BEIJING: Ying Yong, who oversaw China's response to the initial coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, is likely to take over as the country's top prosecutor, according to several people with knowledge of the situation.
According to sources, the current Procurator-General Zhang Jun will soon be replaced by Ying, 64, who is already serving in the Supreme People's Procuratorate.
With this appointment, Ying, who served as a senior judge and corruption-buster for Xi Jinping in the early 2000s, will hold one of the most important positions in China's judicial system.
From 2002 to 2007, Xi served Zhejiang in two terms: first as governor and then as party chief. Ying then served as the province's deputy police chief, deputy anti-corruption chief, and eventually top judge.
The move comes just six weeks before the Communist Party Congress, where Xi is projected to be re-elected for a fifth term as the party's general secretary, the first since Mao Zedong.
According to an official Beijing-based source, Ying debuted last week as deputy party secretary at the Supreme People's Procuratorate Office. The source claimed that China's current top prosecutor, Zhang, could be chosen to head the country's highest court.
According to another source, Ying will make an official visit to a nearby museum on Monday.
Since Xi came to power in 2012, Ying has steadily advanced in his position. Ying assumed leadership of Shanghai's organization department in 2013, which is responsible for management personnel, and was elected mayor in 2017.
When he was sent to Wuhan in 2020, at the start of the pandemic, the city where COVID-19 was first discovered was in utter chaos, Ying gained more notoriety in China. Ying held the position of party chief of Hubei province until March this year.
Ying was elected in April to serve as deputy chairman of the Constitution and Law Committee of the National People's Congress. Since such positions usually go to semi-retired officers, that decision raised questions about whether he was nearing the end of his political career.
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