What’s new: China’s National Health Commission (NHC) has promoted one of its vice ministers to be its party chief, according to its website.
The NHC’s official website now lists Lei Haichao, 56, as secretary of the Leading Party Members’ Group. He replaces Ma Xiaowei, who was previously both minister in charge of the commission and its party chief.
As of Monday afternoon, the role of minister in charge of the NHC is vacant on the commission’s website. Lei is no longer listed as a vice minister.
Lei has had a decades-long career in the health system, of which around 10 years were spent in Beijing. During the Covid-19 pandemic, he headed working groups set up by the State Council’s Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism to manage the pandemic in Gansu and Anhui provinces as well as the Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
The background: Lei became an NHC vice minister in late 2020 and then deputy party secretary of the commission in September 2023.
The Shandong native previously worked as physician at the province’s Dezhou People’s Hospital and headed the policy department of the now dismantled Ministry of Health. During the pandemic he became known to the public by offering updates about the Covid situation in the Chinese capital during press conferences, in his role as director of the Beijing Municipal Health Commission.
Ma, 65, was named president of the fifth council of the Chinese Medical Doctor Association in January and at that time retained his NHC titles, according to state media reports. It is unclear when Ma departed from his previous roles at the NHC.
Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com) and editor Joshua Dummer (joshuadummer@caixin.com)
