positions
Notes:
  1. “权力要移交给自己的孩子，不然以后会被挖祖坟”. Interestingly, Yan Huai has noted in interviews that he does not have any evidence that Chen Yun had actually coined this phrase. ↩︎
  2. 《提拔培养中青年干部是当务之急》, translated as “Promoting and Cultivating Young and Middle-aged Cadres is an Urgent Priority”. ↩︎
  3. 《关于选调应届优秀大学毕业生到基层培养锻炼的通知》, translated as “”Notice on the Selection of Outstanding University Graduates to Grassroots Units for Training and Cultivation”. ↩︎
  4. 《关于建立省级后备干部制度意见》, translated as “Opinions on the Establishment of a Provincial-level Reserve Cadre System”. ↩︎
  5. From 1982 to 1985, Jiang Zemin served as the vice-minister of the Ministry of Electronics Industry (电子工业部). In September of 1982, Jiang was elected as a member of the CCP Central Committee. ↩︎
  6. Also translated as Domestic News Proofs. ↩︎

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