Long Yongtu
龙永图
1942–present
- Assistant Minister, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (1994–1997)
- Vice Minister, Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation (1997–2003)
- Chief Negotiator for China's WTO Accession (1997–2001)
- Secretary-General, Boao Forum for Asia (2003–2010)
Biography
From Interpreter to Chief WTO Negotiator
Long Yongtu's ancestral home is Youxian, Hunan; he was born in Changsha in May 1943 and grew up in Guiyang, Guizhou, attending Guiyang No. 8 High School and the foreign languages department of Guizhou University before joining the Ministry of Foreign Affairs after graduating in 1965. In 1973 he went to the London School of Economics to study international economics. From 1978 he held posts at China's Permanent Mission to the United Nations, the UN Development Programme, and the China International Center for Economic and Technical Exchanges. In 1992 he became director-general of the Department of International Trade and Economic Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation, beginning his involvement in China's negotiations to resume its contracting-party status under the GATT; in April 1994 he was appointed an assistant minister overseeing WTO accession negotiations, and in February 1997 he was promoted to vice minister and named China's chief WTO accession negotiator.
From then until 2001, Long Yongtu directed and took part in the full course of China's multilateral and bilateral negotiations to join the World Trade Organization, a process spanning fifteen years of difficult negotiation. He led the final critical round of talks with the US delegation in November 1999 that produced the China–US bilateral market access agreement, and subsequently helped secure the China–EU agreement as well. Following China's formal accession on 11 December 2001, he is widely regarded as one of the central figures behind that historic process.
After WTO Accession: the Boao Forum and Public Life
In early 2003, Long Yongtu resigned as vice minister to become secretary-general of the Boao Forum for Asia, a non-governmental international organization, stepping down from that post in July 2010 to join the forum's International Advisory Committee. He has remained a prominent public figure since, continuing to engage in discussions of China's external economic policy through writing, public speaking, and roles as an independent director of several companies.
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