Former foreign affairs spokesman to head China's UK embassy

Qin Gang, former spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and deputy director of the Information Department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, will assume the office of the minister of the Embassy of the People's Republic of China in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, according to a release by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Sept. 5.

Qin has had previous experience working in the U.K. Embassy. From 1995 to 1999, Qin was the third secretary and the second secretary of the Embassy of the PRC in the United Kingdom. From 2002 to 2005, he was appointed as the counselor of the Embassy of the PRC in the United Kingdom.

From 2005 to August 2010, Qin was the spokesperson for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the deputy director of the Information Department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He was responsible for the release of Chinese foreign affairs information and answering questions of media from home and abroad during the regular press conferences of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Netizens said that during the regular press conferences, he responded to questions asked from a radical perspective by foreign media with the force of justice. He also answered some questions with witty repartees.

Currently, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has two spokespeople now that Qin has assumed his new role. They are Ma Zhaoxu, director of the Information Department under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Jiang Yu, deputy director of the Information Department.

Officials from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said that as the work of the Information Department is busy, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs is preparing to introduce a new spokesperson and will maintain the configuration of three spokespeople after the new spokesperson takes office.

By People's Daily Online, Yan Meng