Cai Qi

Cai Qi ( zh, c=蔡奇, p=Cài Qí; born December 5, 1955) is a Chinese politician, who is the current first-ranked secretary of the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), fifth-ranking member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee and the director of the CCP General Office, making him the ''de facto'' chief of staff to CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping.

Cai began his career in Fujian province. He has served successively as the mayor of Sanming, the mayor of Quzhou, the mayor of Hangzhou and the CCP committee secretary of Taizhou, Zhejiang. Beginning in 2010 he served as the executive vice governor of Zhejiang Province, and in 2014 was transferred to Beijing to serve as deputy director of the CCP National Security Commission Office (rank equivalent of minister). Between 2017 and 2022, he was the Party Secretary of Beijing. Largely due to Cai's extensive experience working in Zhejiang province, he is believed to be a political ally of CCP General Secretary Xi Jinping.

Early life

Cai was born in Youxi County, Fujian province on December 5, 1955. During the latter years of the Cultural Revolution he worked at the Xiyang Commune, Yong'an, Fujian. He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in August 1975. Cai attended Fujian Normal University and graduated in 1978 with a degree in political economics. Afterwards, he stayed in the university as an official in its CCP committee, working there until 1983.

Early local careers

Fujian

In 1983, he was transferred to the Fujian Provincial Committee of the CCP, working there as a clerk until 1985, then working as a division deputy head between 1985 and 1987, and then working as a '' mishu'' at a General Work Department between 1987 and 1991. He worked as the deputy director of the Office of Political Reform between 1991 and 1992, deputy director of the Party Building Department between 1992 and 1993, and deputy director of the Provincial Party General Office between 1993 and 1996. As deputy director of the General Office, he was primarily a personal secretary to then Fujian CCP secretary Chen Guangyi.

Between 1994 and 1997, he pursued a post-graduate degree in economic law at his alma mater via part-time studies. He additionally attended a four-month training program for department and prefecture-level cadres at the CCP Central Party School in 1996. In September 1996 Cai took on his first major role in local government as the deputy CCP secretary, and later in November 1997, mayor of the city of Sanming in Fujian, working there until 1999.

Zhejiang

He was transferred to Zhejiang province in May 1999 serving as the deputy CCP committee secretary and Mayor of Quzhou, working there until 2002. Cai additionally pursued a doctoral degree in political economics, which he obtained from September 1999 to July 2001 at Fujian Normal University through part-time studies. Between March 2002 and April 2004 Cai served as Quzhou's CCP secretary, the top political office of the city. He engaged with the "" of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee and executed the dual initiatives of designating the city as an industrial hub and capitalizing on its developmental advantages, thereby establishing a foundation for advancement in Quzhou.

In April 2004 Cai became party secretary of Taizhou, Zhejiang; at the time, Xi Jinping was the party secretary of Zhejiang province. In April 2007, Cai was promoted to the position Mayor of Hangzhou, the provincial capital, also serving as deputy CCP Secretary. In July 2008, as Hangzhou mayor, Cai started a scheme to recruit petition liaison officers.

In January 2010, he became a member of the provincial CCP Standing Committee as head of the party's provincial Organization Department. In November 2013, Cai became the Executive Vice Governor of Zhejiang province, where he was the deputy of then Governor of Zhejiang Li Qiang. He made the announcement of his change in jobs on his Tencent Weibo account before the official media's announcement was made.

Beijing

In March 2014, Cai was said to have been transferred to Beijing to work as the deputy director of the General Office of the CCP National Security Commission, a newly established body led by CCP general secretary Xi Jinping, though no official announcement was made about this appointment. In April 2015, he assumed the position of Executive Deputy Director of the Office of the Central National Security Commission.

Party Secretary of Beijing

On 31 October 2016, Cai was appointed acting mayor of Beijing, replacing Wang Anshun. In November 2016, he served as the Executive Chairman of the Organizing Committee for the Beijing 2022 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. In December 2016, in response to rising house prices, he said the municipal government would "make sure" prices will "not rise" in 2017. On 7 January 2017, Cai announced the creation of a new environmental police, which he said would target target open-air barbecues, garbage incineration and the burning of wood and other biomass. He also set ambitious targets for reducing pollution in the city.

He was formally appointed as mayor by the Beijing Municipal People's Congress on 20 January 2017. He was also appointed as the deputy CCP committee secretary of Beijing. In February 2017, he became the head of a leading group in Beijing to ensure that the military stopped providing paid services. In May 2017, Cai was appointed as CCP committee secretary of Beijing. Cai's appointment broke nearly all conventions in post-Cultural Revolution political tradition; he was neither a member nor alternate member of the Central Committee, and took on an office that would, under normal circumstances, be accorded Politburo membership.

In preparation for the 19th CCP National Congress, Cai called for strengthening social controls and cyber security defense, and cracking down on "various political rumors and harmful information" in September 2017. He was appointed to the 19th CCP Politburo immediately after the 19th CCP National Congress in October 2017, becoming one of the few people to be appointed to the Politburo before serving at the CCP Central Committee.

In 2017, early in his tenure, Cai came under controversy due to the forceful eviction of many migrant workers from Beijing. On November 18, 2017, a significant fire incident transpired in a communal rental housing structure in Xihongmen, Beijing, leading to 19 fatalities and 8 injuries. Following the incident and the resultant tragic casualties from the fire, Beijing initiated a 40-day special operation on November 20, 2017, aimed at conducting a comprehensive investigation and remediation of potential safety hazards, particularly in group-rented housing identified as having significant fire risks.

