Member of the 18th CPC Central Committee.

Likely to have worked directly with Hu Jintao in the Communist Youth League (Zhang served in the Youth League 1979 – 1986 but only at Provincial level.)

Worked alongside Zhou Yongkang for 7 years (from 1988 – 1995) on the Party Committee of Dongying City, Shandong Province, during which they are likely to have developed an alliance.

Director of Propaganda Department Gansu 1998-99.

Served in Xinjiang from 1999 – 2005, including Vice President of Autonomous Region People’s Government, Xinjiang by 2005, and deputy Party Secretary to Wang Lequan from 2002.

Acting Party Secretary of TAR from the end 2005, and was confirmed in the position in 2006.

In December 2010, leader-in-waiting Xi Jinping gave a speech listing “decades of work experience in less well-off places” as one of a number of desirable qualification for personnel who might be promoted in 2012. In writing about this speech on 23 December, Ming Pao commentator Sun Chia-yeh pointed out that Zhang Qingli would fulfil this criterion.

Was moved to Hebei, a Province with a large Catholic population, in August 2011 until March 2013.

• Zhang Qingli, June 2008, receiving the Olympic torch in Lhasa: “Tibet’s sky will never change and the red flag with five stars will forever flutter high above it,” “We will certainly be able to totally smash the splittist schemes of the Dalai Lama clique.” (Reuters)
• Zhang Qingli, March 2008: “The Dalai is a wolf in monk’s robes, a devil with a human face but the heart of a beast.” (Tibet Daily.) In March 2011, Zhang reiterated these comments, describing the Dalai Lama as a “wolf in monk’s robes”, “double dealer” and a “secessionist chief”. “I had described him in those words after the March 14 riot in Lhasa in 2008 because I think he himself is a living Buddha but had done things beneath his status,” Zhang Qingli said.
• Richard Spencer, The Telegraph: “In terms of western style political management, it would be impossible (I think) for a relatively low-ranking politician to so hijack the “message” without approval from the head of the government. But it is entirely possible that in China’s leadership, the “consensus” style of government adopted by the Politburo Standing Committee, where Hu Jintao is very much primus inter pares, leads to an ironically less consensual form of government, where as long as they stick to the (very vague) outlines of policy, leaders can fly solo much more easily.”
• Zhang Qingli, August 2006. “I still can’t figure out how he [the Dalai Lama] was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize,” said Zhang, “What peace has he brought to the world?” (China.org)

• Address: Tibet Autonomous Regional Office, No.1 Kang’angdonglu, Lhasa, Tibet 850000.
• Website: www.xizang.gov.cn
• Phone: + 86 891 6332067
• Fax: +86 891 6335168

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