BEIJING - A former district Party chief in Chongqing municipality, who hit the headlines when he ordered a real estate developer to stop work because a project was ruining the fengshui of a government building, has been promoted.

An officer with Jiangjin district government, who insisted on anonymity, told China Daily that Wang Yinfeng started work as the new deputy secretary-general of Chongqing municipal government last week.

The appointment was approved at the 98th executive meeting of the municipality's government on April 15, according to Chongqing Evening News.

Earlier this month, Xinhua News Agency reported that 49-year-old Wang had stepped down from his former position as district Party chief while "waiting for a further assignment".

Some observers had expected Wang's career to take a nosedive.

Wang became infamous when an online audio recording was posted in which Wang appeared to ask a developer to stop work on a residential project and offered another piece of land for the project instead because the building - with a planned height of 108 meters - would dwarf the government's building behind it, block its view and ruin its fengshui.

In the recording, the developer refused to stop work and Wang appeared to threaten him that he would become the focus of a crackdown similar to the one that was targeting criminal gangs in the municipality at the time. The clip spread quickly on the Internet.

The news of Wang being promoted startled many.

Pan Guoqiang, a netizen from Hebei province, said sarcastically in a post on sina.com that the promotion proved Wang's previous move to protect the government building's fengshui had paid off.

Dai Fu, a lawyer from Beijing, said on his blog: "Wang's previous remarks have shown that the local government was not disposed to consider the people's mindset. It's unbelievable that Chongqing government promoted an official like this."