Zhang Dejiang

Zhang Dejiang was born on 4 November 1946 in Taian County, Liaoning Province. In 1968 he was sent to work in a rural commune in the Yanbian Korean Autonomous Prefecture, Jilin Province; in 1972 he enrolled in the Korean-language department of Yanbian University, later staying on as a teacher and rising to deputy Party branch secretary and deputy president. From 1978 to 1980 he studied economics at Kim Il-sung University in Pyongyang. From 1983 he served as deputy secretary of Yanji city and the Yanbian prefectural committee, and in 1985 as deputy secretary of the Yanbian prefectural committee; in 1986 he was transferred to Beijing as Vice Minister of Civil Affairs; in 1990 he became deputy secretary of the Jilin provincial committee while concurrently serving as Yanbian prefectural secretary, and was promoted to Jilin Provincial Party Secretary in June 1995. He was transferred to Zhejiang as Party Secretary in September 1998, then to Guangdong in November 2002; his time in Guangdong included the 2003 SARS outbreak, and the province's early handling of information disclosure about the epidemic drew criticism in some quarters. He was elected to the Politburo at the 16th Party Congress's 1st Plenum in November 2002; he left the Guangdong post in December 2007, was elected to the Politburo Standing Committee at the 17th Party Congress that year, and from 2008 served as a Vice Premier of the State Council (ranked third), overseeing industry, telecommunications, energy, and transport, and concurrently chairing the State Council's Work Safety Committee.

On 15 March 2012, following the removal of Bo Xilai in the wake of the Wang Lijun affair, Zhang Dejiang was appointed concurrently as CCP Secretary of Chongqing Municipality while retaining his post as Vice Premier -- his fourth stint as a provincial-level Party chief. He oversaw Chongqing's transition and policy adjustments in the aftermath of Bo's fall; after the 18th Party Congress's 1st Plenum in November 2012, he relinquished the Chongqing post.

On 15 November 2012, he was elected to the Politburo Standing Committee at the 18th Party Congress's 1st Plenum, ranked third, and concurrently chaired the Central Coordination Group for Hong Kong and Macau Affairs. On 14 March 2013, the 1st Session of the 12th National People's Congress elected him Chairman of the NPC Standing Committee, a position he held until 2018. In that capacity, he presided over the NPCSC's decision of 31 August 2014 on universal suffrage for Hong Kong's Chief Executive election, which required candidates to secure the endorsement of more than half of the nominating committee's members before appearing on the ballot; the decision proved highly controversial in Hong Kong and became one of the direct triggers of the 'Occupy Central' (Umbrella Movement) protests that began that September. He stepped down from the Politburo Standing Committee after the 19th Party Congress in October 2017; his posts as NPC Standing Committee Chairman and head of the Hong Kong and Macau coordination group continued until he formally retired following the 1st Session of the 13th National People's Congress in March 2018.