Standing in the Party and Career Highlights:

Member of the 18th CPC Central Committee.

Roughly 30 years of increasingly responsible Party and government positions in Shandong Province including vice-governor and deputy Party secretary.

Some time in Communist Youth League, Women’s Federation, and as president of the China College of Women Management Cadres.

Vice-Minister of Justice from 2003 to 2005, Minister thereafter until February 2017. See The Diplomat for announcement of her expulsion for “serious discipline problems”.

Quotations By/Comments About:

• All-China Women’s Federation website: Wu Aiying’s long years in procuratorial, judicial and public security work have made her a woman of action rather than of words. This “low profile” work style is reflected in her spartanly furnished office. A desk, chair, sofa, coffee table and book cabinet are all she needs to function as Minister of Justice. (NB reference to her legal experience is not borne out by chinavitae.com or Willy Lam, below.)
• China’s Supreme Court website: “Detailed criteria for law enforcement should exist for every aspect and stage of police officers’ work and in responding to emergencies,” Wu said at a meeting for police working in jails and labor camps. Wu urged prisoners’ and detainees’ rights be “faithfully” upheld in civil law enforcement.
• Ministry of Justice website [Sanlu milk scandal 2008] “We must make upholding stability our primary responsibility, and use all energy to protect social harmony and stability.
• Willy Lam Far Eastern Economic Review, October 2009 on the deteriorating state of legal affairs under the Hu Jintao administration. “In a much-noted speech last December Hu Jintao vowed that Beijing would never go down the “evil path” of Western-style democracy…This is why the CCP rides roughshod over the legislature and judicial departments such as the procuratorate (prosecutor’s offices) and the courts. The Party’s Central Commission on Politics and Legal Affairs, headed by Politburo Standing Committee member Zhou Yongkang, assumes total control over the police, the procuratorate and the courts. The Party’s dominance over the judiciary has compromised the integrity of judges and other zhengfa (“political and legal”) cadres. Because justice can hardly be sought in the courts is a key reason why there are an estimated 100,000 cases of “mass incidents,” meaning protests and riots, annually. Despite promoting the slogan of “running the country according to law,” Messrs. Hu, Zhou and colleagues have heavily politicized the courts, for instance by appointing Party functionaries as senior judges. This reverses a longstanding trend toward greater professionalism in the judiciary. The official press has admitted that half the provincial-level chief justices in China’s 31 major administrative districts do not possess any legal background… President of the Supreme People’s Court Wang Shengjun and Minister of Justice Wu Aiying are both veteran Party-affairs specialists who never attended law school…. The devastating sociopolitical impact of the judicial system’s bankruptcy cannot be exaggerated.” (Our emphasis).

Wu Aiying’s Contact Information:

• Address: Ministry of Justice, No.10 Chaoyangmen Nandajie, Beijing 100020.
• Website: www.moj.gov.cn
• Phone: +86 10 6520 5114
• Fax: +86 10 8313 9065
• Please note that this phone and fax number are what’s listed on China’s official ministry website, but they do not work!

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