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Sun Zhengcai (Chinese: 孙政才; born September 1963) is a Chinese politician and senior regional official. From 2012 to 2017, Sun served as the Communist Party Secretary of Chongqing, an interior municipality. He has also been a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China since 2012. Prior to that, he served as the Party Secretary of Jilin province, and Minister of Agriculture of China.

Sun is the youngest member of the 18th Politburo of the Communist Party of China, and one of only two members born after 1960, the other being Hu Chunhua. As such, Sun was once considered to be a leading candidate for a top leadership position in the "6th Generation of Chinese leadership". However, in 2017, he was removed from his post as Chongqing Party Committee Secretary , an event that put a cloud over his political future.

Early Career

Sun was born to an ordinary family of farmers in a village located near the city of Rongcheng, Shandong province in September 1963. In 1980, Sun was admitted to the Laiyang Agricultural College (now Qingdao Agricultural University). After obtaining a bachelor's degree, he pursued post-graduate work at the Beijing Agriculture and Forestry Institute and the China Agricultural University, where he obtained master's degrees in agronomy. After completing his academic work, he remained at the institute to conduct further research and eventually obtained positions as an administrator, rising to become executive vice president of the institute, in charge of its day-to-day work.

Sun joined the Communist Party of China in July 1988. In 1997, he was named governor and Deputy Communist Party Secretary of Shunyi County in rural Beijing. Shunyi was then converted from a county to an urban district; Sun continued to serve as district governor. In February 2002, he became the Party Secretary of the Shunyi District outside of Beijing, and also earned a seat on the municipal Party Standing Committee. After serving concurrently as secretary general of the Beijing party organization from 2002 to 2006, in December 2006, he was appointed as Minister of Agriculture as nominated by Premier Wen Jiabao. At age 43, Sun was one of the youngest State Council ministers at the time.

Jilin and Chongqing

In November 2009, Sun was named party chief of Jilin province, in northeast China. In November 2012, after the 18th CPC National Congress, he was appointed a member of the Politburo and replaced Zhang Dejiang as party chief of Chongqing. The post in Chongqing had emerged as one of the most important regional offices in China, and Sun's assuming the reins in the interior municipality signaled that he was likely destined for even higher office. It also demonstrated the trust that the central leadership placed in Sun, as Chongqing had only monthly earlier weathered a political storm with the attempted defection of police chief Wang Lijun and the ouster of party chief Bo Xilai. Since the 1990s, regional leadership tenures were seen as important stepping stones to eventual national leadership.

In February 2017, inspection teams under the auspices of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection released a report announcing that Chongqing had not done enough to excise its political scene from the influence of Bo Xilai and Wang Lijun. It was the first blot on Sun in an otherwise steady term in Chongqing. In May 2017, he was re-elected as secretary of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee.

In July 2017, party authorities announced that Sun was to be replaced in his post as party secretary of Chongqing by Chen Min'er, who was propaganda chief in Zhejiang when Xi Jinping was provincial party secretary there. The meeting to announce the event had been called abruptly, and Sun himself was not present at the handover ceremony; there was no mention of his record in Chongqing, either, as was customary for major transition meetings. Curiously, footage of Sun also appeared to be deliberately cut from Xinwen Lianbo coverage of the National Finance Work Conference - a meeting attended by all Politburo members. These circumstances led to speculation that Sun had been sidelined or was otherwise placed under investigation by the authorities.

Political future

On the 18th Politburo, Sun and Hu Chunhua, then-party secretary of Guangdong, were the only members born after 1960 with a seat on the elite council. As one of the youngest provincial-level leaders of his generation, Sun was considered as a promising candidate for the sixth-generation leaders of the Communist Party, expected to come to power in 2022, and even characterized by some media outlets as a potential successor to Xi Jinping.

It is not clear if Sun had any strong backing from former political heavyweights prior to his ascendancy to the Politburo; more likely, he was a consensus candidate whose loyalties crossed factional lines. It has been suggested that Jia Qinglin or Wen Jiabao may have served as Sun's advocate for promotion; the former because Sun worked for Beijing for much of his early political career, where Jia Qinglin was party secretary, and the latter because Wen and Sun both share a modest upbringing and common concerns for China's rural population.

Sun's sudden removal from his leadership post in Chongqing in July 2017 likely ended his rise, if not his political career. Lacking an official pronouncement, however, it is unclear whether Sun will face demotion or criminal indictment. Should Sun be disgraced, he would be only the fourth Politburo member since 1990 to be ejected from the body, after Chen Xitong, Chen Liangyu, and Bo Xilai; all of them were party chiefs of major municipalities.

Sun is a member of the 17th and 18th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China.

References

1. ^ Cheng, Li. "Sun Zhengcai 孙政才: One of China's Top Future Leaders to Watch". Brookings John L Thornton China Centre. Archived from the original on 8 April 2013. {{cite news}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 9 April 2013 suggested (help); Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
2. Cheng, Li. "Xi Jinping's Inner Circle" Part 5: The Mishu Cluster II" (PDF). Brookings Institution. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 22 July 2017. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
3. 快讯：孙政才任农业部部长 [News: Zhengcai as Minister of Agriculture] (in Chinese). Xinhua News Agency. 29 December 2006. Archived from the original on 1 January 2017. {{cite news}}: Invalid |script-title=: missing prefix (help); Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
4. ^ "Sun Zhengcai appointed Party chief of Chongqing". China Internet Information Center. Xinhua News Agency. 20 November 2012. Archived from the original on 20 November 2012. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
5. Li Peng , ed. (24 May 2017). "孙政才当选中共重庆市委书记 孙政才 市委书记 中共_新浪新闻" [Sun Zhengcai was elected secretary of the CPC Chongqing Municipal Committee] (in Chinese). Archived from the original on 22 July 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
6. Wong, Chun Han; Wei, Lingling (15 July 2017). "China Launches Probe Into Possible Xi Jinping Competitor". The Wall Street Journal. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |subscription= ignored (|url-access= suggested) (help)
7. "Former China Chongqing party chief under probe". The Business Times. Singapore. 16 July 2017. Archived from the original on 17 July 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
8. ^ "High-flier in Chinese politics under investigation ahead of power reshuffle, sources say". South China Morning Post. 16 July 2017. Archived from the original on 17 July 2017. {{cite news}}: |archive-date= / |archive-url= timestamp mismatch; 16 July 2017 suggested (help); Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
9. "Curse of Chongqing? Probe into Sun Zhengcai evokes memories of Bo Xilai's dramatic fall". South China Morning Post. 18 July 2017. Archived from the original on 18 July 2017. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)

• 1963 births
• Living people
• Politicians from Weihai
• People's Republic of China politicians from Shandong
• Communist Party of China politicians from Shandong
• Political office-holders in Chongqing
• Political office-holders in Beijing
• Political office-holders in Jilin
• Ministers of Agriculture of the People's Republic of China