Li Hongzhong

Li Hongzhong
李鸿忠
Communist Party Secretary of Hubei
Incumbent
Assumed office December 2010
Preceded by	Luo Qingquan
Governor of Hubei
In office December 2007 – December 2010
Preceded by	Luo Qingquan
Succeeded by	Wang Guosheng
Personal details
Born	August 1956 (age 59) Changle County, Shandong, China
Political party	Communist Party of China
Alma mater	Jilin University

Li Hongzhong (Chinese: 李鸿忠; born August 1956) is a Chinese politician, serving since 2010 as the Communist Party Secretary of Hubei province and Chairman of Hubei People's Congress. Formerly he was Governor of Hubei, Deputy Governor of Guangdong province, and Communist Party Chief and Mayor of Shenzhen and Huizhou cities.

Biography

Li was born in Changle County, Shandong province. During the Cultural Revolution, he performed manual labour as a sent-down youth in Sujiatun District, Shenyang, Liaoning Province. In 1978, he earned admission to the history department at Jilin University.^[1] After he graduated, Li was sent to work at the government. He worked for the General Office of the Shenyang municipal government, then a secretary at the ministry of electronics industry. In 1988 he was sent to Guangdong province, where he would go on to spend two decades of his political career.^[2] He successively served as the mayor and party chief of Huizhou City, then the vice governor of Guangdong, then in 2003, the acting mayor and mayor of Shenzhen, China's most prominent Special Economic Zone.^[2]

In March 2005, he was named Communist Party chief of Shenzhen. In November 2007, he was transferred to Hubei province, where he took on the office of deputy party chief, governor, and then finally in December 2010, provincial party chief. During his Hubei governorship, the Shishou incident and Deng Yujiao incident occurred in the province.^[3]

Deng Yujiao incident

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.^[4] 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.^[4] 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.^[4]

The petition was ultimately unsuccessful, as Li Hongzhong was promoted to party chief (i.e. top office) of Hubei in December.^[2] 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 conducts itself in a "fair and objective" manner.^[5]

References

1. "Li Hongzhong". China Vitae. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
2. 李鸿忠简历 [Biography of Li Hongzhong] (in Chinese). Xinhua News Agency. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
3. 李鸿忠简历 [Biography of Li Hongzhong] (in Chinese). People's Daily. Retrieved 20 February 2013.
4. Kristine Kwok (14 March 2010). "Open letter demands governor step down". South China Morning Post.
5. 中国新闻界上书弹劾李鸿忠. BBC (in Chinese). 13 March 2010.