Biographic profile of Chen Zhili

Chen Zhili is China's first female education minister, and as a top prot¨¦g¨¦ of President Jiang Zemin, she is considered one of the most influential women in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). Her ambitious plans for education, unveiled shortly after she became minister of education, include eliminating illiteracy among those aged 15 to 50 by the end of the year 2000, a goal that dovetails with the program to introduce nine-year compulsory education nationwide. In late 1998 she pushed for the reform of China¡¯s higher education system, under which universities and institutions are to be run jointly by central and local governments, with the latter assuming greater responsibility.

Leadership Posts

Chen Zhili had formed ties to Jiang Zemin when they both worked in Shanghai. Her appointment as vice minister of the State Education Commission in 1997, the year that Jiang was reelected general secretary of the CCP, was generally thought to reflect the consolidation of power of President Jiang and his "Shanghai faction" of allies.

Chen¡¯s career also benefited from the determination of Premier Zhu Rongji to take advantage of the Ninth National People¡¯s Congress in March 1998 to increase the number of young technocrats in his cabinet; as a result of his support, Chen became minister of Education. Chen had come to Zhu¡¯s attention owing to her professional expertise and international vision.

Equally significant is Chen¡¯s Party career. Serving as deputy secretary of the CCP Committee of the Shanghai Institute of Silicates from 1983 to 1984, she was also deputy secretary and later secretary of the Science and Technology Work Committee of the CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee from 1984 to 1986. Following this, she was elevated to the status of member of the Standing Committee and head of the Propaganda Department of the CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee, where she served from 1988 to 1989. Chen became deputy secretary of the CCP Shanghai Municipal Committee in 1991, a post she held until 1997, when she was appointed secretary of the Leading Party Members¡¯ Group.

Meanwhile, in 1987, Chen began her affiliation with the CCP Central Committee as an alternate member of the Thirteenth CCP Central Committee and was reelected to the post in 1992 for the Fourteenth CCP Central Committee. Since the Central Committee contains the ruling elite of China, membership carries much symbolic power. Chen¡¯s political ascendancy was evident in her rise to full membership in the Fifteenth CCP Central Committee in 1997.

Background

Chen Zhili was born in 1942 in Xianyou, Fujian Province. At the age of 19, in 1961, she joined the Communist Party. She studied physics at the prestigious Fudan University in Shanghai, graduating in 1964. She completed graduate studies at the Shanghai Institute of Silicates, a branch of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, in 1968. After this, Chen spent fifteen years as first a junior research fellow of that institute, and then an associate research fellow, from 1968 to 1983. She was among the first group of Chinese scholars to visit the United States.