Chinese Communist Party Reshuffles United Front Work Department Leadership

On 2 April 2025, Reuters report­ed that Chi­na has appoint­ed a new head to its influ­en­tial Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment in an unusu­al lead­er­ship swap at the Polit­buro lev­el. The arti­cle begins:

BEIJING, April 2 (Reuters) — Two mem­bers of Chi­na’s Polit­buro, the Com­mu­nist Par­ty’s elite deci­sion-mak­ing body, have swapped jobs, state media report­ed on Wednes­day, with­out giv­ing a rea­son for a reshuf­fle that ana­lysts called unprece­dent­ed at this lev­el of the Chi­nese hier­ar­chy. Shi Taifeng was named head of the par­ty’s Organ­i­sa­tion Depart­ment, respon­si­ble for all inter­nal per­son­nel deci­sions, while Li Gan­jie was named chief of the Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment, which projects par­ty influ­ence over reli­gious and eth­nic minori­ties, as well as Hong Kong and Tai­wan. State media offered no expla­na­tion. Top par­ty offi­cials and min­is­ters are occa­sion­al­ly appoint­ed to new posi­tions to pre­vent them from build­ing up local fac­tions or pow­er bases, ana­lysts say. How­ev­er, the job swap among Polit­buro mem­bers was unprece­dent­ed in the his­to­ry of Chi­na’s Com­mu­nist Par­ty, said Alfred Wu, asso­ciate pro­fes­sor at Nation­al Uni­ver­si­ty of Singapore…

Read more

Key Points:

• Li Gan­jie takes over the Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment, which man­ages Chi­na’s influ­ence oper­a­tions regard­ing eth­nic minori­ties, reli­gious groups, and Taiwan.
• For­mer depart­ment head Shi Taifeng had exten­sive expe­ri­ence in minor­i­ty regions, serv­ing as par­ty offi­cial in Ningx­ia and Inner Mongolia.
• The Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment plays a crit­i­cal role in pro­ject­ing Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty influ­ence domes­ti­cal­ly and abroad.
• The unprece­dent­ed lead­er­ship swap occurs amid what ana­lysts describe as unusu­al per­son­nel turnover in Chi­nese pol­i­tics over the past two years.

The Unit­ed Front Work Depart­ment (UFWD) is a key influ­ence and intel­li­gence arm of the Chi­nese Com­mu­nist Par­ty (CCP), tasked with co-opt­ing and mobi­liz­ing non-par­ty elites domes­ti­cal­ly and abroad to advance Beijing’s polit­i­cal agen­da. Estab­lished in 1942 and revi­tal­ized under Deng Xiaop­ing in 1979, the UFWD oper­ates under the CCP Cen­tral Com­mit­tee, report­ing direct­ly to top lead­er­ship. Its man­date spans eth­nic minori­ties, reli­gious groups, over­seas Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ties, and for­eign enti­ties, aim­ing to sup­press dis­sent and pro­mote pro-CCP nar­ra­tives. Under Xi Jin­ping, the UFWD expand­ed sig­nif­i­cant­ly, absorb­ing the State Admin­is­tra­tion for Reli­gious Affairs (2018) and the Over­seas Chi­nese Affairs Office, con­sol­i­dat­ing con­trol over dias­po­ra net­works and for­eign influ­ence oper­a­tions. It over­sees orga­ni­za­tions like the Chi­na Coun­cil for the Pro­mo­tion of Peace­ful Reuni­fi­ca­tion (CCPPR), which tar­gets Tai­wan, Hong Kong, and crit­ics abroad. The UFWD has been accused of con­duct­ing covert intel­li­gence activ­i­ties, includ­ing pres­sur­ing over­seas Chi­nese com­mu­ni­ties and infil­trat­ing aca­d­e­m­ic insti­tu­tions via Con­fu­cius Insti­tutes and stu­dent asso­ci­a­tions. With an esti­mat­ed $2.6 bil­lion bud­get (2019), it oper­ates glob­al­ly, lever­ag­ing eco­nom­ic incen­tives and coer­cion to align exter­nal actors with CCP objectives.

Dis­claimer: The GIOR uti­lizes AI to gen­er­ate sum­maries of news items, includ­ing the intro­duc­tion and the key points that fol­low. Any text fol­low­ing the key points is con­text added by GIOR edi­tors. Please ver­i­fy all infor­ma­tion before using. Images are also AI-gen­er­at­ed and are for illus­tra­tive pur­pos­es only—they are meant to rep­re­sent the events or indi­vid­u­als con­cerned but should not be under­stood as “real-world” photography.