H.E. Xu Jinghu

Ambassdor to Morocco

Date of Birth: 10/1954
Place of Birth: Jiangsu province

Xu Jinghu born in 1954 in Jiangsu province. in 1979 she joined the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry's Department for Africa. She has held different positions in her career, though all connected with the African foreign policy of the People's Republic of China. Her first overseas assignment was as Third Secretary to the Chinese embassy in Gabon between 1985 and 1990. She was apponted Ambassador to Morocco in 2009.

China's chief envoy to Morocco is an experienced Africa hand, managing the 2006 Forum on China-Africa Cooperation (FOCAC) held in Beijing. Now Ambassador to Morocco, consistently placed among China's ten largest African trading partners, Xu Jinghu assisted successor Zhang Ming (former Ambassador to Kenya) as Assistant Secretary General at the fourth FOCAC in Egypt on 8-9 November.

Born 1954 in Jiangsu, Xu attended the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute, majoring in French. She entered the Foreign Ministry's Department of African Affairs after graduation in 1979, working in its West African office. In 1985, she received her first international assignment, as Third Secretary to China's embassy in Gabon, where she stayed until 1990. In the decade that followed, she rose to become Deputy Director of African Affairs. Her career follows a similar arc to that of former Foreign Minister, and current Special Envoy to Africa, Liu Guijin.

Beijing despatched Xu to Madagascar as a full ambassador in 2001, where she arrived in time to witness the drawn-out stand-off between the incumbent President Didier Ratsiraka and opposition leader Marc Ravalomanana that followed the country's December 2001 presidential election, as well as the violence that accompanied it. In 2004, she returned to Beijing to take up the mantle of Director of African Affairs.

The post also called for her to serve as Secretary General of the third FOCAC in 2006. The event was a public-relations triumph for China that captured the world's attention and transformed China-Africa relations. Xu was centre-stage during this period of intense engagement with Africa. Over her four-year tenure, China-Africa trade doubled as Beijing strengthened its influence on the continent.