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Name: Zhang Yesui
Current Position: Previous Ambassador
Zhang Yesui was named China’s Ambassador to the United States in March 2010.
Zhang was born in Hubei Province in October 1953. He graduated from Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1975, and attended the London School of Economics from 1975 to 1976.
From 1978 to 1982, Zhang was a staff member and attaché to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) Embassy in the United Kingdom. Between 1982 and 1996 he held a series of positions at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of International Organizations and Conferences. These included Third Secretary, First Secretary, and Deputy Director (1982-88); then Counselor, and Deputy Director General (1992-1996).
From 1988 to 1992, Zhang was posted as First Secretary, and then as Counselor, of the Permanent Mission of the PRC to the United Nations. In 1996, he was Director General of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Protocol Department, and in 2000 he was named Assistant Minister in charge of protocol, administration and personnel at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. He became Vice-Minister of that department in 2003.
Starting in September 2008, Zhang began serving as China’s Ambassador to the United Nations, a post he held until 2010.
Zhang is married to Chen Naiqing, who was China’s Ambassador to Norway from 2003 to 2007, and who shared her husband’s U.N. Mission posting from 1988-1992. They have a daughter.