President Hu Jintao on Wednesday confirmed the appointment of Zhou Wenzhong as the ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to the United States, in accordance with a decision made by the Standing Committee of National People's Congress (NPC).
Zhou is swapping positions with Yang Jiechi, who will take over the position of vice foreign minister. Yang became China's ambassador to the US four years ago when Li Zhaoxing, his predecessor, was named foreign minister.
Zhou was born in Jiangsu Province in August 1945. Married and with one daughter, he joined the Beijing Diplomats Service Bureau in 1970, where he worked until 1973, when he went to the UK for advanced studies at the University of Bath and London School of Economics.
Upon his return to China in 1975, Zhou was employed in the Foreign Ministry's Translation Office. Three years later, he was transferred to the Chinese Embassy in the US, where he worked until 1983.
After a stint as head of the Translation Office, he returned to the US in 1987 as vice consul general in San Francisco.
In 1990, Zhou was named ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Barbados and concurrently to Antigua & Barbuda, positions he held until 1993 when he came back to China to serve as vice director of the Foreign Ministry's Department of North American and Oceanian Affairs.
Zhou returned to California in 1994 to take over as consul general in Los Angeles, and from 1995 to 1998 served as China's envoy to the US.
He was appointed ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary to Australia in 1998.
Zhou has served as assistant to the foreign minister and then as vice foreign minister since 2001.
(China.org.cn by Wang Qian, March 31, 2005)
