Zhang Dejiang

Zhang Dejiang (born 4 November 1946) is a Chinese retired politician who served as the chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress between 2013 and 2018.

Zhang enrolled in Kim Il Sung University in North Korea in August 1978 and received a degree in economics in 1980.

In August 1983, Zhang left education and started his career in politics, becoming the deputy secretary of the Yanji City CCP Municipal Committee.

In 1985, he was promoted to become the deputy party secretary of the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture of Jilin Province.

In August 1986, he was transferred to the State Council, becoming a deputy minister at the Ministry of Civil Affairs.

Zhang rose to prominence during the era of general secretary Jiang Zemin.

Zhang accompanied Jiang on a visit to North Korea in March 1990.

Shortly after, in October 1990, he returned to Jilin to become the Party Secretary of Yanbian and the Deputy Party Secretary of Jilin.

His connections to North Korea and his handling of illegal immigration from that country as a local official in Jilin are believed to be key factors in his rise to power.

Jiang described Yanbian under Zhang as a "model prefecture" later that year.

He successively served as the Party Secretary of the provinces of Jilin and Zhejiang from 1995 to 2002.

That year, he was promoted to the CCP Politburo and was appointed as the Party Secretary of Guangdong.

During his tenure, the SARS outbreak began in Guangdong.

In 1995, he was made party secretary of Jilin, beginning a long road of serving as the first-in-charge of various provincial-level jurisdictions.

In 1998, Zhang became party secretary of Zhejiang.

Zhang was popular among business leaders in Zhejiang due to his relatively laissez-faire attitude towards private enterprise.

Zhang was known for allowing private business to operate freely, within the bounds of the law.

In 2001, Zhang wrote an article attacking the idea of allowing business owners to join the Communist Party, claiming that doing so would ruin the party, shortly before Jiang formally accepted the idea through the Three Represents idea.

In November 2002, Zhang was transferred to Guangdong to become its Party Secretary.

He also earned a seat on the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party.

During his tenure in Guangdong Zhang focused on issues such as the privatisation of the economy, education, and the alleviation of poverty.

Zhang's appointment came immediately after the beginning of the SARS crisis, which began in Guangdong.

Zhang initially responded to the outbreak by restricting the flow of information to the public about SARS.

While Zhang and other leaders in Guangdong were accused of mishandling SARS, they were praised by the World Health Organization and the central government for controlling the spread of the virus locally as well as the treatment regime employed to treat SARS patients.

Zhang arrived in Guangdong at a time when the province's economic growth seemed to be lagging coastal provinces such as Jiangsu and Shandong, both of which were a mere several hundred billion yuan away from 'catching up' to Guangdong's GDP figures.

Zhang made it a top priority to stimulate the province's economy.

During his five-year tenure, Zhang worked to integrate the economies of the Pearl River Delta.

Immediately after arriving in Guangdong, Zhang commissioned studies on increasing economic interdependence among Hong Kong, Macau, Guangdong, Fujian, Jiangxi, Guizhou, Sichuan, Yunnan, Hunan, Hainan, and Guangxi.

Critics called Pan-Pearl Delta economic integration an empty concept and alleged that Zhang was pushing the policy as a platform for future promotion.

A senior journalist compared Zhang's ambitions to that of Bo Xilai, "Bo Xilai manipulates the media to promote himself, while Zhang Dejiang manipulates the media to promote his grandiose plans."

Critics accuse Zhang of suppressing freedom of the press and the right to protest.

From 2008 to 2013, he served as vice premier in charge of energy, telecommunications, and transportation under Premier Wen Jiabao, widely known for being Wen's 'troubleshooter' of choice, leading various disaster response task forces, such as during the 2009 Heilongjiang mine explosion and the 2011 Wenzhou train collision.

He was also the third-ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party from 2012 to 2017.

Zhang has extensive regional governance experience unmatched by senior leaders of his generation.

In March 2012, Zhang briefly replaced Bo Xilai as the party secretary of Chongqing, who was removed due to a political scandal.

In 2013, he was promoted to become the third-ranking member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee.

He also became the deputy head of the National Security Commission and the top official responsible for Hong Kong and Macau affairs.

He was appointed as the chairman of the NPCSC in 2013.

In 2017, Zhang retired from the Politburo Standing Committee, and was succeeded by Li Zhanshu as NPCSC chair in 2018.

Zhang, a native of Tai'an County, Liaoning, attended Yanbian University in Yanji, Jilin, where he studied the Korean language.