China appoints Xi ally Cai Qi to top party training role

China has put Cai Qi, one of Xi Jinping’s closest allies and a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, in charge of the country’s top party training institution. The move gives a trusted loyalist control over a school that helps shape how senior officials think, rise and govern, making the appointment about more than personnel.

The Human Resources Ministry said on Thursday, June 18, that Cai was named president of the National Academy of Governance, replacing Chen Xi, who is 72. The post sits at the center of the Communist Party’s cadre system because the academy works jointly with the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, the country’s main training ground for senior and middle-ranking officials. Together, the two operate as one institution with two names, and the school says it is a platform for promoting Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era.

Control of that institution carries real administrative weight. The combined school and academy says it has 33 departments and offices, including 13 teaching and research departments, more than 1,200 staff members and over 400 faculty members, among them 198 with senior titles. That gives Cai influence over the training pipeline for the officials who will staff local governments, ministries and party organs, and over the ideological line they are expected to absorb.

The appointment also strengthens the political message Xi has been sending through the party’s organizational machinery: loyalty and discipline matter as much as technical competence. Cai had already been shown in the role before the formal announcement, when he attended the school and academy’s second spring-semester graduation ceremony on June 5 and presented certificates to 531 graduates. That public appearance signaled that the handover was already underway, even before the ministry made it official.

The institution itself has long been tied to the party’s top leadership. It opened in September 1994 and was merged into the Central Party School in March 2018 during Xi’s institutional reforms. It has previously been headed by top Chinese leaders including Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao, underscoring its status as a symbolic and practical gatekeeper in the party-state system. Placing Cai there deepens Xi’s hold over cadre grooming, policy discipline and the ideological machinery that helps define China’s next generation of officials.