Liu Zhijun
| Liu Zhijun 刘志军 |
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|---|---|
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| Minister of Railways of the People's Republic of China | |
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In office 2003–2011 |
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| Premier | Wen Jiabao |
| Preceded by | Fu Zhihuan |
| Succeeded by | Sheng Guangzu |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
January 29, 1953 Ezhou, Hubei |
| Residence | Beijing (private) |
| Profession | Railway systems engineering |
Liu Zhijun (simplified Chinese: 刘志军; traditional Chinese: 劉志軍; pinyin: Liú Zhìjūn; born 29 January 1953) is a former Chinese politician and senior bureaucrat within the Ministry of Railways of the People's Republic of China. Liu was a peasant's son who left school in his teens to take a job as a low-level bureaucrat in the Railway Ministry. He rose rapidly within the Ministry, eventually heading several regional railway departments and serving as vice-minister before being promoted to the head of the Railway Ministry in 2003.
As Railway Minister, Liu oversaw numerous expansions of China's railway system, most notably the rapid development of China's high-speed railway. He was a figure of national praise until February 2011, when he was arrested and expelled from the Party over allegations of corruption. After the Wenzhou train collision in July 2011, in which forty people died and one hundred and ninety-two people were injured, a government report singled out his leadership as one of the main contributors to the crash and he was publicly criticized.
In April 2013, Zhijun was arrested on corruption charges for allegedly taking bribes and abusing his power as Minister of Railways. He was convicted and received a death sentence with reprieve in July 2013.
Liu was born in Ezhou, Hubei. His father was a farmer, and he grew up in the villages around Hunan. When he was a teenager, in 1972, he left school and took a job as a low-level bureaucrat in the national ministry of railways. He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) the next year, in August 1973. While working at the rail ministry he became a trusted letter-writer for some of his more poorly-educated superiors within the ministry, and in 1974, when he was twenty-one, he married into a politically well-connected family.
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