Wu Jianmin

Wu Jianmin (Chinese: 吴建民; March 30, 1939 – June 18, 2016) was a prominent Chinese diplomat.

He worked as the spokesman of Chinese Foreign Ministry, ambassador of China to the Netherlands, Geneva and France, and the president of the Bureau International des Expositions.

Wu was born in Chongqing, China and graduated from the Beijing Foreign Languages Institute in 1959, majoring in French. In his early life, he had worked as an interpreter for former Chinese leaders such as Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Chen Yi.

Wu had a distinguished career as a diplomat. He bacame the spokesman of Chinese Foreign Ministry in 1991. From 1994 to 2003, he worked as ambassador of China to the Netherlands, the UN organizations in Geneva and France. In 2003, he worked as the president of China Foreign Affairs University and served for five years. In the same year he was elected as the president of the Bureau International des Expositions,[1] and he was the first Chinese and Asian as well as the first person from a developing country to serve in the crucial post.

On June 18, 2016, Wu died in a car accident in Wuhan, Central China's Hubei Province on his way to give a lecture at Wuhan University.