The National People’s Congress of China approved the appointment
of General Li Shangfu to the position of the Minister of National
Defense on Sunday, Trend reports citing Xinhua.
Li Shangfu was born in 1958 in Chengdu, the capital of the
southwestern province of Sichuan. He is the serviceman of the
second generation – his father Li Shaozhu participated in the civil
war in China, in the war against Japan and rose through the ranks
to the position of the deputy commander of railway troops of the
People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China.
Li Shangfu served at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center for 31
years in total. In 2003, he was appointed to the position of the
chief of the Center.
He was appointed later to positions of the Chief of Staff of the
PLA General Armaments Department, the Deputy Commander of the PLA
Strategic Support Force, and the Director of the Equipment
Development Department of the Central Military Commission.
In 2018, Li Shangfu was sanctioned by the US for the approval,
as the US government alleged, of the purchase of Russian S-400 SAM
systems and Su-35 fighter jets.