A close look at the new provincial Party leadership groups

As the 11th Beijing Municipal Party Congress concluded on July 3, the Communist Party of China has completed its province-level Party committee transitions before the five-yearly National Congress of the Party.

In this round of elections, a group of young cadres born after 1960 were elected into provincial standing committees.

Among all the newly elected members of province-level standing Party committees, 118 were born after 1960, accounting for 29 percent of total, up from 34 at the last election five years ago, according to the statistics released by people.com.cn on July 3, 2012.

The newly elected province-level standing Party committee members of ethnic group regions are relatively younger than other parts.

There are seven members of the standing Party committee in Xinjiang Uygur and Tibet autonomous regions and half of the standing Party committee members of Inner Mongolia autonomous region were born after 1960.

Three province-level Party chiefs were born after 1960. They are Sun Zhengcai of Jilin province, Hu Chunhua of Inner Mongolia and Zhou Qiang of Hunan province. A total of 11 deputy Party chiefs are born after 1960.

Yang Yue, the Party chief of Fuzhou city of South China's Fujian province, is only 44 years old becoming the youngest province-level standing committee member.

The high popularity of advanced education has also attracted the public's attention. According to the statistics of people.com.cn, 199 obtain a PhD, accounting for 49 percent of all.

The statistics shows there are 35 women elected as the members of province-level standing Party committee, with Sun Chunlan of Fujian province as the only female Party chief and Libin of Anhui province as the only female provincial governor.

Five female members are the secretaries of provincial or regional Party commission for discipline inspection.

Fifty-four members are Shandong natives, accounting for 13 percent of the total, the biggest group. Hebei followed, with 29 members. Only four members are Shanghai natives, the smallest group, along with those from Hainan and Tibet.

Update

Zhao Kezhi was recenlty appointed as the new Parity chief of Guizhou province, replacing Li Zhanshu, Xinhua reported on July 18, which is not included in the statistics cited above.