Former Vice Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and former Governor of Guangdong Province Lu Ruihua passed away yesterday (13th) due to illness. Lu Ruihua, a native of Chaoshan, once held a high position in Guangdong province as a local faction member, but his influence has waned in recent years.
According to a report by the Guangdong official media “Southern Daily” on May 14, former Vice Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee and former Governor of Guangdong Province, Lu Ruihua, passed away in Guangzhou on May 13, 2025, at the age of 88 due to ineffective medical treatment.
Public records show that Lu Ruihua, born in November 1938, is from Chaozhou, Guangdong. He graduated from the Physics Department of Sun Yat-sen University in 1963 and completed his postgraduate studies in molecular spectroscopy at the Physics Department of Sun Yat-sen University in 1966. In September of the same year, he worked as a worker in a switch factory in Foshan. In 1970, he was transferred to Foshan Analytical Instrument Factory as a worker. After 1983, Lu Ruihua held various positions, including member of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee in Foshan, Deputy Secretary of the Foshan Municipal Party Committee, and Mayor of Foshan. After 1991, he served as a member of the Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, Deputy Governor of Guangdong Province, and in February 1996, he was appointed as the Vice Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee. From February 1996 to January 2003, he served as the Governor of Guangdong Province.
Guangdong is an important economic hub in China, historically known for its strong local factions, mainly the Hakka and Chaoshan factions. Marshal Ye Jianying, who served as the Chairman of the Guangdong Provincial Government after 1949, was a Hakka. In the 1980s and 1990s, local factions in Guangdong reached their peak. From 1985 to 1998, the two Provincial Party Secretaries, Lin Ruo, a native of Chao’an, and Xie Fei, a Hakka, were from Guangdong. Before the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, the Governor of Guangdong Province and the Secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee were generally locals or individuals who had long served in Guangdong.
Lu Ruihua, a native of Chaoshan, and Lin Shusen, who once served as the Secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, are both from Chaoshan. Former Guangdong Governor Huang Huahua, known as the “King of Southern Guangdong,” is a Hakka. The Hakka faction holds significant presence in the Guangdong officialdom. Former Secretary of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee Wan Qingliang, who fell from grace in 2014, is also a Hakka.
In 2016, Ma Xingrui became the first non-local faction Governor of Guangdong in 30 years. The appointment of non-local faction individuals as the Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee started earlier, with Li Changchun in 1998. Initially from the Jiang faction, both Li Changchun and Zhang Dejiang served, followed by members from the Youth League faction including Wang Yang and Hu Chunhua. With Hu Chunhua, the Xi faction officially took control of Guangdong. The former Secretary of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, Li Xi, has now become a permanent member of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. The current Secretary, Huang Kunming, is a former associate of Xi Jinping from Fujian and previously served as the Minister of the Propaganda Department. In recent years, with the passing of Ye Jianying’s eldest son Ye Xuanping and second son Ye Xuanning, and the ongoing purges, local forces in Guangdong have weakened. In the current Standing Committee of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, there is not a single authentic native of Guangdong.