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Wang Qishan

Wang Qishan, male, Han ethnicity, was born in July 1948 and is from Tianzhen, Shanxi Province. Wang’s surprise appointment to the vice-presidency in March 2018, despite his having passed the traditional retirement age for top party leaders, was widely interpreted as a sign that he would play a high-profile role in international affairs, with a focus on the US.

He began his first job in January 1969 and joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in February 1983. Wang graduated from the University Regular Class at the Department of History at Northwest University, China, with a major in history. He is a senior economist. He was elected Vice President of the People's Republic of China (PRC) in March 2018. Wang has a long track record of handling tough situations, both domestically and internationally. He previously served as China’s top economic representative in high-level security and economic talks with Washington, during the administrations of both former presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

Interlocutors describe Wang as capable, open, and progressive. Wang had strong financial credentials, having served as a deputy governor of the People's Bank of China and a former vice governor of Guangdong Province. Before assuming his position is Beijing's Deputy Party Secretary, Deputy Mayor and then Mayor, Wang was Executive Vice Governor (in charge of finance) and CPCC Standing Committee Member in Guangdong from 1997 to 2000. Wang, the son-in-law of the late CPC senior official Yao Yilin, had considerable central and local administration experience, financial industry expertise and an academic background in both rural and financial research. In Guangdong, he was responsible for handling the aftermath of the disastrous bankruptcy of the Guangdong International Trust and Investment Co., which had borrowed heavily from overseas financial institutions and invested in local projects, most of which were failures.

Wang Qishan is known for regaling his visitors with erudite references to books such as Alexis de Tocqueville’s 19th-century treatises on American democracy and the French Revolution. Wang has struck visitors as oddly out of touch, and occasionally more arrogant than charming.

1969-1971 Educated youth, Fengzhuang Commune, Yan'an County, Shaanxi Province. 1971-1973 Worked at the Shaanxi Provincial Museum. 1973-1976 Studied history at Department of History, Northwest University, China. 1976-1979 Worked at the Shaanxi Provincial Museum. 1979-1982 Intern researcher, Institute of Modern History, Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.

1982-1986 Section chief, research fellow at the deputy bureau level and Deputy Director of the Liaison Office, Rural Policy Research Office, CPC Central Committee Secretariat and Rural Development Research Center, State Council

1986-1988 Research fellow at the bureau level, Rural Policy Research Office, CPC Central Committee Secretariat. Director, Liaison Office, Rural Development Research Center, State Council. Director, National Office for Pilot Areas of Rural Reform. Acting Director and Director, Development Institute, Rural Development Research Center, State Council. 1988-1989 General Manager and Party Committee Secretary of China Rural Trust and Investment Corporation.

1989-1993 Vice Governor and member of Leading Party Members Group, People's Construction Bank of China. Took a continuing studies course for Provincial- and Ministerial-level Cadres, Central Party School (Sep-Nov 1992). 1993-1994 Vice Governor and member of Leading Party Members Group, People's Bank of China. 1994-1996 Governor and Leading Party Members Group Secretary, People's Construction Bank of China. 1996-1997 Governor and Leading Party Members Group Secretary, China Construction Bank.

1997-1998 Member, Standing Committee of CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee. 1998-2000 Member, Standing Committee of CPC Guangdong Provincial Committee and Vice Governor, Guangdong Province. 2002-2003 Secretary, CPC Hainan Provincial Committee. Chairman, Standing Committee of Hainan Provincial People's Congress. 2000-2002 Director and Leading Party Members Group Secretary, the Office for Economic Restructuring of the State Council.

2003-2004 Acting Mayor, Beijing, Deputy Secretary, CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, and Executive Chairman and Leading Party Members Group Deputy Secretary, Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. 2004-2007 Mayor, Beijing, Deputy Secretary, CPC Beijing Municipal Committee, and Executive Chairman and Leading Party Members Group Deputy Secretary, Beijing Organizing Committee for the Games of the XXIX Olympiad. 2007-2008 Member, CPC Central Committee Political Bureau.

There were no major surprises in the elections for Premier, Vice Premiers and other key State Council (Cabinet) positions at the 16-17 March 2008 plenary sessions of China's National People's Congress (NPC). Wen Jiabao was "reelected" Premier, Li Keqiang, Hui Liangyu, Zhang Dejiang and Wang Qishan were "elected" Vice Premiers.

2008-2011 he was a Member, CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, Vice Premier, State Council, Member, Leading Party Members Group of the State Council, and Chairman, Organizing Committee for the 2010 Shanghai World Expo. 2012-2013 Member, Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, Secretary, Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, and Vice Premier, State Council. He was a Member of the Leading Party Members Group of the State Council. 2011-2012 Member, CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, Vice Premier, State Council, and Member, Leading Party Members Group of the State Council

2013-2017 he was a Member, Standing Committee of the CPC Central Committee Political Bureau, and Secretary, Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. For five years Wang was the ruthless head of President Xi Jinping’s anti-corruption campaign. The two men are “princeling” members of prominent political families — Xi by birth and Wang by marriage.

Xi’s decision to allow Wang to stay around after stepping down as the party’s anti-corruption chief, was a rare and what some analysts call bold move. Wang was the first ordinary party member to serve as vice president since the early 1990s. When Xi Jinping, Hu Jintao and Zeng Qinghong all served as vice president they were also members of the party’s powerful Politburo Standing Committee. Even though he's not a member to the Politburo Standing Committee, Wang was still tapped to be China's vice president. That shows how much power Xi is willing to grant him.

And with Wang Qishan by his side, Xi won’t feel alone. Wang Qishan has spearheaded Xi's battle on graft since the 18th party congress, so, the both men's fate is intertwined (as political partners). The massive anti-corruption drive that Xi has led since rising to power has already investigated more than one million party members, winning praise from the public for helping weed out low-level graft and eliminating Xi’s political rivals.

The anti-graft campaign, which began when Xi rose to power five years ago, has seen more than a million party members investigated, but now the new watchdog body will oversee an even wider swath of the country’s bureaucracy, including civil servants and employees of state-owned enterprises, regardless of whether they are party members or not. Xi’s anti-corruption drive is aimed at uprooting graft, but it is also an effort to ensure the Communist Party's legitimacy and boosting the Chinese leader's popularity, something that it is more key now that he has a mandate to stay in office as long as he likes. More importantly, analysts note, is the drive's political agenda to squash opponents and rivals for Xi.

Many easily fell victim to the arbitrary system that Jerome Cohen, a Chinese legal scholar at New York University, has described as “the [Spanish] Inquisition with Chinese characteristics.” In that process, Wang has made many enemies. After staying in the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection for five years, Wang Qishan has created a big empire and there is even a Wang Qishan faction within the party.

Based on Wang Qishan’s performance as China’s anti-corruption head, it’s unlikely that Xi is keeping him around to go soft on Washington. "Given his track record in fighting corruption, he's a tough man. Xi Jinping would not promote him to vice president to play a dovish role. To meet Xi's expectation, he will take up a hawkish role in dealing with the US when it comes to trade challenges.

How a more prominent role for Wang as vice president would work is still uncertain. In the past, China’s vice president has not been a significantly administrative or substantive position. If Wang takes up the mantle of handling relations with the United States that would change dramatically. In Beijing, the question is how he will fit into an already existing hierarchy of government ministries tasked with handling relations with Washington. And the question there, is how Wang’s office and his staff will interact with the United States and whether it will be above government ministries and the foreign policy establishment.