Gong Jianzhong

Ambassador to Ghana

Date of Birth: 1953
Place of Birth: Taicang, Jiangsu Province

Ghana is among the most stable of China’s African allies but as new emissary Gong Jianzhong will be keeping an eye on recent attacks on Chinese businesses in the port of Tema. In early October, a robbery at a Chinese-owned nightclub left three injured. An Embassy spokesperson said it was unclear if the robbers had deliberately targeted Chinese interests.

Born 1953 in Taicang, Jiangsu Province, Gong graduated from the Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1977. He then studied Icelandic at the University of Iceland before taking up a post at the Embassy in Reykjavik. For much of his career, he has been attached to the Foreign Ministry’s Information Department. He has served in the press offices of the embassies in Iceland and Britain in the 1980s and 1990s, as well as in the Foreign Ministry Commissioner’s Office in Hong Kong during the city’s return to China in 1997. From 2004 to 2008, he was the Consul General in Manchester, Britain. On his rotations back to Beijing, Gong rose through the ranks of the Information Department. Prior to assignment to Accra in August 2010, he was Director-General of the Department.