During his tenure, Cai Qi promoted green development, particularly environmental protection, in Beijing. In 2016, the yearly average PM2.5 concentration in Beijing decreased by 9.9% compared to the previous year, resulting in a total reduction of 23.7% since 2012. He also devoted work to national security issues, especially cybersecurity. In June 2020, Cai was appointed to lead the team charged with the elimination of coronavirus in the Xinfadi market.

As the Beijing Party secretary, Cai was responsible for organizing the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games in Beijing. In June 2017, he was appointed President of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2022 Olympic and Paralympic Winter Games. He gave an opening speech during the opening ceremony of the Olympics, as well as during the closing ceremony. He was awarded the Gold Olympic Order after the Olympics.

CCP top leadership

Following the 1st Plenary Session of the 20th CCP Central Committee, held after the closing day of the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, Cai was appointed to the CCP Politburo Standing Committee as its fifth-ranking member, also becoming the first-ranking secretary of the CCP Secretariat. On November 13, 2022, Cai Qi relinquished his position as Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee, being succeeded by Yin Li. On December 6, 2022, Cai Qi officiated Jiang Zemin's memorial service at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. On December 11, Jiang Zemin's widow Wang Yeping and other relatives, as well as Cai Qi, slowly scattered Jiang's ashes along with colourful flower petals at the estuary of the Yangtze River.

In March 2023, he became the director of the CCP General Office, succeeding Ding Xuexiang; this made him the first General Office director that's also member of the Politburo Standing Committee since Wang Dongxing. Cai was revealed as a deputy head of the CCP National Security Commission in May 2023. According to the ''South China Morning Post'', Xi appointed Cai to succeed himself as the leader of the Central Cyberspace Affairs Commission in the first half of 2023. Cai has also frequently accompanied Xi on trips, responsible for arranging his security, schedule and daily affairs.

He spoke at the annual National Publicity Ministers Work Conference (NPMWC) in January 2023, where he called on officials to use core socialist values, improve foreign propaganda work, and uphold Xi Jinping Thought and Two Establishes and Two Upholds. In August, Cai hosted 57 scientists at the “forefront of domestic technology” in Beidaihe. In October, Cai held a National Conference on Propaganda, Ideology, and Cultural Work, where the CCP put forward the Xi Jinping Thought on Culture. At the January 2024 annual NPMWC, Cai called on propaganda officials to "strengthen positive publicity and public opinion" and "sing loudly about China's bright economic prospects". In April 2024, the leading group of Central Leading Group for Party Building held a meeting presided by Cai Qi, which said a Party discipline education campaign within the CCP would be held from April to July 2024. In August 2024, he hosted leading scientists from artificial intelligence, quantum physics, deep-sea exploration and aerospace sectors in Beidaihe.

In January 2025, Cai called on officials to step up promotion of China's economic achievements at the annual NPMWC conference. On February 5, 2025, he chaired a meeting of the central-level special working mechanism aimed at rectifying formalism to alleviate burdens on grassroots entities, underscoring the execution of the Central Committee's Eight-point Regulation and the ongoing efforts to mitigate formalism's impact on grassroots operations.

Public image

Cai is known for his extensive use of social media and his unorthodox approach to governance. Cai has referred to Xi as "Xi Dada" (Uncle Xi) and "Boss Xi" in public media. ''The Economist'' opined in 2017 as Cai "rocketed up the Communist Party's ranks" that "Xi Jinping has chosen an unusual man to lead the capital city." Cai is said to have been a fan of Kevin Spacey's '' House of Cards'' TV serial, and was cited as a fan of the iPhone product.

Cai maintains a Weibo microblog account under the subtitle "Cai Qi, a Bolshevik", which has been active since May 2010. The account was initially opened under the name ''Qianshui'' (潜水; literally, "scuba diving"), but he was eventually 'outed' by internet users. The account is 'followed' by over ten million people. He used it regularly to communicate with citizens. As a sub-provincial-level official Cai was one of the highest-ranking officials to maintain a regular social media presence. It is the opinion of certain political scholars that Cai used this Weibo tool to circumvent existing CCP apparatus and thereby gain public profile, "considerable influence" within the CCP and thereby promotion. Cai has stated of the CCP that: He stopped posting on Weibo after his transfer to Beijing in March 2014.

Personal life

Before retirement, Cai Qi's wife was a bureau-level official in Zhejiang. The couple have a son, who previously worked as an official at the subdistrict level in Hangzhou and as a staff member at the National Development and Reform Commission.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Cai, Qi
1955 births
Living people
21st-century mayors of places in China
People from Sanming
Mayors of Hangzhou
Mayors of Beijing
Political office-holders in Fujian
Members of the 19th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party
Members of the 20th Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party
Fujian Normal University alumni
Presidents of the Organising Committees for the Olympic Games
Recipients of the Olympic Order
Delegates to the 14th National People's Congress
Delegates to the 13th National People's Congress
Delegates to the 11th National People's Congress
Delegates to the 9th National People's Congress
Directors of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party
Standing Members of the CCP Beijing Municipal Committee
Secretary of the CCP Beijing Municipal Committee