|
CHINA'S legislature approved four new chiefs yesterday to head the country's science, foreign, land and water ministries - including the first non-Party minister in decades.
Among the group, Wan Gang was named the country's new minister of science and technology.
A vice chairman of the China Zhi Gong (Public Interest) Party, Wan replaces 65-year-old Xu Guanhua, becoming the only minister in China's State Council who is not a member of the Communist Party of China.
He is also the first cabinet minister from a non-Communist party since the late 1970s, when China launched its economic reform and opening-up drive.
A former automobile engineer at the Audi Corp in Germany, Wan was president of Shanghai's Tongji University before taking his new position. He was born in Shanghai in August 1952.
Founded in 1925, the China Zhi Gong Party is composed mainly of returned overseas Chinese, relatives of overseas Chinese and noted figures and scholars who have overseas ties. It has more than 15,600 members.
|
