Zhang Ping (former Head of NDRC)

Zhang Ping 张平

One of 13 Vice Chairs of NPC

1946

Former Head of National Development and Reform Commission and thought to have been a Member of Tibet Work Leading Group


Overview

Pronunciation: Jahng Ping soundbite
Born: 1946, Anhui Province.
Education: Anhui School of Banking.
Career: Minister of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) 2008 – 2013.
Prospects: Was not promoted in 2012, nor a member of the 18th Central Committee. Named one of 13 Vice Chairs of the National People’s Congress
Relevance to Tibet: Was a Member of the Tibet Work Leading Group but seems unlikely to remain so.


Standing in the Party and Career Highlights:

Various positions in banking until 1981, when he entered government work, primarily in economics.

Ten years in increasingly more senior government and Party positions at the provincial level (Deputy Party Secretary of Anhui Province).

Became Deputy Secretary General of the State Council in 2005, moved to NDRC in 2008. Was a member of the 17th CPC Central Committee but not the 18th Central Committee, possibly due to reaching retirement age.

Note: “The National Development and Reform Commission is the country’s state planning body. All major economic and industrial decisions are routed through NDRC. As much as anyone below the level of premier, Zhang runs China’s $4.4 trillion economy”. (Elliot Wilson in Emerging Markets October 2009)

Quotations By/Comments About:

  • Elliot Wilson, Emerging Markets, October 2009: At the head of the NDRC sits Zhang Ping, a 63-year-old career civil servant trusted implicitly by Beijing’s senior politicians. Zhang himself is an unprepossessing individual, which is entirely the point. The closest he comes to having a genuine public personality, say sources close to the NDRC chairman, is in having a nice line in the Chinese rapid-fire comedy form of xiangsheng, or ‘cross talk’, and being a reasonably good ping pong player…..To be sure, Zhang’s personal power – and his ability to influence economic events directly – is mitigated by the country’s decision-by-committee mentality. Yet in a country run by civil servants, Zhang is right at the top of the tree.
  • Cheng Li, 2010: Director of the NDRC Zhang Ping is the only minister who did not attend college. At a time when a large number of Chinese political leaders earned their advanced degrees through part-time graduate programs (which sometimes did not imply serious academic training), Zhang Ping’s lack of an academic degree actually earns him more respect in the eyes of the Chinese public.”
  • South China Morning Post, March 2010: [With regard to allegations that money from China’s massive stimulus package—4 trillion yuan—had been siphoned off for speculation in the frenzied property market] “Not a cent” in the programme had entered the property market or been used for land purchases, Zhang Ping , minister in charge of the powerful National Development and Reform Commission, said on the sidelines of the annual meeting of the National People’s Congress.
  • Times of India, March, 2010: Zhang Ping, chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission, said the United States has no business to complain about trade surplus and the exchange rate of the Yuan as it practiced unfair trade practices. The US did not allow a lot of high-technology goods to be sold to China, which is the reason for the trade surplus accumulated by Beijing.

Zhang Ping’s Contact Information:

  • Address: (Was) National Development and Reform Commission, No.38 Yuetan Nanjie, Xicheng District, Beijing 100824.
  • Website: http://bgt.ndrc.gov.cn/
  • Phone:
  • Fax:

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