Li Qiang

Li Qiang (born July 1959) is a Chinese politician.

He became the 8th premier of the People's Republic of China in March 2023, having been elevated to the second-ranking member on the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Central Committee Politburo Standing Committee in October 2022.

Li was born in Rui'an, Zhejiang in July 1959.

He was a worker in the Irrigation Pump Station of Mayu District, Rui'an County from 1976 to 1977, and worked in the Third Tool Factory of Rui'an from 1977 to 1978.

Li Qiang studied agricultural mechanization at the Ningbo Branch of Zhejiang Agricultural University (now Zhejiang Wanli University) from 1978 to 1982.

He studied sociology by correspondence at the private China Sociology Correspondence University (defunct in 2021) in Beijing from 1985 to 1987.

He worked as a clerk at the Rui'an County Committee of the Communist Youth League of China (CYLC) from 1982 to 1983, and later as the secretary of the committee from 1983 to 1984.

He then served in progressively senior roles in the provincial department of civil affairs.

Li joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in April 1983.

He first served as the deputy division head and then division head of the Rural Relief Division of the Zhejiang Provincial Civil Affairs Department from 1984 to 1991.

He then served as the director of the Civil Affairs Department's Personnel Division from 1991 to 1992, and finally as the deputy head of the Civil Affairs Department from 1992 to 1996.

Li attended Zhejiang University for on-the-job graduate studies in management engineering from 1995 to 1997 and the Central Party School for on-the-job graduate studies in world economics from 2001 to 2004.

In 1996, he became a member of the Party Standing Committee of the prefecture-level city of Jinhua and the Communist Party secretary of the city of county-level city of Yongkang (which is part of Jinhua).

In 1998, he was reappointed as the deputy director of the Zhejiang Provincial Government's General Office.

The close relationship started in the mid-2000s when both held party positions in Zhejiang Province.

Li is generally regarded by observers as pro-business and has voiced support for economic reforms.

In 2000, he became the director and party secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Government's Bureau of Administration for Industry and Commerce.

In 2002, he was appointed as the party secretary of the prefecture-level city of Wenzhou.

By then he was only 43, and was the youngest party secretary of Wenzhou in history.

He attended Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 2003 to 2005 and received an executive Master of Business Administration in 2005.

In 2004, Li became the secretary-general of Zhejiang's Provincial Party Committee and earned a seat on its Standing Committee in the next year, serving under then Zhejiang's party secretary, Xi Jinping, in charge of administration and coordination.

During this time, he became close to Xi, eventually being regarded as a close ally of him.

This led the professor to establish a non-governmental group of experts in 2009, with Li as its honorary director.

In February 2011, he became the Political and Legal Affairs Secretary of Zhejiang province, and several months later was made deputy party secretary.

Li is considered part of the "New Zhijiang Army", the party faction of Xi Jinping, the CCP general secretary and top leader since 2012.

On December 21, 2012, he became the acting governor of Zhejiang, succeeding Xia Baolong who was promoted to the provincial party secretary, and was officially elected as governor on January 30, 2013.

During his tenure in Zhejiang, he asked the non-governmental group of experts to write reports on his performance that "tell the truth", and later paid them a visit for a face-to-face feedback after feeling their first reports weren't critical enough.

In 2014, when Zhejiang was preparing to hold an international internet conference, Li proposed that the host city turn into a pilot zone for unblocking China's strict internet controls for Western firms, an idea that was ultimately not approved by the central leadership.

He also started a project to create "characteristic towns", small towns focused on one type of business that have a pro-business climate and good physical environments.

These included "Dream Town" for tech entrepreneurs and "Chocolate Town" for chocolate producers, both located in Zhejiang.

This project was endorsed and spread to rest of China by Xi.

The Economist reported in 2023 that "many such towns became speculative hotspots for housing developers, and the kinds of businesses they were supposed to cultivate sometimes failed to take off".

According to Guangming Daily in 2015, during his tenure in Zhejiang Li told a professor at Zhejiang University that the province's local government needed an "independent think-tank like the RAND Corporation" to evaluate its performance, saying that it was "very difficult" for official organizations and officials to give objective analysis and criticize their superiors.

On June 30, 2016, Li was named party secretary of Jiangsu province.

He was removed as Zhejiang governor on July 4, 2016, when he was succeeded by Che Jun.

He served for 15 months, becoming the shortest serving Jiangsu party secretary in the history of the People's Republic.

During his tenure, he arranged meetings with business officials such as Jack Ma of Alibaba Group to encourage investments.

Li was the party secretary for Shanghai City from 2017 to 2022 where he pursued pro-business policies and handled the response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

On October 29, 2017, following the 19th Party Congress, Li was appointed as the party secretary of Shanghai.

After the 18th CCP National Congress, he became an alternate member of the CCP Central Committee.