Li Changchun

Li Changchun was born in February 1944 in modern-day Dalian, Liaoning, then administered by the Empire of Japan as "Dairen", Kwantung Leased Territory. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in 1965 and graduated with a degree in electrical engineering from the Harbin Institute of Technology in 1966.[2] In 1983, at age 39, he became the youngest mayor and Party secretary of a major city, of Shenyang, the capital of Liaoning. In 1982, he was also made an alternate member of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party at the age of 38, the youngest member of the body at the time. In 1987, he became governor of Liaoning province, a post he kept until 1990. As governor, mainland China's first expressway was built in the province, linking the cities of Shenyang and Dalian.[3] In addition, Li pushed for the reform of state-owned enterprises, aiming to decrease state involvement in their operations.[4]

After General Secretary Zhao Ziyang was purged from the party leadership in 1989 during the fallout from the Tiananmen Square protests that same year, Li was initially also thought to have been removed from the leadership because he was a supporter of Zhao. Li's appearance on state television weeks later showed that this was not the case.[5]

In 1990, Li was transferred from his job in Liaoning province to central Henan province. In his memoirs, Li recounted that he was ill-prepared for his new assignment and felt homesick. The central authorities had not given him much prior notice about his transfer, and did not inform him why he was being moved or facilitate an orderly transition process. Li, as a result, was somewhat critical of the party's transfer process but nonetheless duly accepted his new assignment. He had succeeded then-Henan governor Cheng Weigao, who had been transferred to Hebei province as part of a three-province 'leader swap' orchestrated by the party's leaders.[6] Henan, a populous agricultural province without a strong industrial base, presented Li with significant challenges, and Li had experienced unease settling into his new home.[3]

Two years later, in 1992, Li was promoted to party chief of Henan. It would be Li's first job as "first-in-charge" of a province. Being accustomed to serving in government administration, Li's tenure in Henan was his first taste of being in charge of party affairs. Li said that initially being the top leader in the province made him uncomfortable as he had to shoulder all responsibility, especially at a time when other regions were developing economically at a pace much faster than that of Henan.[6] Overall, his tenure in Henan was seen as mediocre. Rural incomes remained stagnant during his term, and his government was also criticized for its role in the Plasma Economy, where farmers were encouraged to donate blood through unsafe practices, triggering China's largest outbreak of HIV/AIDS.[7]

Li was promoted to the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party in 1997, largely due to having secured the patronage of the paramount leader and Party General Secretary Jiang Zemin.[8] In his memoirs, Li said that he was surprised at having been appointed to the Politburo.[6] In 1998, Jiang dispatched Li to serve as Guangdong Party Secretary. It was said that Jiang wanted to use Li as a counterbalance to the entrenched local political establishment composed mostly of people native to the province. In Guangdong, Li cracked down on corruption to "put the house in order."[9] In the wake of the Asian Financial Crisis of 1997-98, Li set up a special task force to evaluate what to do with non-performing loans owed by two of the province's largest financial companies. He appointed former central bank deputy governor Wang Qishan to oversee the task force. Li shook up the local banking sector and closed a plethora of local credit unions and agencies.[8] He also increased access to the legal aid system for the poor in the province.[8] His tenure in Guangdong was seen as largely successful, having averted the brunt of the Asian Financial Crisis and also bringing Guangdong back to the political control of the central leadership under Jiang Zemin.[8]

Li's tenure in Guangdong made him one of Jiang's favourites and as such Jiang was preparing to groom him for succession for the premiership upon incumbent Premier Zhu Rongji's scheduled retirement in 2003.[8] However, Zhu had been favouring Wen Jiabao for the Premier office, and criticized Li over his handling of an "export rebate fraud" scandal in the coastal city of Shantou in 2000, which took place during Li's term as Guangdong party chief.[10] Li's intention to promote Huang Liman, a female friend of Jiang's who was considered incompetent, to the party chief position in the coastal city of Shenzhen became a sticking point for Jiang's political opponents.[10]

As expected, Li was named a member of the Politburo Standing Committee after Jiang's departure as General Secretary of the CCP in 2002.[11] By then, Li was seen by political observers as firmly belonging to Jiang's camp. He was considered one of Jiang's major 'patronage appointments' to the top ruling council along with other staunch Jiang loyalists such as Jia Qinglin and Huang Ju. Li was ranked eighth in the party hierarchy out of the nine members of the new PSC, given the portfolio of supervising the Party organs that dealt with propaganda and ideology while taking on no other official party or state titles.[10]

Li was the first propaganda chief to preside over the growth of the internet in China, and as a result was largely seen as having been the forerunner in developing the internet censorship regime that became increasingly extensive over the course of his tenure. In October 2007, at the 17th Party Congress, it was announced that Li, then aged 63 (below the unofficial age of retirement for PSC members, 67), would serve another term as propaganda chief.[12] In addition, Li was elevated from eight position in the protocol sequence to fifth, in front of Hu Jintao's putative successor Xi Jinping.

There were high hopes among some in media circles that Li would signal a more liberal change from the strictures of former propaganda chief Ding Guangen. Li had made a major speech advocating that media stay "close to the public" and to real events, "instead of mechanically following Party directives."[13] In addition, Li was also seen as a leading reformer due to his legacy in Guangdong, where he was not afraid to take on entrenched interests and introduce further market economic reforms. The hopes were short-lived however, though, after the Central Propaganda Department began closing newspapers, firing journalists, and would not allow foreign companies to produce content for TV stations in China. Many editors were punished and Li Changchun "started sounding and acting like another Ding Guangen."[13]

Li retired from PSC in 2012, which Liu Yunshan succeed his position as the propaganda chief.