Hong Kong Paper on Change of Leaders in China’s Three Major News Organizations

Text of report by Hong Kong newspaper Ta Kung Pao website on 28 April; subheadings as received

[Dispatch by staff reporter Wei Lan on 27 April from Beijing: "Change of Leaders of China's Three Major News Organizations"]

Beijing, 27 Apr (TKP) – The past half month or so, from 10 April to the present, has seen a reshuffle of the leaders of the three most important news organizations in China, namely, the Information Office of the State Council, Renmin Ribao, and the Xinhua News Agency. Wang Chen, Zhang Yannong, and Li Congjun have become the new leaders of the three organizations. A new cast of the play has loomed up on the news and propaganda work front.

The above-mentioned three organizations are very well-known at home and abroad. The Information Office of the State Council and the Office for Overseas Propaganda of the CCP Central Committee have the same staff, though they are different organizations. The main tasks of the State Council’s Information Office are apprising the world of China, undertaking the responsibilities for dispatching news and for publishing news reports on major events to the outside, as well as training press spokespersons. Renmin Ribao, an organ of the CCP Central Committee, is the most authoritative official paper and considered as the “mouthpiece of the party.” The Xinhua News Agency is China’s national press agency and the greatest centre in this country for news coverage and distribution.

On 10 April, the central authorities appointed Wang Chen, director of Renmin Ribao, as director of the Information Office of the State Council to succeed Cai Wu, who had been transferred to fill the post of minister of culture. Concurrently, Wang Chen is also a deputy head of the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee. Zhang Yannong, Editor-in-chief of Renmin Ribao, filled the vacancy left by Wang Chen. On 25 April, the State Council appointed Li Congjun as president of the Xinhua News Agency to succeed 65-year-old Tian Congming, who became chairman of the Ethnic and Religious Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) when the two sessions [the NPC session and the CPPCC National Committee session] were held.

A New Press and Propaganda Work Contingent Has Appeared

Born in 1950, Wang Chen is a media specialist with regular professional training. He graduated from the Department of Journalism of the graduate school affiliated to the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and worked for Guangming Ribao, starting as an ordinary reporter and promoted step by step to the chief editor. In 1997 he received the Chinese news award, first class. In 2000 he was transferred to the post of deputy head of the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee. A year later, he became the editor-in- chief of Renmin Ribao, and the next year he was promoted to the director of the paper.

The director of the State Council’s Information Office is considered as an “image ambassador” of the Chinese government. When Wang Chen assumed his new post, it was the time when overseas anti- China forces were making a fuss with unscrupulous rampancy by using the Tibet and Olympic Games issues. Under the overall planning of the Information Office, news-gathering tours were organized for journalists to visit the Tibetan-inhabited areas, government officials and Tibetologists were invited to give news briefings, and arrangements were made for Tibetan compatriots to relate their personal experience. These activities exploded the lies concocted by some foreign media and enabled the Chinese government to gain trust and understanding both at home and abroad.

Unlike Wang Chen, who has “regular professional training,” Zhang Yannong, the new Renmin Ribao director, was “not previously in the journalistic profession.” Originally, he worked in the Air Force for 19 years. Then, he switched to civilian work, filling positions in the United Front Work Department and Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee. In 1996 he joined Renmin Ribao. Since then, he had served successively as director of the Theoretical Department, deputy editor-in-chief, and editor-in-chief.

Li Congjun, with a doctor’s degree from Shandong University, worked for a long time in the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee. He filled numerous positions from deputy section chief to deputy head of the department. On several occasions, he also filled temporary posts in Hebei, Zhejiang, and other localities while retaining his position in the Propaganda Department. Li Congjun also served as director of the Office of the Central Leading Group for Experimental Reform of the Cultural System. At that post, he proposed and pushed forward many reform projects in recent years in the fields of journalism, publications, and culture. This is one of the significant reasons that he became the leader of the Xinhua New Agency.

Experience in the Propaganda Department Received Attention

In this reshuffle of high-ranking news officials, a notable characteristic is that all of them have filled important posts in the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee. Cai Wu, Wang Chen, and Li Congjun have served as deputy heads of this department, while Zhang Yannong and Li Congjun were work partners in the department’s Research Office. Early this month, Ji Bingxuan, executive deputy head of the Propaganda Department, was transferred to fill the post of secretary of the Heilongjiang Provincial CCP Committee. All these are indicative of the leading role played by the Propaganda Department of the CCP Central Committee on China’s news and propaganda work front.

Originally published by Ta Kung Pao website, Hong Kong, in Chinese 28 Apr 08.

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