Yu Youjun

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Yu Youjun (simplified Chinese: 于幼军; traditional Chinese: 于幼軍; pinyin: Yú Yòujūn; born January, 1953) is a mainland Chinese politician and former governor of Shanxi province.

[edit] Biography

A native of Feng County, Jiangsu, Yu has previously worked in Guangdong as district governors in the city of Guangzhou, as well as propaganda chief of the provincial propaganda department. He joined the Communist Party of China in June 1976.

He came to prominence as the Mayor of Shenzhen, China's most successful Special Economic Zone, in 2000. He was then transferred to work in Hunan.

In 2005 he was transferred to become Governor of Shanxi. He came onto the international spotlight following the 2007 Chinese slave scandal involving children and migrant workers who were forced to work in kilns. He publicly apologized for the mishap, and held himself accountable.

Yu resigned as governor on September 3 2007 as part of a wider Party reshuffle.^[1] Press reports claimed that he would be rewarded for his "adroit" handling of the media storm, possibly by becoming Minister of Culture.^[2] But he did not get the post in March 2008. It was considered as a surprise by some observers. ^[3]