people
Q: First, tell us about yourself and
walk us through your background.
A: First of all, I would like to thank
you for this interview. International
Focus is a magazine with an inter-
national perspective, and I really ap-
preciate that.
I was born in May 1957. I graduated
from Central South University with
a degree in Philosophy, obtained my
MBA in the Netherlands from the
Research Institute for Management
Science in 1988. I joined Foreign
Service in the year 2000. Before that,
I had been working in China’s Hu-
nan Province for about 20 years. I
was in charge of economic and trade
issues, like promoting foreign invest-
ment in Hunan, and introducing
Hunan to the outside world. From
1991 to 2001, I served as Director
and Deputy Director-General of the
Foreign Trade and Economic Co-
operation Department as well as the
Foreign Trade and Economic Rela-
tions Commission of China’s Hunan
Province.
Since joining the Foreign Service, I
served as Counselor of the Chinese
Embassy in the State of Israel, am-
bassador to the Republic of Uganda
and the Republic of Zambia, Special
Envoy to the China-Pacific Islands
Forum Dialogues.
From May 2014, I have been serv-
ing as the 13th Consul General of
the People’s Republic of China in
Houston.
Q: Tell us about the Consulate-Gen-
eral of the People’s Republic of China
in Houston. What parts of America are
covered by the Consulate and what are
the services it provides? What does a
58 iF Magazine | April 2018
Consul General in your capacity do?
A: The Consulate General of China
in Houston was officially opened in
1979. It is the first Consulate General
China set up in the United States of
America after the normalization of
the bilateral ties.
Our Consulate General office cov-
ers eight southern U.S. states, namely
Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana, Arkan-
sas, Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia,
Florida and an unincorporated terri-
tory-the Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico.
The basic functions of a Consulate
General include providing consular
protection to its nationals and issu-
ing visas for foreign visitors. We have
quite a number of Chinese Com-
munities in the Southern U.S., in the
major cities like Houston, Dallas, Mi-
ami and Atlanta. My colleagues travel
a lot to offer services to our nationals
in the consular area.
Furthermore, we are committed to
enhancing China-US pragmatic and
regional cooperation, exploring op-
portunities and promoting exchanges
and cooperation between China and
our consular district in the United