Minister in Charge of the State Population and Family Planning Commission Bin Li of China

Li joined the Communist Party of China in June of 1981.

Unlike his predecessor Wu Dawei (武大偉), who created controversy quite often with his stiff attitude, Li is very sociable and highly industrious person who gets along really well with local people.

Li often urges his own staffs to have dog meat by saying "How could you do the diplomacy with Koreans without eating boshintang (dog meat soup) and bomb shots?"When his diplomatic friends visit Seoul, Li takes them to his favorite boshintang restaurant in Gugi-dong, Jeongno-Gu, downtown Seoul.

Wang Yi (王毅), China's current ambassador to JapanEarlier in December, 2001, in a breakfast meeting with local journalists, Li supported Korean people eating dog meat, which was quoted by world media.

Food is one of the cultures, everything in the world should not be judged by one standard, and a food should be recognized as a cultural variety of the world," Li said when he was asked to comment on the Korean people eating dog meat.

Li is still maintaining close ties with North Korean leader Kim Jong-Il.

Li was serving as minister at that time.

Kim drank wine while Li had Chinese hard liquor.

You may report errors and omissions on this page to the IMDb database managers.

Li was critically injured in the explosion, struck in the head by splinters.

Li received a two-year Post-doctoral Fellowship on Peace and Security in a Changing Word awarded by the Social Science Research Council / Mac Arthur Foundation, which allowed him to spend a year at the Defense and Arms Control Studies Program atMIT, anda year at the Center for Energy and Environmental Studies at Princeton University.