26 Facts About Li Qiang

Li Qiang is a Chinese politician who has been the eighth and current premier of China since March 2023.

Li Qiang has been elevated to the second-ranking member on the Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party in October 2022.

Li Qiang became a worker in the Irrigation Pump Station of Mayu in July 1976 at the age of 17 after graduating from secondary school, working there until 1977, and worked in the Third Tool Factory of Rui'an from 1977 to 1978.

Li Qiang studied agricultural mechanization at the Ningbo Branch of Zhejiang Agricultural University from 1978 to 1982.

Li Qiang studied sociology by correspondence at the private China Sociology Correspondence University in Beijing from 1985 to 1987.

Li Qiang attended Hong Kong Polytechnic University from 2003 to 2005 and received an executive Master of Business Administration in 2005.

Li Qiang worked as a clerk at the Rui'an County Committee of the Communist Youth League of China from 1982 to 1983, and later as the secretary of the committee from 1983 to 1984.

Li Qiang then served in progressively senior roles in the provincial department of civil affairs.

Li Qiang first served as the deputy division head and then division head of the Rural Relief Division of the Zhejiang Provincial Civil Affairs Department from 1984 to 1991.

Li Qiang then served as the director of the Civil Affairs Department's Personnel Division from 1991 to 1992, and finally as the deputy head of the Civil Affairs Department from 1992 to 1996.

Li Qiang gave support to light industry, aiming to create an "international light industry city".

Li Qiang started a project to create "characteristic towns", small towns focused on one type of business that have a pro-business climate and good physical environments.

Li Qiang was removed as Zhejiang governor on July 4,2016, when he was succeeded by Che Jun Li Qiang served for 15 months, becoming the shortest serving Jiangsu party secretary in the history of the People's Republic.

Li Qiang was appointed as a member of the CCP Politburo in the same year.

Li Qiang is considered to be "business-friendly", having implemented pro-business policies while in Shanghai such as the opening of the Shanghai Stock Exchange STAR Market.

Li Qiang oversaw increasing foreign investment in the city, including the gigafactory of Tesla, Inc Li Qiang has implemented policies like lowering the threshold for internal migrants to obtain residency permits and creating five new towns to lessen the land supply shortage.

Li Qiang is the first person since Zhou Enlai to rise directly to premiership from local government without any prior working experience in the central government, especially as a vice premier.

Li Qiang met many foreign business executives, including Tim Cook of Apple Inc and Ray Dalio of Bridgewater Associates, who made their first trip to China since the zero-COVID policy ended.

In November 2023, Li Qiang was appointed as the head of the Central Financial Commission, a newly established CCP body overseeing the financial sector.

Li Qiang visited Hubei province during January 2024 in a trip to emphasize technological independence, where he visited Yangtze Memory Technologies, the Wuhan University, water conservancy projects, a chemical company focusing on green development in Yichang and a battery industrial estate set up by Guangdong Brunp Recycling Technology, a subsidiary of CATL.

Li Qiang later visited the research centers of China Telecom, China Unicom and China Mobile, China's three state-owned telecom service providers, calling on them to increase innovation.

Li Qiang met with Indonesian president Joko Widodo, vowing $21.7 billion new Chinese investment in Indonesia.

In January 2024, Li Qiang visited Switzerland and Ireland, and he attended the annual meeting of World Economic Forum in Davos.

In mid-June 2024, Li Qiang visited New Zealand, where he was hosted by New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon and Governor-General Cindy Kiro to sign trade and climate change agreements.

Li Qiang set up the World Wenzhounese Conference to encourage members of the global Wenzhounese diaspora to invest back in the city, and told the conference in 2013 that "I was born and bred a Wenzhounese" and "[t]he Wenzhounese spirit of daring to be the first and especially of strong entrepreneurship has always inspired and nourished me".

In 2024, Li Qiang was named one of the 100 most influential people of 2024 by Time.