Wang Yang: the ‘down-to-earth liberal’ taking on China’s top advisory job
The former Guangdong Communist Party boss will need to draw on his wealth of experience at home and abroad to fulfil his new mission, analysts say
Wang Yang sent a ripple through the Chinese political world six years ago, when as Guangdong’s Communist Party boss he suggested publicly that the party was not the people’s benefactor.
“We must eradicate the incorrect idea that happiness is a benevolent gift from the party and the government,” Wang told the annual top gathering of provincial party cadres.
“It is the people’s right to pursue happiness and it is the party’s and the government’s responsibility to do good for the people.”
That forthright assessment – and many others in the years since – set him apart from the legions of bland party technocrats, giving him a reputation as an open-minded reformist.
Now the man described by some as a liberal has been voted in unanimously as the new chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, the country’s top advisory body.
The appointment follows his ascension in October to the party’s inner sanctum, the seven-member Politburo Standing Committee, capping a career that has taken him through the ranks of regional government and economic management.
