SISU alumnus Li Jinjun, who once served as Deng Xiaoping's translator and now deputy head of the CPC Central Committee’s International Department (IDCPC), was appointed as China's new Ambassador to the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (D.P.R.K.) this March.
President Xi Jinping made the appointment in line with decisions made by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress, said a press release of the nation’s top legislature on Wednesday.
Li served as Deng Xiaopen's translator. He graduated from Shanghai International Studies University (formerly Shanghai Foreign Language Institute) in 1974 and went to study in the Federal Republic of Germany. He started to work in the International Department of the CPC Central Committee in 1975. Before he assumed the office of Vice-Minister of the International Department of the CPC Central Committee in 2007, he was appointed China’s Ambassador to the Union of Myanmar in 2000 and then Ambassador to the Republic of the Philippines in 2005. Since 2010, Li has also served as Vice President, Secretary General and then Executive Vice President of the Chinese Association for International Understanding.
China sent its first ambassador to Pyongyang in 1950. Li will be the 17th envoy
