He made his way up the ranks in the city, serving as vice mayor in charge of agriculture, then deputy party secretary.

Meng was born in July 1947 in Wu County, a present-day urban district of Suzhou, Jiangsu Province.

In 1996 he was promoted to become the deputy Communist Party secretary of Shanghai, one of the most powerful positions in China's commercial hub.

Some say Meng was transferred out of Shanghai because he had lost out on a struggle to Chen Liangyu become the city's party secretary.

Meng responded to this by postponing the entire conference until all the required attendees arrived as a means to reprimand those who failed to show.

[2] He remained party secretary of Jiangxi until October 28, 2007, when he was transferred to Beijing and appointed the Minister of the Public Security, replacing political heavyweight Zhou Yongkang, who was elevated to become a member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party.

In January 2013, Meng announced that his commission would begin work on abolishing the "re-education through labour" system, which has been widely criticized internationally.

Meng also criticized the interference of local party authorities, specifically the Political and Legal Affairs Commissions at the local or provincial government level for the practice of interference in individual court cases, compromising the integrity of judicial independence.