The secretary general of the Jiangxi Provincial Government of the Chinese Communist Party, Xu Yanbin, was officially announced to have been removed from office on March 24, 2026, after being demoted from his position as the director of the Poyang Lake Water Conservancy Hub Construction Office for six months. Xu Yanbin had previously served as the secretary of the former Qinghai Provincial Party Committee and Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee under the secretary Qiang Wei, as well as the steward for the current governor of Jiangxi Province, Ye Jianchun, for two and a half years. Reports surfaced suggesting that Governor Ye Jianchun of Jiangxi Province was also under investigation at the time of Xu Yanbin’s downfall.
On March 24, 2026, according to a report from the Jiangxi Provincial Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Chinese Communist Party, Xu Yanbin, a member of the party committee and director of the Poyang Lake Water Conservancy Hub Construction Office in Jiangxi Province, was accused of serious violations of discipline and law, voluntarily admitted to the allegations, and agreed to be investigated.
Public records show that Xu Yanbin, born in October 1973 in Heilongjiang Province, had a long-standing career at the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee Office, where he served as the deputy director and director of the General Office of the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee.
During Qiang Wei’s tenure as the secretary of the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee from March 2007 to March 2013, Xu Yanbin was promoted to the deputy secretary-general of the Qinghai Provincial Party Committee in July 2012.
Following Qiang Wei’s transfer to the position of secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee in March 2013, Xu Yanbin accompanied him and was appointed as the deputy secretary-general of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and the director of the Party Committee Office of the Provincial Party Committee in December 2015.
In June 2016, the 63-year-old Qiang Wei stepped down as the secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and took on a leisurely post before reaching the mandatory retirement age of 65 for provincial-level officials.
Qiang Wei, born in March 1953 in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, had a long career in the Beijing political arena before governing Qinghai. He held various positions in Beijing, including the secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Communist Youth League, member of the Standing Committee of the Beijing Municipal Committee, Minister of Propaganda, secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of the Municipal Committee, and deputy secretary of the Municipal Committee, as well as the secretary of the Commission for Discipline Inspection and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee.
After Qiang Wei’s resignation as the secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee in June 2016, Xu Yanbin continued to serve as the deputy secretary-general of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and the director of the Provincial Party Committee Office, working under the successive leadership of the Party Secretaries Lu XinShe (from June 2016 to March 2018) and Liu Qi (from March 2018 to October 2021).
During the tenure of Ye Jianchun as the governor of Jiangxi Province (from October 2021 to present), Xu Yanbin served as a member of the Party Committee and secretary general of the Jiangxi Provincial Government from March 2023 to September 2025, acting as Governor Ye Jianchun’s steward for two and a half years.
On the day of Xu Yanbin’s official ousting, March 24, 2026, commentator Jiang Wangzheng, who has consistently disclosed the movements of the Chinese Communist Party’s top echelons, revealed that Ye Jianchun, the deputy secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee and the governor, was also under investigation, with a 50% likelihood of being officially ousted.
Public records show that Ye Jianchun, born in July 1965 in Zhouning, Fujian Province, graduated from the Huadong Water Conservancy Construction Engineering Institute. From February 2017 to February 2021, he served as the Deputy Minister of Water Resources. From March 2018 to January 2020, he concurrently held the position of Deputy Minister of Emergency Management. In February 2021, he was transferred to the deputy secretary of the Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and in the same year of October, he was appointed as the party committee secretary and governor of Jiangxi Province.
Prior to the official announcement of Xu Yanbin’s removal from office, he had already been demoted to the director of the Poyang Lake Water Conservancy Hub Construction Office.
On September 20, 2025, the Jiangxi Provincial Government issued a personnel appointment notice, transferring Xu Yanbin from a member of the party committee and secretary general of the Jiangxi Provincial Government to the director of the Poyang Lake Water Conservancy Hub Construction Office. This office is a working department of the Jiangxi Provincial Government, managed by the Jiangxi Provincial Water Resources Department as a department-level entity.
On October 3, 2025, the Zhihu website in mainland China published an article on the public account “Rothmos XI Bureau,” titled “A 52-Year-Old Secretary General of the Provincial Government Transferred to a State-Owned Enterprise: Is It Normal or a Sign of Certain Premonitions?” The article pointed out that Xu Yanbin, moving from a department-level position in Qinghai to a lower position in a state-owned enterprise, had previously served as the party committee secretary and director of the Ecological Environment Department five years ago, indicating a downward shift in position despite the same level of rank. Compared to the previous provincial government secretaries general, Xu Yanbin’s transfer to a state-owned enterprise at the age of 52 was deemed unusual.
Public information shows that the last three Jiangxi Provincial Government secretaries general before Xu Yanbin – Wang Guoqiang (2021-2023), Zhang Xiaoping (2018-2021), and Zhang Yong (2015-2018) – took on roles as the director of the Legal Committee of the Jiangxi Provincial People’s Congress (department-level), the deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Jiangxi Provincial People’s Congress (deputy ministerial level), and the deputy chairman of the Jiangxi Provincial CPPCC (deputy ministerial level) respectively, after leaving their positions.