First Lady's Visit

Personally I'm waiting for President Obama's visit to Asia next month, the one which was postponed due to a government shutdown in the US, but since the First Lady is here we might as well do some analysis.  She met with Zhu Shanlu, who is the head of the CCP for Beijing's Peking University.  There is a thread of communist party leaders that run throughout institutions in China.  The party secretary of a city or district often has more power than the local leadership.  It would be as if a representative of the Democratic party for Kansas City has just as much pull as the mayor.  Even at a university, the party representative is the one who gets to hand over the Chinese history book- not the dean.