New Quality Control Minister Boasts Anti-Corruption

UNCLAS BEIJING 003784

HHS FOR OGHA/STEIGER AND PASS TO FDA/LUMPKIN
STATE PASS USTR
STATE PASS TO HOMELAND SECURITY COUNCIL

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: TBIO EAGR PREL HHS CH
SUBJECT: New Quality Control Minister Boasts Anti-Corruption
Credentials

Refs: (A) Beijing 3705 (B) Beijing 3635


1. (SBU) Summary: On September 21, China sacked General
Administration on Quality, Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine
(AQSIQ) Minister Li Changjiang in the aftermath of China's biggest
ever food and product safety scandal, the widespread contamination of
milk products with the industrial chemical melanine, which sickened
more than 50,000 children and killed four. China rapidly identified
a successor, State Council Deputy Secretary General Wang Yong, who
has recent experience in anti-corruption and the placement of
corporate executives at state-owned enterprises (SOEs),and whose
background is in the aerospace industry. The State Council held a
planning meeting September 17 and is preparing a post-crisis action
plan. End Summary.


2. (SBU) Party mouthpiece China Daily highlighted the anti-corruption
credentials of Li's replacement, who had joined the State Council in
early 2008. From 2003 to 2007, Wang was a Director in the Central
Party Committee (CPC) and a member of the CPC's Central Commission
for Discipline Inspection, which plays a key role in rooting out
corruption. Wang concurrently served as the Vice Chairman and Deputy
Party Secretary of China's State-Owned Assets Supervision and
Administration Commission (SASAC). In this capacity, he led SASAC's
First and Second Bureaus, which manage a pool of bureaucrats and
party members detailed to the SOEs that SASAC administers and also
approves the nomination of other SOE executives. In this capacity,
Wang likely gained experience in corporate oversight. Prior to that,
most of Wang's career has been spent in the aerospace industry.
Contacts at SASAC declined to comment on Wang's tenure and provided
the Embassy his official biography, below.


3. (U) The following is Wang Yong's biography from SASAC:

Comrade Wang Yong, Han national, was born in Gaizhou, Liaoning
Province in 1955. He started his working career from August 1969 and
joined the CPC in August 1974. Wang is a university postgraduate. He
served as maintenance platoon chief of the Production and
Construction Corps and a test fellow of adjustment workshop of No. 7
Ministry of Machinery Industry. He successively held the posts of
competent technician, deputy workshop political instructor and Party
branch secretary, deputy director of the Politics Department, Factory
Assistant Director and Deputy Chief Economist, Factory Deputy
Director, Factory Director and Deputy Party Secretary of No. 230
Factory under the Ministry of Space Industry. In April 1997, he was
designated as Deputy Director-General of the Politics Department and
Deputy Party Secretary of Beijing area of the China Aerospace
Corporation. In April 1998, he was in charge of the Personnel, Labor
and Education Bureau of the China Aerospace Corporation. In June
1999, he was designated as Vice President and member of the Party
committee of the China Aerospace Mechanical and Electrical Products
Corporation. In November 2000, he was appointed as Director-General
of the Office for Top Executives of Enterprises of the Ministry of
Organization, CCCPC. Later in April 2001, he held the post of
Director-General of the Fifth Bureau for Top Executives of
Enterprises of the Ministry of Organization, CCCPC. He is Deputy
Party Secretary of SASAC CPC Committee and Vice Chairman of SASAC.
Mr. Wang Yong supervises the First Bureau for the Administration of
Corporate Executives, the Second Bureau for the Administration of
Corporate Executives, the Bureau of Party Building (CPC Committee
Organization Department),and the Training Center.

PICCUTA