Wang Min

Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations

Date of Birth: February 1963
Place of Birth: Anhui Province, China

China’s Deputy Permanent Representative, Wang Min, puts South-South diplomacy into action at the United Nations. Even after surpassing Japan as the world’s second-largest economy, China frequently sides with developing nations. Yet among them, only China has the clout of a permanent Security Council seat. At the UN General Assembly in October, Wang called on developed nations (though presumably not China) to open their markets to African products and to increase overseas aid to the rarely reached target of 0.7% of gross domestic product. For good measure, he later assailed the United States’ embargo on Cuba.

Wang was born in 1963 in Anhui Province. After graduating from university, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. His first overseas posting was to China’s Embassy in Yemen (1985-88), where he was an attaché. He returned to Beijing in 1988 as attaché, then Third Secretary, in the Ministry’s Department of International Organisations and Conferences. A period of study at Leiden University in the Netherlands was followed by appointment to the UN Office in Geneva and Other International Organisations (1992-1995). Returning to Beijing, he rose to Deputy Director General of the International Organisations Department.

In 2004 and 2005, Wang took up a party role as Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party of China’s Committee of Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Yunnan Province. Then he returned to foreign policy positions as Director-General of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference’s Bureau of Foreign Affairs (2005-2007) and Director-General of the MFA’s Department of External Security Affairs (2007-2010). He took up his current position at the UN in June 2010, replacing Liu Zhenmin, who became Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs.