Meet some freshmen and a freshwoman
(China Daily)
Updated: 2008-02-29 07:25

Luan Enjie

is the chief commander of China's lunar probe project. He got his bachelor's degree in navigation from Harbin Institute of Technology in 1965, and earned a master's degree in mechanics from Tsinghua University in 1968. He worked as researcher at No 7 Mechanical Industry Ministry, which in 1982 was renamed Ministry of Space Industry. He assumed the post of deputy director of China National Space Administration in 1993 and was its director from 1998 to 2004. The 68-year-old became the chief commander of the Chang'e I project last year.

Vincent Cheng Hoi-chuen is the first Chinese executive director of HSBC. Being born into a poor family in Hong Kong and a crippling polio attack when he was just six months old didn't stop Cheng from having a passion for social welfare. He chose a career in finance because "business is also contributing to society through providing goods and services that customers want". He joined HSBC in 1978, and rose through the ranks with his hard work. He became the executive director of the global banking group in February.

Being the first Chinese at the helm of HSBC has nothing to with his nationality, instead "it reflects the group's strategy of focusing more on emerging markets", he says. In Cheng's words, his priority will be Asia Pacific because the region comprises a major part of the group's business now. "We still believe Asia will have a very good growth rate this year despite the economic slowdown in the US," he says. The 59-year-old has been a member of Hong Kong's political elite for decades. He was a member of the Executive Council of Hong Kong from 1995 to 1997 and a legislator from 1991 to 1995.

Mao Xinyu is the grandson of Mao Zedong. A researcher with the Academy of Military Sciences, he followed the footprints of the Long March and visited the rural areas, factories and mines on the way with his mother Shao Hua. He has published several books on and about Mao Zedong and other members of his family. This is the first time the 38-year-old has been made a CPPCC National Committee member. His mother was a member from 1988 to 2007.

Tai Lihua is a beautiful new face in the CPPCC. The 32-year-old hearing impaired is the artistic director of the China Disabled People's Performing Art Troupe, though she is better known as a dancer who best demonstrates the serenity of the Goddess of Mercy (Avalokitesvara or Guan Yin). Tai rocketed to fame at the 2005 Spring Festival Gala Show of the China Central Television Station, when she performed The Thousand-handed Goddess of Mercy dance with 20 other hearing and speech impaired woman dancers. She lost her hearing power after suffering from very high fever at the age of two, and started learning dancing at seven.

Feng Xiaogang is a film director, and his movies have always been big hits. The 50-year-old is known to have started a genre called Hesui Pian (New Year Films) in Chinese cinema, featuring comedies that mirror social changes and are screened during the New Year holidays. Last year his tragedy Assembly, about soldiers in the Liberation War (1945-49) and their lives after that, was a touching construct of the events and commercially successful, too.

Li Yining is a leading economist and has been an advisor to the government on economic policies for a long time. Born in 1930, he studied economics in Peking University from 1951 to 1955. Li has been a leading light of China's economic reforms, and is credited for developing the theory of disequilibrium, based on which he recommended a gradual economic reform to achieve stable development. In the mid-1980s, Li said the primary task of economic reform was reforming ownership.

He is one of the economists who first called for reforms in Chinese enterprises, especially State-owned ones, with a joint-stock system. No wonder, some media reports refer to him as "Mr Stock Market". Li has been teaching at Peking University from 1955, and has served as the president of the university's Guanghua Management College and director of the Management Science Center. At present, he is vice-chairman of the Sub-committee on Economy of the CPPCC National Committee.

Liu Xiang, or the "Shanghai Express", first came to public attention when he won the gold in the men's 110-meter hurdles at the 2004 Athens Olympics. He broke the world record by clocking 12.88 seconds in Lausanne on July 11, 2006. The 25-year-old Shanghai native is a leading contender for the 110m hurdles gold at the Beijing Games too.

Zhang Jindong, with a personal wealth of $2 billion, was 488th in last year's Forbes list of world billionaires. The 44-year-old president of China's second largest appliance retail chain Suning is a self-made man. He graduated with a degree in Chinese literature, and began working as a manager in a State-owned enterprise. The entrepreneur in him then prompted him to open a store selling air-conditioners in his native city of Nanjing. And the rest, as they say, is history.

Wan Gang, the new minister of science and technology, is one of the only two non-Communist Party ministers in the State Council, the country's cabinet. A Shanghai native, 56-year-old Wan is an automobile engineer, and has worked for Audi Corporation in Germany. Wan returned to China at the invitation of the Ministry of Science and Technology in 2000 and was appointed chief scientist and group leader of a key national electric vehicle project. In 2002, he worked as assistant president of Tongji University in Shanghai and was promoted to president of the university in July 2004.

Timothy Fok Tsun-ting is the president of Sports Federation and Olympic Committee of Hong Kong and a member of Hong Kong's Legislative Council. He is the son of Henry Fok Ying-tung, the late vice-chairman of the CPPCC National Committee and a leading businessman.

China Daily

(China Daily 02/29/2008 page7)