On September 23, 2026, the Party Secretary of Fujian Province, Zhou Zuyi, was transferred to the position of Party Secretary of Henan Province, while the Governor of Fujian Province, Zhao Long, was promoted to the Party Secretary of Fujian Province. Around this time, three senior officials from the Central Committee and the State Council of the Chinese Communist Party were parachuted into Fujian Province to serve as members of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, concurrently holding positions such as Party Secretary of Xiamen City, Minister of Organization Department of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, and Minister of United Front Work.
Interestingly, 55-year-old Fu Jian, a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, has been relieved of his position as Party Secretary of Xiamen City for half a year without a new assignment. 58-year-old Miao Yanhong was relieved of his position as Minister of the Organization Department of Fujian and his future career path remains unknown.
Fujian is the stronghold of the CCP leader Xi Jinping, with officials such as Cai Qi, He Lifeng, Huang Kunming, and Wang Xiaohong being Xi’s former associates in Fujian. In the lead-up to the Fifth Plenary Session of the CCP, the political landscape in Fujian has been turbulent, reflecting the power struggles within the senior levels of the CCP, which is worth paying attention to.
According to official reports, on September 29, 2026, Zhao Shitong, Deputy Director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the CCP Central Committee, was parachuted into Fujian to serve as a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and Minister of the United Front Work Department. Lin Wenbin, who stepped down as Minister of the United Front Work Department of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, is 61 years old and in January 2026 was appointed as Vice Chairman of the Fujian Provincial Committee.
On September 14, 2026, Xu Qingsen, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Education of the CCP, was parachuted into Fujian to serve as a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and Minister of the Organization Department.
On April 3, 2026, Lin Tao, the Secretary of the Xiamen City Committee of the CCP and the standing committee of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, was parachuted into Fujian to serve as a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and the Secretary of the Xiamen City Committee.
Additionally, on June 8, 2026, Wei Xiaokui, Vice Governor of Fujian Province, was promoted to the position of a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and concurrently served as the Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission. The previous member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission, Chi Yaoyun, was transferred to the position of a member of the Standing Committee and Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission of the Shanghai Municipal Committee in October 2025.
On April 3, 2026, the CCP’s media outlet, Xinhua News Agency, reported that the Central Committee of the CCP had recently approved Lin Tao as a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, a standing committee member, and the Secretary of the Xiamen City Committee. The report did not mention the reasons for the change in the Secretary of the Xiamen City Committee nor did it include any expressions of Chi Yonghui, the former Secretary of the Xiamen City Committee, being “dismissed” or “reassigned.”
Since being relieved of his position as the Secretary of the Xiamen City Committee, Chi Yonghui, a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, has not been assigned a new position, becoming a “visible standing committee member.” There were rumors circulating online that he would be transferred to the Minister of the United Front Work Department of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee or as the Party Secretary of Tianjin University, but none of the speculations materialized.
According to publicly available resumes, Chi Yonghui, born in November 1970 in Enshi, Hubei Province, had long served in various positions in the officialdom of Hubei Province, including Deputy Secretary and Mayor of Danjiangkou City, Deputy Director of the Audit Office of Hubei Province, Deputy Mayor and Executive Deputy Mayor of Huanggang City, and Deputy Secretary of the Jingzhou Municipal Committee, Political and Legal Affairs Committee Secretary, and Mayor of the City of Jingzhou.
Chi Yonghui was transferred to the position of Vice Governor of Fujian Province in June 2020. During the term of office of Yin Li, the Party Secretary of the Fujian Provincial Committee from November 2020 to November 2022, Chi Yonghui was promoted to a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and Secretary-General in June 2021, serving as Yin Li’s chief steward; in October 2021, he switched to the Party Secretary of Xiamen City.
Yin Li was promoted to a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the CCP at the 20th National Congress in October 2022, and was subsequently named a Deputy National Leader; in November 2022, he was appointed the Party Secretary of the Beijing Municipal Committee.
Before and after the unusual dismissal of Chi Yonghui, there have been continuous reports from self-media sources about his investigation.
On May 29, 2026, commentator Jiang Wangzheng revealed that Chi Yonghui, a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and former Secretary of the Xiamen City Committee, was under investigation; the Discipline Inspection Commission had ordered inspections on Chi Yonghui by the Office of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee.
On August 7, 2026, the Fujian Provincial Party Committee held a meeting to promote the implementation of Xi Jinping’s ideology and advance the “fortress project” of the new era; Chi Yonghui attended the meeting as a “provincial leader.” This was Chi Yonghui’s last public appearance.
Commentator Cai Shenkun subsequently revealed on August 8, 2026, that Chi Yonghui, the former Secretary of the Xiamen City Committee, was taken away by the Discipline Inspection Commission on the morning of August 7th, and at the same time, Lin Jian, the Deputy Secretary and Mayor of Nanping City in Fujian, was also taken away.
On August 12, 2026, Lin Jian, Deputy Secretary of the Nanping Municipal Committee and Mayor, was officially removed from his post. There has been no official notification regarding Chi Yonghui’s investigation; however, he has been in hiding since August 2026 and it has been nearly two months.
On September 14, 2026, Xinhua News Agency, the CCP’s media outlet, reported that the Central Committee of the CCP had recently approved Xu Qingsen as a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and a standing committee member, and with the approval of the Organization Department of the Central Committee of the CCP, the Fujian Provincial Party Committee decided to appoint Xu Qingsen as the Minister of the Organization Department of the province.
Similar to the recent change in the Secretary of the Xiamen City Committee, the Xinhua News Agency report did not mention the expressions of dismissal or reassignment of the former Minister of the Organization Department of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, Miao Yanhong. Like Chi Yonghui, Miao Yanhong has not been publicly relieved of his position as a member of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee for nearly three weeks, becoming a “visible standing committee member.”
