Zhong Dezhi, acting mayor of Nanning, the capital of China’s Guangxi region, was elected mayor this week, two months after taking up the acting role.
The Nanning People’s Congress elected Zhong as mayor on Monday (9 November), China News Service reported.
Public records show that Zhong, 54, is from Linqing in Shandong province. He holds a doctorate in law and graduated from the China University of Political Science and Law, where he specialised in procedural law.
Zhong spent 16 years at China’s Supreme People’s Procuratorate early in his career. He started as an official and junior clerk in its General Bureau of Anti-Corruption and Bribery, eventually becoming director of the general office of its Railway Transport Procuratorial Department. In late 2009, he began a two-year temporary posting as vice-mayor of Yulin in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region.
Zhong Dezhi made his first transfer to a local government role in November 2011, heading the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region Communist Party discipline inspection commission’s team stationed at the region’s foreign affairs office. He later served as deputy party secretary of Hezhou, deputy secretary of Guangxi’s discipline inspection commission and secretary-general of the Guangxi government.
After the announcement on 16 May last year that Lan Tianli, chairman of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region government and known as the “Zhuang king”, had been placed under investigation, Zhong, then the government’s secretary-general, and several other senior officials appeared on Guangxi television the following day (17 May) to publicly express support for the central authorities’ decision to investigate Lan.
Zhong was appointed vice-mayor and acting mayor of Nanning in September 2026, serving in those roles until his election as mayor. He also currently holds several other posts, including secretary of the Communist Party working committee and director of the management committee for the planning and development of Wuxiang New Area in Nanning, Guangxi, as well as director of the management committee of the Nanning area of the China (Guangxi) Pilot Free Trade Zone.