For a decade, former Chongqing mayor Huang Qifan stood out as a political survivor while colleague after close colleague fell in China’s far-reaching anti-corruption campaign.
Throughout that time, including his seven years as the megacity’s mayor from 2009 to 2016, Huang was seen as a “tumbler” in Chinese politics – a weighted doll that wobbles but never falls over.
The nickname was well-deserved – he served under six municipal Communist Party secretaries, watching two of them – Bo Xilai and Sun Zhengcai – jailed for corruption.
Bo and Sun were both members of the Politburo, the pinnacle of the party’s power, and their downfalls were two of the biggest political earthquakes the country has seen in recent decades. Yet Huang survived.