The Central People’s Government Liaison Office in Macau said in a statement Thursday that the central government has appointed Li Gang as its new director.
Li’s appointment had been widely expected. The director of the liaison office is the central government’s higher ranking official posted to Macau.
The office said in the statement that Li’s predecessor Bai Zhijian would return to the mainland and work for the Overseas Chinese Affairs Committee of the National People Congress (NPC). Bai chairs the Beijing-based committee.
Bai, aged 66, who was a member of the 15th and 16th Central Committees of the Communist Party of China (CPC), had headed the Central People’s Government Liaison Office in Macau since 2002.
The statement did not say when Bai took up his new post.
Li had been appointed by the State Council as a vice-director of the local liaison office in December 2012.
According to the statement, Li was born in 1955 in Shandong. He
He was a vice-director of the liaison office in Hong Kong from 2003 to 2012 and cultural councillor in the Chinese embassy in Washington from 1994 to 1998.
According to the China Vitae website, Li is a native of Laiyang city. He graduated from the Liaoning Foreign Language Special School’s English Department and entered the workforce in 1974.
Li was elected a member of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the 18th Central Committee of the CPC in November 2012.
Li simultaneously headed the Ministry of Culture’s Overseas Cultural Communication Bureau and Hong Kong and Macau Culture Af-fairs Department from 1998 to 2001, according to the website. He was the deputy director of the ministry’s Overseas Cultural Communication Bureau from 1993 to 1994.
From 2001 to 2003, he was the deputy director of the Information Office of the State Council where he headed the Central Office for Overseas Publicity and Ideological Work.
Meanwhile, Chief Executive Chui Sai On expressed gratitude for Bai’s dedication, commitment and contribution to Macau, according to a statement released by the Office of the Government Spokes¬person’s Office.
Chui also said in the statement that Bai was not only a former director of the office but also local citizens’ “old friend.”(macaunews)
