ABSTRACT
This chapter establishes a baseline model for the political mobility of Chinese provincial leaders, with their personal characteristics as the main explanatory variables, controlling for historical periods and different years within the third period. The pre-Cultural Revolution period represents a "normal" time in the history of the People's Republic. Within each of the historical periods, there were years of political campaigns with significant consequences for the political mobility of Chinese provincial leaders. In the structure of provincial politics, party leaders are usually considered to be more important than government leaders. Chinese provincial leaders are not all Chinese Communist Party (CCP) members. The Chinese provincial leadership is male dominant. Women have representation in this important political apparatus, but they are underrepresented: female provincial leaders account for only about 4 percent of the total provincial leadership. Gender does not seem to play any significant role in political mobility.
