Hu Junior Rising up Political Ranks

Hu Haifeng has been promoted to party boss in Xian, Shaanxi province

The Two Sessions are still going on in Beijing until Friday, and the other day there was an interesting announcement -- former president Hu Jintao's son, Hu Haifeng, will be promoted to become the new Communist Party chief in Xian, the capital of Shaanxi province.

The 46-year-old will be elevated to the rank of vice minister, a big jump from his current position of party boss of Lishui, a much smaller city in Zhejiang province. Hu will also become a member of Shaanxi province's standing committee.

While Xian is an important economic centre in China's northwest, it is dealing with the fallout from a political scandal where several officials are under investigation by the party's anti-corruption watchdog, the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection.

Hu Haifeng is former president Hu Jintao's son

The officials were accused of corruption and dereliction of duty after they ignored direct orders from President Xi Jinping to demolish illegal villas built in a nature reserve in the Qinling mountains.

Beijing-based political analyst Zhang Lifan says Hu's promotion is seen as a gesture by Xi to appease Hu Jintao's supporters, as the president faces greater challenges domestically and internationally.

"Xi is facing a difficult situation now," Zhang said, referring to the trade war with the United States and slowing economic growth.

However, Zhang warned Xian would be a difficult assignment for someone who was not politically experienced and Hu needed to prove he was up for the challenge.

"[Hu] Haifeng initially was not very happy about becoming an official. He planned to become a technician and academic," said an acquaintance of the younger Hu.

"But the [party's Organization Department] picked him because the central government needed to bring in brilliant young people born in the 1970s."

Hu graduated from Beijing Jiaotong University in computer science and didn't enter politics until 2013. He worked as a senior engineer at state-owned Tsinghua Holdings and later became the president of Nuctech, a security scanning equipment maker controlled by Tsinghua Holdings.

Some Nuctech scanners for the 2014 World Cup in Brazil

By the way, Nuctech has a near monopoly on security scanning equipment in China, pretty much a slam dunk in terms of revenues. For starters, every subway station entrance in the country has these scanning devices...

However, Hu's record isn't completely blemish free -- the company was embroiled in a corruption scandal in Namibia in 2009. Hu was president of Nuctech until the year before and then party boss of parent company Tsinghua Holdings in 2009.

At the time Namibian authorities said Hu was not a suspect, but they still wanted him to testify. News of the case was completely censored in China.

No one knows what happened in the end...

Hu's political career started in 2013 as deputy mayor of Jiaxing, a city in Zhejiang, just months after his father retired. He was later promoted to mayor of Jiaxing three years later and Lishui's party boss in July, making him the youngest prefectural-level party chief in the province.

In Lishui, Hu promoted environmental protection and eco-friendly industries, aligning himself with Xi's message that "green hills and clear waters are the true gold and silver mines".

Last April, Xi openly praised Hu's green development strategy and last month, Hu wrote an article in a party magazine in Zhejiang where he vowed to live up to the president's praise and achieve a healthy balance between economic growth and environmental protection.

Hu seems to be one to watch, even though he is reluctantly rising up the political ranks. When Xi throws you a bone, you gotta take it...