Wang Sanyun

Wang Sanyun (Chinese: 王三运; born December 1952) is a Chinese politician, serving since 2011 as the Communist Party Secretary of Gansu province. Wang began his political career in Guizhou province, before embarking on a whirlwind political tour of duty in Sichuan, Fujian, and Anhui, where he finally settled into his first governorship. He served as Anhui governor between 2007 and 2011, then he was transferred to Gansu.

Biography

Wang was born in Shan County in Shandong Province; his name means roughly "Three Transports".^[1] As a teenager, he had performed manual labour in Zhijin County, Guizhou, before becoming a middle school teacher there. In August 1974, he was admitted to Guiyang Teacher's College (now Guizhou Normal University) as a worker-peasant-soldier student. He joined the Communist Party of China, a prerequisite for political office, in 1979.^[1] His first political assignment was with the Organization Department of the Guizhou party committee.^[1]

He successively served as the party chief of Yunyan District, Guiyang, then head of the Communist Youth League provincial organization in Guizhou, then party chief of Liupanshui, then party chief of the provincial capital Guiyang, when he concurrently also held a seat on the provincial party standing committee, entering sub-provincial ranks in October 1995 at age 43.^[1]

In 1998, Wang was named Deputy Communist Party Secretary of Guizhou; he was transferred in 2001 to take on the same role in Sichuan province (when he served under Zhou Yongkang for about a year), then transferred again to Fujian, again the same office. Wang was appointed Governor of Anhui on January 31, 2008.^[1]

In December 2011, Wang made the final leap in his political career, becoming the provincial party chief of Gansu. His selection to fill the top post in Gansu was seen as a promotion - although given his Youth League pedigree and his diverse regional experiences, political observers characterized the move to the interior province as the final stage of Wang's lengthy political career, and thus relatively disappointing for Wang, who had spent his political life toiling in various locales around the country.^[2] Wang ran into further trouble with the media in March 2016. A reporter of a Lanzhou daily newspaper was arrested by Wuwei police on dubious charges related to fraud and prostitution, stirring protests online. Reporters attempted to ask Wang, the first-in-charge of Gansu, what he thought of this incident, during the 2016 National People's Congress. Instead of giving an answer, it was said that Wang was mum about the incident in front of reporters, causing some dead air which angered the press.^[3]

Unless he makes it one level higher at the 19th Party Congress in 2017, which is considered unlikely,^[2] he must retire from active politics by that year.^[4]

References