On March 27, Guo Yonghang, the Vice Chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), was officially announced to have fallen from grace. Guo Yonghang previously served as the secretary of Ma Xingrui, a member of the CCP Politburo, during Ma’s leadership in Shenzhen. At the end of last year, Guo Yonghang was removed from his position as the Party Secretary of Guangzhou and was transferred to a lower-level position in the CCP Political Consultative Conference earlier this year.
According to official reports today (March 27), Guo Yonghang is “suspected of serious violations of discipline and law” and is currently under investigation.
Guo Yonghang was born in 1965 in Shandong province and has had a long career in Guangdong. In May 2015, he was promoted from the Party Secretary of Yantian District in Shenzhen to a member of the Shenzhen Municipal Committee and Secretary-General, holding the position until February 2018 when he was transferred to be the Party Secretary of Zhuhai. In December 2021, he was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee and Acting Mayor. In January 2022, Guo Yonghang became the Mayor of Guangzhou. In June 2023, he was appointed as a member of the Guangdong Provincial Committee and the Party Secretary of Guangzhou.
On December 24, 2025, Chinese media reported that Feng Zhonghua had been appointed as the Party Secretary of Guangzhou, replacing Guo Yonghang from his positions in the Guangdong Provincial Committee and the Party Secretary of Guangzhou.
On January 28 of this year, Guo Yonghang was transferred to the position of Vice Chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Committee of the CCP.
Guo Yonghang, as the former secretary to Ma Xingrui during his tenure in Shenzhen, maintains a close relationship with Ma as they are both from Shandong.
Ma Xingrui, who served as the Vice Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee and the Secretary of Politics and Law in November 2013, was appointed as the Party Secretary of Shenzhen in March 2015. In December 2016, he became the Vice Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Committee, the Vice Governor, and the Acting Governor. In January 2017, he was promoted to Vice Secretary of the Provincial Committee and Governor. Ma later became the Party Secretary of Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region in December 2021. In 2022, Ma was promoted to a member of the CCP Central Politburo during the 20th National Congress and was relieved of his position as the Secretary of Xinjiang in July 2025.
Political commentator Yue Shan believes that from Guo Yonghang’s removal from office to his transfer to a lower position in the Political Consultative Conference and now his falling from grace, it may indicate that Ma Xingrui could soon be formally implicated. If this were to happen, he would be another Politburo member to fall from power after He Weidong and Zhang Youxia. The instability in this term’s Politburo also symbolizes Xi Jinping’s own governance crisis.