Shen Yiqin, former Communist Party chief of the southern Chinese province of Guizhou, has been appointed one of the country’s five state councillors, becoming the most senior woman o
The appointment came five months after Beijing unveiled its first all-male Politburo in 20 years.glass ceiling limited their chances of promotionShen, 63, is from the Bai ethnic group and stepped down as provincial party chief in December to take on a then unnamed new role.
Instead, she remained part of the Central Committee, a rung down in the party hierarchy where women account for just 5 per cent of the 205 full members.Born in Zhijin county, Shen studied history at Guizhou University and started work at the provincial party school in 1982, rising to be the school’s vice-president in 1995. She also worked her way up through the ranks in the provincial party committee in the late 1990s.
Three years later, she became governor. In 2020, she was further elevated as Guizhou’s party secretary, making her among the few women ever appointed to such a position. “Because women are kind of systematically denied that opportunity, it makes it a lot more difficult for women to move into the No 1 position at the provincial level,” he said.
Shen worked under Xi’s allies Li Zhanshu, Chen Miner and Zhao Kezhi during their stints in Guizhou. Former presidentDuring her time as Guizhou’s party chief and governor, she left her mark on poverty alleviation work, big data projects and infrastructure development. And should Shen be criticised as ineffective, Shih said, “she’s ineffective because she wasn’t given the rank to be effective in the first place. So she’s being hampered from the very beginning. And that’s very unfair for her.”
Chen said conditions for women in politics now were neither worse nor better than the past, she said. “It’s just never been good.”Xinhui Jiang, an associate professor of Nanjing University’s department of political science, said a combination of factors including institutional constraints and cultural implications created a dilemma for women working in the political system.
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