Sun Chunlan
孙春兰
1950–present
- Vice Premier of the State Council (2018–2023)
Biography
Career
Sun Chunlan was born in 1950 in Changzhi, Shanxi, and joined the Party in 1973. She held a series of regional and central positions, including Secretary of the Tianjin Municipal Party Committee (2012–2014) and Head of the United Front Work Department (2014–2018). In 2012, she was elected to the Politburo, one of the few women to hold that position. She served as Vice Premier of the State Council from 2018 to 2023, responsible for health, education, and sport.
COVID-19 Response
In January 2020, Sun Chunlan travelled to Wuhan as head of the Central Steering Group to oversee the COVID-19 response, and subsequently became the principal official responsible for the State Council's Joint Prevention and Control Mechanism, overseeing the formulation and implementation of China's pandemic policies. In November 2022, her public remarks noting a reduction in the severity of the Omicron variant were widely interpreted as an early signal of a policy shift. In December 2022, she presided over the release of the "Ten New Measures" and the reclassification of COVID-19 to Category B management, after which China did not reinstate zero-COVID control measures. She stepped down as Vice Premier in March 2023.