(Xinhua)
Updated: 2008-06-03 10:40

Wang Yi, head of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, delivers a speech during the first meeting of the second session of the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing June 3, 2008. [Agencies]

BEIJING --  China's State Council has appointed Wang Yi as director of its Taiwan Affairs Office to replace Chen Yunlin, according to the council.

The cabinet also ended Wang's post as vice foreign minister and Chen Yunlin's post as director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council.

At a meeting of the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS) on Tuesday, Chen Yunlin was elected as chief of the ARATS.

Wang, a Beijing native born in October 1953, had once taken government posts including director of the Asian affairs department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, assistant foreign minister, vice foreign minister, ambassador to Japan and after that vice foreign minister.

He once headed the Chinese delegation in six party talks on the Korean Peninsula nuclear issue in 2007.

Wang delivered a keynote speech on Tuesday at an executive meeting of the mainland-based Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits (ARATS).

Sources said Wang likes mountaineering. He has a daughter.

Wang Yi the man and his life

Wang Yi was born in October 1953 in Beijing and worked in the countryside in Northeast China as one of the hundreds of millions of urban youths sent to rural areas for reeducation between 1969 and 1977.

Wang Yi [file]

In March 1978, he entered Beijing No 2 Foreign Languages Institute to study Japanese. He was one among the 270,000 young people to succeed in the National College Entrance Examinations, which was resumed after more than 10 years.

Upon graduation, he joined the Foreign Ministry, rising in rank from staff member and attach and deputy division chief, to division chief of the Department of Asian Affairs between 1982 and 1989.

In 1989, he assumed the post of councilor of the Chinese embassy in Japan and later rose to councilor with the rank of a minister.

He returned in 1994, and was appointed deputy director general of the Department of Asian Affairs. In 1995, he became the department's director-general, and was then appointed assistant minister of Foreign Affairs in 1998.

He was promoted as vice-minister of Foreign Affairs in 2001.

On this post, he was especially noted for his role in smoothening the way for the Six-Party Talks. The Japan Times, in a special report, highlighted the fact that Wang Yi as the Chinese delegate "used language that referred to the need for parallel and synchronous steps to bridge the gap."

He is married, with a daughter.