Huang Ju

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This is a Chinese name; the family name is Huang.

Huang Ju (Chinese:黄菊, Pinyin: Huáng Jú) (born September 1938) is the Executive Vice Premier of the People's Republic of China. He joined the Communist Party of China in May 1963. He is ranked 6th out of 9, and arguably the least popular member in the Politburo Standing Committee of the Party. Huang enjoys very close relations with his patron Jiang Zemin, he is considered a powerful member of the "Shanghai clique", having very divisive relations with President Hu Jintao.

1 Education
2 Career
3 Controversy and moving to the Centre
4 Alleged Illness
5 See also
6 References
7 External links

[edit] Education

Born in Jiashan , Zhejiang Province (浙江嘉善), Huang attended Qinghua University (清华大学) from 1956-63 where graduated in Electrical Engineering.

[edit] Career

Huang was employed as a Technician in the foundry section of the Shanghai Building Board Machine Factory (上海人造板机器厂) from 1963 to 1967. From 1967 to 1977, Huang worked as Technician in the power section of the Shanghai China Smelter Factory (上海中华冶金厂), where he was also Assistant Deputy Secretary Workshop Party Branch. He became Assistant Director of the Revolutionary Committee, Deputy Plant Manager, Engineer from 1977 to 1980. He was Assistant Manager of the Shanghai Petrified General Machine Company (上海市石化通用机械制造公司) from 1980 to 1982. From 1982 to 1983 he was Assistant Commissioner of the Shanghai first Mechanical and Electrical Industry Bureau (上海市第一机电工业局)<ref>Comrade Wong Ju's biography. People.com.cn. Retrieved on 2006-09-27.</ref>.

From 1983 to 1984, he was Shanghai Municipal Party Committee member and City Industry Work Party Secretary; Shanghai Municipal Party Committee member, its Secretary General from 1984 to 1985 and its Assistant Deputy Secretary from 1985 to 1986.

In 1987, Huang became one of the chosen candidates for the Mayor of Shanghai, and therefore a CCP Central Committee member, but he was embarrassed by the low number of votes supporting his candidacy, followed by Zhu Rongji's installment as Mayor of Shanghai. When Zhu became Premier after his transfer to the Central Government in Beijing, Huang became mayor of Shanghai in 1991 and then city's Party chief in 1994, which he served until October 2002. Although he led the eastern commercial hub in a continuous era of prosperity and development, he is known to have achieved fairly little in Shanghai, and served in a role to keep the city's party organization in line. Due to his extremely low popularity inside the party and in the public eye, Huang's move to Beijing after Jiang Zemin's retirement in 2002 was subject to great controversy.

[edit] Controversy and moving to the Centre

He was criticized by political rivals in February 1995, when his daughter, Huang Fan (黄凡), married Fang Yiwei (方以伟), the son of Fang Dachuan (方大川), a pro-Taiwan newspaperman in San Francisco.

Huang is widely believed to be implicated in the Shanghai real estate scandals involving Zhou Zhengyi, one of Shanghai's big-name business elites. Huang did little to stop monopolies in Shanghai's booming real estate sector, and there was some discontent and public protests resulted from in residents being evicted from their homes (with little or no compensation) to make way for new construction. Zhou Zhengyi was eventually charged with multiple counts of fraud, but was only sentenced to three years in prison, which analysts speculated was largely due to Huang's exerting his influence on the municipal courts. In addition, Huang's wife controlled a government fund which recklessly spent taxpayer's money in private matters.

Huang was one of the patronage appointments from Jiang's Shanghai clique to China's top making decision body, the Politburo Standing Committee. He is the leader who received the fewest votes in favour, and over 300 votes against his confirmation for the CCP Politburo (which was, considered by many political analysts, as a rejection in effect). Huang is widely regarded as being unremarkable as a leader and lacking an impressive track record, owing his rise to power solely to the patronage of Jiang, and various political schemes. He is the least popular of the 9 politburo members, and does not have many policies attributed to his name.

His position as Executive Vice-Premier is considered largely a figurehead role and has very little power, especially when compared to previous Executive Vice-Premiers Yao Yilin and Li Lanqing. His official portfolios are to oversee finance and banking.

[edit] Alleged Illness

In February 2006, Huang was reportedly diagnosed with pancreatic cancer by South China Morning Post, and was expected to step down. However, official sources, which initially refused to comment on Huang's mysterious disappearance from public affairs, later chose to comment that Huang was recovering, inadvertently proving his ill condition. No reports were confirmed, and state media had no mention of Huang since his last January appearance. He was absent from the 2006 NPC session. On 17 March, a few foreign sources reported that he was near death. Some sources attribute his sudden disappearance from the public as the result of an internal power struggle, where Huang was purged to make way for Hu and Wen loyalists.

He has since then made a return to the public scene, attending a Science and Technology forum in Beijing on 5 June, 2006. Huang recently appeared fairly worn, ill, and stressed in front of the cameras. Although the national media stressed his return, Huang is believed to be in politicial trouble, especially after the dismissal of his Shanghai Clique Colleague Chen Liangyu in September 2006. It is widely speculated that Huang will retire by the 17th Party Congress in late 2007.

[edit] See also

Politics of China

Preceded by: Zhu Rongji	Mayor of Shanghai 1991–1994	Succeeded by: Xu Kuangdi
Preceded by: Li Lanqing	Executive Vice-Premier of the State Council 2003–	Succeeded by: incumbent