What’s new: Song Tao, former head of the International Department of the Communist Party’s Central Committee, has been appointed the new director of the Taiwan Affairs Office of the State Council, the office’s website showed Wednesday.
Song, 67, has replaced Liu Jieyi, who held the post since March 2018. He will also serve as director of the Taiwan Work Office of the Central Committee.
The offices’ main responsibilities include formulating policies on Taiwan, coordinating legal affairs related to the island, and managing cross-strait business and cultural affairs. Both are under the direct management of the Central Committee.
Song was a member of the 19th Central Committee after being elected in 2017 for a five-year term. But the seasoned diplomat did not make it to the top decision-making body at the party’s National Congress in October.
The background: Song was the head of the Central Committee’s International Department, an organ that carries out the party’s external work and communications with foreign political parties, from November 2015 to June 2022.
Previously, he served as Chinese ambassador to Guyana and to the Philippines in the 2000s and became vice minister of foreign affairs in 2011. In 2017, Song visited North Korea as President Xi Jinping’s special envoy to promote bilateral ties.
A native of Suqian in East China’s Jiangsu province, Song holds a doctorate in economics and spent his early career in the eastern province of Fujian.
Contact reporter Kelly Wang (jingzhewang@caixin.com) and editor Jonathan Breen (jonathanbreen@caixin.com)
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