On September 23, 2026, Xinhua News Agency of the Chinese Communist Party announced that Li Lecheng, the Minister of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of the CCP, was appointed as the Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, while Liang Yanshun “due to age reasons” no longer holds the position of Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee.
It was also reported that Wang Dongwei was appointed as the Deputy Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee, and Wang Qingxian no longer holds the position of Deputy Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee. The Standing Committee of the Anhui Provincial People’s Congress decided to accept Liang Yanshun’s request to resign as the director of the Anhui Provincial People’s Congress, accept Wang Qingxian’s request to resign as the Anhui Provincial Governor, and appoint Wang Dongwei, the Deputy Governor of Anhui Province, as the acting governor.
Liang Yanshun, who stepped down, is not yet 64 years old, and Wang Qingxian just turned 63 years old, both below the retirement age of 65 for high-ranking officials. The career backgrounds of Liang Yanshun, Wang Qingxian, Li Lecheng, and Wang Dongwei, who took over, each have interesting aspects.
The official report stated that Liang Yanshun no longer holds the position of Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee “due to age reasons,” without mentioning any further appointments. This implies that Liang Yanshun is unlikely to be transferred to another influential position and is probably going to be transferred to a less authoritative position in the National People’s Congress or the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.
According to publicly available resumes, Liang Yanshun, born in December 1962 in Taian, Shandong Province, graduated from Shandong University of Science and Technology. He served at the Central Party School of the CCP for 24 years from 1992 to 2016.
Before Xi Jinping took office, Liang Yanshun concurrently served as the President of the Central Party School from December 2007 to December 2012. During this time, Liang Yanshun was promoted to the Director of the Research Department of the Central Party School in December 2009 and became a member of the School Affairs Committee in April 2012 while continuing to serve as the Director of the Research Department.
After Xi Jinping took office, Liang Yanshun’s career advanced rapidly, serving as a Standing Committee member of the Gansu Provincial Party Committee, Minister of Propaganda, Minister of Organization, Deputy Secretary of the Central State Organs Working Committee, Deputy Minister of the Propaganda Department, Executive Deputy Secretary of the Central State Organs Working Committee (equivalent to a ministerial level), and Party Secretary of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. He was appointed as the Secretary of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee in June 2024 and has been in office for less than two and a half years.
Li Liang Yanshun and Xi’s wife, Peng Liyuan, are both from Shandong. Peng Liyuan is from Yuncheng County, Heze City, Shandong Province. After Xi Jinping took office, a large number of officials from Shandong were promoted to key positions in the Communist Party and government system, with ties to Peng Liyuan.
Amid rumors of Xi Jinping’s power crisis, in recent years, high-ranking officials from Shandong have been purged. Ma Xingrui, a member of the Political Bureau and representative figure of the Shandong faction within the CCP, was removed from his position as the Party Secretary of Xinjiang in July 2025 and officially announced to have fallen from grace on April 3, 2026.
Around the time of Ma Xingrui’s dismissal and fall from grace, more than ten high-ranking officials of Shandong origin were successively removed from office in over a year, including high-ranking officials such as Sun Shaocheng, former Party Secretary of Inner Mongolia, and several high-ranking Shandong officials who were unusually dismissed, such as Wang Zhonglin, Party Secretary of Hubei Province, Li Yunze, Director of the National Financial Supervision and Administration Bureau, and Han Jun, Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs.
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