According to public records, Miao Yanhong, born in January 1968 in Xuzhou, Jiangsu Province, is 58 years old and had served in various positions in Hainan Province, including Member of the Standing Committee and Minister of the Organization Department of Sanya City, Director of the Civil Affairs Department of Hainan Province, Director of the Justice Department, Member of the Standing Committee and Minister of the United Front Work Department of Hainan Province; He was transferred to Fujian in June 2024 to serve as a member of the Standing Committee of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and Minister of the Organization Department.
During Luo Baoming’s tenure as the Secretary of the Hainan Provincial Committee from August 2011 to March 2017, Miao Yanhong was successively promoted to the positions of Member of the Standing Committee and Minister of the Organization Department of Sanya City Committee, Director of the Civil Affairs Department, and Party Group Secretary.
After being transferred to Fujian from Hainan in June 2024, about a month later, on July 25, 2024, Luo Baoming, then 72 years old, took the initiative to surrender himself, and in December 2025, he was sentenced to 15 years in prison for corruption.
Miao Yanhong served as Member of the Standing Committee and Minister of the Organization Department of Sanya City, Hainan Province from June 2012 to July 2016, acting as the chief steward of two successive Secretaries of the Sanya City Committee, Jiang Sixian (from February 2012 to December 2013) and Zhang Qi (from October 2014 to November 2016); during this time, the Mayor of Sanya City was Wang Yong (from September 2008 to October 2014) and Wu Yanjun (from January 2015 to February 2018).
Miao Yanhong’s former leader Zhang Qi fell from grace on September 6, 2019, while serving as Member of the Standing Committee of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee and Secretary of the Haikou City Committee; in December 2020, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption.
Miao Yanhong’s former leader Wang Yong was ousted from his position as Deputy Chairman of the Hainan Provincial Political Consultative Conference on July 13, 2020, and in October 2021, he was sentenced to life imprisonment for corruption.
In addition, from April 2022 to June 2024, Miao Yanhong served as Member of the Standing Committee of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee and Minister of the United Front Work Department; during the same period, Luo Zengbin, who served as a Member of the Standing Committee of the Hainan Provincial Party Committee, fell from his role as the Secretary of the Haikou City Committee in December 2024, and Ni Qiang was ousted from his position as Secretary of the Party Committee in Hainan in June 2025. Ni Qiang, a native of Yangzhong, Jiangsu, is a fellow villager of Miao Yanhong.
Xi Jinping, the CCP leader, served in Fujian for 17 years, from 1985 to 2002, holding positions such as Vice Mayor of Xiamen, Secretary of the Ningde Prefectural Committee, Party Secretary of Fuzhou City, Deputy Secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee, and Governor of the Province. Current senior officials such as Cai Qi, a member of the Political Bureau Standing Committee, He Lifeng, a member of the Political Bureau, Vice Premier of the State Council, Huang Kunming, Party Secretary of Guangdong Province, and Wang Xiaohong, a State Councilor and Minister of Public Security, are all former associates of Xi Jinping hailing from Fujian.
In early to mid-June 2026, Chen Xi, who stepped down as President of the Central Party School of the CCP and President of the National Academy of Administration, is also from Fujian. When Chen Xi resigned, various media commentators speculated that he was involved in the case of his fellow villager from Fujian, Wei Xiaodong, the Chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, being demoted from a Vice-National Leader to a Vice-Ministerial level.
Wei Xiaodong, Chairman of the Beijing Municipal Committee of the CPPCC, was taken down on June 6, 2026 while in office and was revealed to be a political broker for the “Fujian Five Tigers” (Cai Qi, Huang Kunming, He Lifeng, Wang Xiaohong, Chen Xi). Wei Xiaodong, a native of Zhangzhou, Fujian, was a schoolmate of He Lifeng in Xiamen and had been greatly promoted by Chen Xi during his career, with connections to Cai Qi and Wang Xiaohong in the Beijing officialdom.
After Wei Xiaodong’s downfall, the Fujian officialdom also underwent a series of purges. From July 24 to August 7, 2026, within half a month, five bureau-level officials in Fujian Province were intensively investigated. Among them, Zhang Yigong, the former Secretary of the Quanzhou City Committee who was taken down from office, was an old associate of He Lifeng in Xiamen, and both had previously governed Quanzhou City.
With the sensitive period approaching the Fifth Plenary Session, Wei Xiaodong, a senior official of the Fujian faction, fell from grace, leading to a major reshuffle in the personnel of the Fujian officialdom, including positions such as the Party Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, the Minister of the Organization Department, the Secretary of the Discipline Inspection Commission, reflecting the entrenchment of power struggles within the Xi Jinping’s Fujian faction in the whirlpool of high-level CCP internal strife.
Chi Yonghui and Miao Yanhong, who were unusually removed from their positions as the Secretary of the Fujian Provincial Party Committee and Minister of the Organization Department, respectively, were promoted multiple times by Chen Xi, the “personnel chief” under Xi Jinping after the 18th National Congress of the CCP, and their careers rose steadily. Chi Yonghui, at the age of 55, was unusually removed from his position as the Party Secretary of Xiamen City, and has not been assigned a new role for half a year, coupled with rumors of his arrest, his prospects are looking grim; however, his formal downfall has yet to be announced, showing a potential intense power struggle involving various factions.
Will Chi Yonghui be formally removed from office? Will it implicate the former leader, Yin Li? Will Miao Yanhong follow in the footsteps of Chi Yonghui? Will the turbulent situation in the Fujian officialdom involve more senior Fujian officials, even the “Fujian Five Tigers”? These will be crucial indicators to observe the dynamics of high-level CCP power struggles and the future fate of Xi Jinping’s Fujian faction.