Zhang Gaoli

Zhang Gaoli (张高丽; ; born November 1946) is a Chinese retired politician.

In 1965, Zhang entered Xiamen University to study economics.

After graduating in August 1970, Zhang was sent to an oil company logistics team in Maoming to work as a construction worker, stocking materials in a warehouse and moving concrete blocks.

In 1984, Zhang was named deputy party secretary of Maoming.

This was Zhang's first foray into politics.

A year later he was named chair of the Guangdong Economic Commission.

By 1988, he became Vice Governor of Guangdong.

In 1993, at age 47, he made it onto the provincial Party Standing Committee, becoming one of the top leaders of the province.

He also served in roles such as the head of the coordination agency in charge of developing the Pearl River Delta and also the head of the provincial planning agency.

In 1997, Zhang became party secretary of Shenzhen.

In 1998, he was made deputy provincial party secretary of Guangdong while holding onto his municipal leadership position in Shenzhen.

He served under then-provincial party secretary Li Changchun and alongside executive vice governor Wang Qishan.

During this time, it was said that he received praise from former President Jiang Zemin.

He was also said to have frequently visited and tended to the needs of party veteran Xi Zhongxun, the father of Xi Jinping.

In late 2001, Zhang was transferred to the eastern coastal province of Shandong to become governor and deputy provincial party secretary.

In 2002, he was promoted to provincial party secretary, the first-in-charge of the province.

In Shandong, Zhang told a gathering of assembled local officials, "whether it is my relatives, children, friends; if they go to where you are, please do not go out of your way to receive them, do not carry favour with them, and do not offer to do things for them."

This was seen as Zhang trying to send a signal that he intended to distance himself from a political culture rife with corruption and complex rules around guanxi.

Prior to his ascension, Zhang served as the Communist Party Secretary of Tianjin between 2007 and 2012, and the Party Secretary in the economic powerhouse of Shandong province between 2002 and 2007.

As Premier Li Keqiang's principal lieutenant, Zhang's portfolio spanned the fields of finance, economic development, natural resources, the environment, and housing.

He chaired the ad-hoc steering committees overseeing the Three Gorges Dam, the South–North Water Transfer Project, One Belt One Road, and the Commission on Food Safety of the State Council.

On 2 November 2021, Chinese women's tennis player Peng Shuai accused Zhang of sexually assaulting her, and also referred to an extramarital affair between the two from which he had recently walked away.

Her subsequent disappearance, censorship, and reappearance sparked concerns about her safety and well-being.

Zhang was born in a village in Jinjiang County, Fujian, to a family of farmers.

He was the youngest of five children.

His family was poor.

His father died when he was three years old.

He and his four siblings were raised almost single-handedly by his mother.

As a child, Zhang helped his family with farm work and also caught fish in a neighboring river.

Zhang attended Jinjiang Qiaosheng High School.

Shortly after the 17th CCP National Congress held in October 2007, the central leadership moved Zhang in a provincial leadership reshuffle to become party secretary in the coastal city of Tianjin.

As the party leader of a direct-controlled municipality, Zhang also gained a seat on the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party.

Observers speculated that Zhang would become a member of the "fifth generation" of leadership.

In Tianjin Zhang cultivated a low-profile image.

While he was seen as a top contender for a seat on the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, along with the regional chiefs of Chongqing and Guangdong, Bo Xilai, and Wang Yang, respectively, Zhang was decidedly less showy and avoided self-promotion.

His motto during his term in Tianjin was "do more, speak less."

It was reported that Zhang Gaoli was responsible for promoting the "immature" over-the-counter equity trading platform during his tenure as the Party Secretary of Tianjin.

The platform was criticized for opening the door for "social crooks" to conduct financial fraud, causing hundreds of thousands of investors across China to be defrauded, with tens of billions of yuan at stake.

He served as the senior Vice Premier of the State Council between 2013 and 2018 and as a member of the Chinese Communist Party Politburo Standing Committee, China's highest ruling council, between 2012 and 2017.

By the fall of that year, he was named an alternate member to the 15th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).