China names new Guangdong party chief

China named 49-year-old rising political star Hu Chunhua as the new party chief for Guangdong, the country’s richest and most liberal province, replacing reform-minded politician Wang Yang, Reuters reported. Hu will have to manage challenges including rapid industrialization, rising social unrest and corruption in his new post in the southern export powerhouse. “It will be a very big jump for him,” said a foreign diplomat in Guangzhou. Hu has worked briefly in Hebei province near Beijing, spent two decades in Tibet where he learned Tibetan and handled protests by ethnic Mongols successfully last year as party chief of Inner Mongolia. He is expected to be part of the “sixth generation” of senior leaders that will take power after current Communist Party chief Xi Jinping. Wang Jun will take over as party chief of Inner Mongolia. It is unknown where Wang Yang, the previous Guangdong party chief, will be moved.