Wuling "Veteran Hands Over Baton": 44-Year-Old Han Dehong Assumes Party Secretary Role

Editor's Note: Wuling's "low-key adjustment" this time has pushed the person who understands Wuling the best to the most difficult yet most imaginative position.

Recently, SAIC-GM-Wuling completed a round of low-key personnel adjustments: former Deputy Party Secretary and Vice General Manager Han Dehong succeeded Yao Zuoping to serve as the company Party Secretary; Yao Zuoping was reassigned as General Manager Advisor and Director of the Technical Committee of the Smart Island Manufacturing System.

There was no high-profile press conference, nor lengthy press releases, but this step of "Deputy Secretary becoming Official Secretary" carries significant weight in the context of state-owned enterprise governance—it is both a handover between new and old generations, and a recalibration of organizational temperament amidst Wuling's triple pressures of new energy, overseas expansion, and brand elevation.

From Grassroots to Party Secretary

Han Dehong was born in 1982, joined SAIC-GM-Wuling in 2005, and has been within the system for 21 years by 2026. In the public resume, he did not follow a single technical line or single sales line, but was repeatedly "traversed across different terrains" by Wuling: early on, he went to the Indian joint venture company as General Manager Assistant, encountering emerging markets and cross-cultural joint ventures;

Back in China, he managed administration and public relations, understanding government, media, supply chain, and external relations; since 2016, he entered the sales system, serving as Vice General Manager of the Sales Company; during the New Baojun period, he worked on sales companies and brand communication, catching the wave when Wuling tested the shift from "cheap and usable" to "younger and intelligent"; then he went to the Indonesian market, participating in Southeast Asian localization operations; back at headquarters, he served as Deputy Party Secretary and General Manager Assistant, appearing publicly as Vice General Manager starting in 2024.

The keyword of this path is "full scenario": overseas, brand, sales, PR, party building, and operations are all covered. Compared to executives from pure technical or pure financial backgrounds, Han Dehong is more like an "organizational strategist"—this is what Wuling, such a "people's car company," needs now: to both defend the core market in lower-tier areas and articulate globalization, Smart Island, and new energy.

Behind the August Sales of 130,870 Units

When looking at sales, one cannot just look at the total number.

In August, SAIC-GM-Wuling's global sales were 130,870 units, of which new energy accounted for 83,788 units, representing about 64%—this shows that Wuling is no longer a company relying solely on the Hongguang MINIEV single product to rule the market, but new energy has become the main engine. More critically, the structure: Red Label Wuling 36,726 units, the core foundation still lies in commercial, county/township, and micro-business operator markets; Silver Label Wuling 47,139 units, undertaking household-oriented, quality-oriented;

Overseas exports 38,660 sets/units, cumulative overseas sales exceeded 1.6 million, exports have broken 30,000 for 5 consecutive months; Huajing S delivered 7,306 units, total deliveries since listing exceeded 25,000, climbing continuously for many months. The significance of Huajing S is not entirely in absolute volume, but in "whether Wuling can sell into the 100,000+ or even higher price bracket".

In the past, Wuling's strength lay in cost-performance and scale, weak in brand premium. If Huajing S can stabilize at 7,000-unit level monthly delivery, it proves Wuling is not only good at making "commuter miracle cars" but can also penetrate the mainstream new energy SUV market for family smart mobility.

But the risks are also clear: Silver Label and Red Label still face downward pressure year-on-year; traditional fuel micro-cars and entry-level markets are squeezed by price wars, channel inventory, and consumption segmentation. Wuling is currently not "without sales", but rather "sales structure is undergoing a transformation", and the transition period fears rhythm chaos most.

Han Dehong's appointment, on the surface is "44-year-old taking over 62-year-old"; the underlying layer is Wuling shifting from "lower-tier scale driven" to "new energy + overseas + intelligent manufacturing" three-line warfare.

Yao Zuoping's generation made Wuling a national brand where "whatever the people need, Wuling builds"; Han Dehong's generation needs to answer: when people need intelligence, need globalization, and need higher quality-price ratio, will Wuling dare to, and be able to, revolutionize once again.

Short-term, August data gave confidence: new energy nearly 84,000, overseas exceeded 1.6 million, Huajing S broke 7,306, the core foundation did not collapse. Medium-term, the real exam is three things—whether Huajing/Baojun can pull the brand price bracket up, whether Indonesia/India/Southeast Asia experience can become sustainable overseas profits, and whether the Smart Island manufacturing system can turn cost and flexible production into a moat.

Wuling's "low-key adjustment" this time is actually not low-key at all: it pushed the person who understands Wuling the best to the most difficult yet most imaginative position.