Another pawn has been advanced in the struggle between Communist Party chief Hu Jintao and renegade Bo Xilai, with the former inserting a faction loyalist under Bo’s nose as the Party Secretary of the Chongqing Public Security Bureau.
But Guan Haixiang, the new secretary who will be overseeing security work in Chongqing, has no experience in the police force, according to the Hong Kong-based Phoenix TV station.
He replaces Wang Lijun, Bo Xilai’s former right-hand man until last week, when he apparently attempted a dramatic defection to the U.S. consulate in Chengdu. He is now said to be in the hands of Central Party officials, who may use him to take down Bo Xilai.
He is a stalwart of the Communist Youth League, however, which represents the power base of Hu Jintao and a large number of other high-level Communist Party officials.
The news was originally published on the website dayoo.com, from where it was later deleted. It was reposted widely, however, and is being held up by Internet commentators as another example of the ongoing power struggle between Hu Jintao and Bo Xilai.
Guan was helicoptered into Chongqing in July of 2009, a biography online shows. The 42-year-old is from Jilin Province and like Wang is of Mongolian ethnicity. He is a graduate of political science from the Central Party School, and was from 1994 to 2009 a political worker in the Communist Youth League. In Chongqing, beginning in 2009, he was the deputy Party secretary of Jiangjin district, before becoming the Party Secretary of that district in April of 2011.
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