H.E. Zhong Jianhua

China's Ambassador to South Africa

Date of Birth: 12/1950
Place of Birth: Jiangsu Province

The career of China’s new Ambassador to South Africa, Zhong Jianhua, hints at the importance Beijing places on its biggest trade partner in Africa. A graduate of the Beijing Institute of Foreign Languages, Zhong joined the Foreign Affairs Ministry in 1977. His past assignments include eight years at China’s Embassy in Britain and twelve at the Department of Consular Affairs in Beijing, where he became Director-General in 1999.  

No stranger to sticky negotiations, in 1991-93 Zhong was First Secretary of the Chinese delegation to the Sino-British Joint Liaison Group that prepared the 1997 Hong Kong handover. Later, he was a negotiator for the United States’ reparations for the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation’s bombing of China’s Embassy in Belgrade, Yugoslavia, in 1999.  In 2001-2007, as Consul General in Los Angeles, USA, Zhong was an active speaker who could be counted on to accentuate the positive. His responses to questions on income inequality and economic reform were more nuanced and constructive than Beijing’s usual line.  

Before leaving his US post in 2007, Zhong massaged religious leaders’ concerns about how China will accommodate the religious practices of Olympic athletes in 2008. Now Beijing has placed a friendly, media-canny face in Pretoria, perhaps in anticipation of tricky public relations duties to emerge.