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Liu Cigui is perhaps the first high-profile casualty in China’s 2022 Party Congress race. He was effectively eliminated in December 2020 along with other Politburo potential Bayanqolu. Liu was promoted out of contention, being taken out of the Hainan party secretary position and “elevated” to central level as the vice chair of the National People’s Congress Foreign Affairs Committee. Sitting on this committee alone could have been an indication of Liu’s future role in China’s foreign policymaking and party power system. But this promotion out of the provincial party seat to a central position without a path to Politburo signals the end of his political career. His foreign policymaking career may live on though through the 2022-2027 political administration.