Zhao Kezhi, China’s highest-ranking official in charge of the police forces, has been officially replaced as minister of public security by Wang Xiaohong, a close ally of Xi Jinping, who is seeking to hold on to his position as Chinese Communist Party (CCP) head in the upcoming 20th National Congress.
The announcement came on June 24. The same day, the website of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC)—one of the CCP’s domestic security apparatuses that maintains control across different levels of central, provincial, and municipal government offices—added Wang as the second deputy chief. This is unusual because of two reasons.
