Li Hongzhong

Li Hongzhong
李鸿忠
Li in 2020
First Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress
Incumbent
Assumed office 10 March 2023
Chairman	Zhao Leji
Preceded by	Wang Chen
Communist Party Secretary of Tianjin
In office 13 September 2016 – 8 December 2022
Deputy	Wang Dongfeng (mayor)
General secretary	Xi Jinping
Preceded by	Huang Xingguo
Succeeded by	Chen Min'er
Communist Party Secretary of Hubei
In office 6 December 2010 – 13 September 2016
Deputy	Wang Guosheng (governor)
General secretary	Hu Jintao Xi Jinping
Preceded by	Luo Qingquan
Succeeded by	Jiang Chaoliang
Governor of Hubei
In office 6 December 2007 – 16 December 2010
Preceded by	Luo Qingquan
Succeeded by	Wang Guosheng
Personal details
Born	(1956-08-13) 13 August 1956 (age 68) Shenyang, China
Political party	Chinese Communist Party
Alma mater	Jilin University

Li Hongzhong (Chinese: 李鸿忠; born 13 August 1956) is a Chinese politician, who is currently the first-ranking vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress and a member of the Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party.

Born in Shenyang, Li spent much of his early career in Guangdong province, including as mayor, then party secretary of Shenzhen. He was transferred to Hubei province in 2007 and would go on to serve as Governor and party secretary there. He served as the Communist Party Secretary of Tianjin between 2016 and 2022.

Li was born in Shenyang, Liaoning in August 1956, but traces his ancestry to Changle, Shandong. Between 1975 and 1978, during the Cultural Revolution, he performed manual labour as a sent-down youth in an agricultural near Shenyang. In 1976, he joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). In 1978, he earned admission to the history department at Jilin University, where he graduated from with a bachelor’s degree in 1982.^[1][2]

After he graduated, Li was sent to work at the government. In 1982, he started working as a mishu for Li Tieying, who first served as the Communist Party Secretary of Shenyang and later as the Communist Party Secretary of Liaoning. After Li Tieying moved to Beijing to become the Minister of the Electronics Industry in 1985, Li Hongzhong became a secretary in the Ministry.^[2] In 1988 he was sent to Guangdong province, where he would go on to spend two decades of his political career. He first served as the vice mayor of Huizhou until 1995, the deputy party secretary and mayor from 1995 to 2000, and the party secretary from 2000 to 2001. He became the vice governor of Guangdong in 2001, later becoming the executive vice mayor in 2003.^[2]

In 2002, after the 16th Party Congress, Li became an alternate member of the CCP Central Committee. He became the acting mayor and mayor of Shenzhen, China's most prominent Special Economic Zone, in 2004. In March 2005, he was named Communist Party secretary of Shenzhen. In November 2007, he was transferred to Hubei province, where he took on the office of deputy party secretary and governor. In December 2010, he became the party secretary of Hubei. During his Hubei governorship, the Shishou incident and Deng Yujiao incident occurred in the province.^[2][3]

In preparation for the Third Plenum of the 18th Central Committee, Li Hongzhong was only one of two regional officials (the other was Huang Qifan) selected to be part of the drafting committee on the "resolution for deepening reform."^[4] On June 1, 2015, the Dongfang Zhixing ferry sank, causing the deaths of some 442 people. Only 12 people were rescued, but the Hubei government granted accolades to some 99 organizations and 253 individuals.^[5][6]

On January 15, 2016, at a meeting of the provincial party standing committee, Li endorsed the "Xi Jinping leadership core" principle, stating, "the Politburo and its Standing Committee are the core leaders [hexin] of the party, General Secretary Xi Jinping is the core leader of the party center. To proactively maintain the authority of the party center means maintaining the leading core of General Secretary Xi Jinping."^[7]

In September 2016, Li was appointed the Communist Party Secretary of Tianjin, replacing Huang Xingguo, who was dismissed for corruption. Li became a member of the CCP Politburo after the 19th Party Congress in October 2017.^[8]

After the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, Li was reappointed as a member of the Politburo. Li was appointed as the first-ranking vice chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress on 10 March 2023.

In July 2023, Li was part of a Chinese delegation that traveled to North Korea to commemorate the Korean Armistice Agreement.^[9]

In March 2010, when Li Hongzhong, then Governor of Hubei, was attending the 11th National People's Congress in Beijing, Beijing Times journalist Liu Jie asked him to comment on the case of Deng Yujiao, a Hubei pedicurist who killed a government official who tried to rape her. Li refused to comment on the case, which was considered an embarrassment to the government of Hubei, and instead grabbed the recorder from her.^[10] The incident was widely reported in Chinese media, but Li refused to apologize to Liu Jie, stating that she stuttered when he asked her which newspaper she represented, and that he was unsure about her identity.^[10] A week later, at least 210 intellectuals and journalists, including dramatist Sha Yexin, scholars Cui Weiping and Hu Yong, and the prominent former People's Daily editor Zhou Ruijin, signed an open letter demanding Li to resign.^[10]

The petition was ultimately unsuccessful, as Li Hongzhong was promoted to party chief (i.e. top office) of Hubei in December.^[11] However, in the face of media scrutiny, Li made a statement suggesting that he was in favour of the media reporting the Shishou incident and the Deng Yujiao incident, as long as the news media conducted itself in a "fair and objective" manner.^[12]