zhu, who is a member of china's ethnic han majority, was born in lianshui county, jiangsu, and joined the communist party of china in may 1980. he attended school at the xinjiang party school. he served successively as the party chief of kashgar (county-level city), deputy party chief and later party chief of hotan. by the 1990s, he was fluent in the uyghur language. in october 2006 he was named a member of the regional party standing committee and the head of the regional political and legal affairs commission, an important post overseeing internal security and law enforcement. in september 2009 he was named party chief of urumqi after months of unrest in the capital. in april 2016, he was named deputy party chief of xinjiang. according to the international consortium of investigative journalists (icij) zhu had major impact on the strategic planning of the xinjiang re-education camps.