Beijing names new culture chief to drive soft-power push
Beijing promotes senior propaganda official to head up ministry as the country seeks to present itself abroad as a modern major nation
Beijing appointed a senior propaganda official as its culture minister yesterday, making him one of the spearheads of the government's drive to project China's soft power abroad.
The national legislature approved the appointment of 59-year-old Luo Shugang, the top deputy chief of the Communist Party's Publicity Department, as it concluded a bi-monthly session.
Luo has written extensively in party publications on reform of the culture sector, proposing the area be further opened up and its overseas links expanded to burnish China's soft power. Introducing the nation to the world as a modern major country has been part of President Xi Jinping's much-touted "China Dream". But Luo's official biography is brief compared with those of other ministers.
A Hebei native, