Shanghai clique

The Shanghai clique, also referred to as the Shanghai gang, Jiang clique, or Jiang faction, refers to an informal group of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials who rose to prominence under former CCP General Secretary Jiang Zemin while he served as the party secretary and mayor of Shanghai. Chinese politics have long been defined by the competition between intra-party factions' ability to place key members and allies in positions of power within the CCP and Chinese government. In the 1990s when Jiang Zemin was the CCP General Secretary, Chinese politics was dominated by the Shanghai gang as Jiang attempted to place cultivated ideological followers in senior positions within the CCP. Under Hu Jintao, the Shanghai gang balanced Hu's Chinese Communist Youth League (CCYL) faction in the CCP and under Xi Jinping, the Shanghai gang continued to contend with Xi's faction wherein both factions attempt to obtain the political upper-hand through the nomination of chosen officials to senior roles. After the 20th Party Congress and Jiang Zemin's death in 2022, the Shanghai clique is no longer a visible faction within Chinese Communist Party.