The CMC Chairman and the president are distinctly separate state offices and they have not always been held by the same persons. However, beginning in 1993, during the tenure of Jiang Zemin as CMC Chairman and General Secretary of the Communist Party, it has been standard practice to have the president, the CMC chairman, and the CCP general secretary to be normally held by the same person; although the slight differences in the start and end of terms for those respective offices means that there is some overlap between an occupant and his predecessor.