Internationally denounced as a butcher, Chen Quanguo is replaced. His successor states policies will remain the same.
by Li Haoyu
While Christians celebrated Christmas, the CCP replaced Chen Quanguo as Party secretary in Xinjiang with Ma Xingrui. Targeted by international sanctions as the main responsible of human rights abuses in the region, Chen had already a black record in the repression of Buddhists in Tibet before he was transferred to Xinjiang in 2016 to apply his repressive skills to Muslims.
International media are speculating whether Chen has been removed in an attempt to attenuate Western criticism. However, this kind of turnover is normal in China, Chen remains a member of the Politburo, and he is being praised by Chinese media for having achieved his purpose of bringing “stability and order” to Xinjiang in his five years of tenure.
His successor Ma Xingrui was Governor of Guangdong, and has a background as a scientist. He earned a Ph.D. at the Harbin Institute of Technology and was the general manager of China Aerospace Science & Technology Corp, and the chief commander of the Chang’e exploration mission to the Moon. This makes him a different character from Chen, and one who may elicit some Western sympathy.
However, Ma’s first statements emphasized continuity. He celebrated how “in recent years, the Party committee of the autonomous region with Secretary Chen Quanguo at the core has adhered to Xi Jinping’s new era of socialism with Chinese characteristics as the guidance, united and led cadres and masses of all ethnic groups in the region, and achieved significant results in promoting Xinjiang work. Secretary Chen Quanguo has devoted a lot of effort and made important contributions to the cause of reform, development, and stability in Xinjiang,” Ma said.
Ma Xingrui promised that he will “keep in mind General Secretary Xi Jinping’s Xinjiang policy, earnestly implement the spirit of the Third Central Xinjiang Work Symposium and the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s crucial speech on Xinjiang work,” will “always adhere with loyalty to the Party,” and “always follow Comrade Xi Jinping’s ideological and political guidance.”
While these statements are routine for newly appointed CCP officials, Ma specifically promised to “accurately implement the Party’s strategy of governing Xinjiang in the new era, persist in taking social stability and long-term stability as the general goals of Xinjiang’s work, and unswervingly promote the sustained and long-term stability of Xinjiang’s society, and never allow the hard-won stable situation to be reversed.”
Ma promised to “forge ahead” on the road of “stabilization” traced by Chen. He may be a more cultivated and, based on his tenure in Guangdong, a more smiling bureaucrat than Chen. But he is already promising Xinjiang more of the same.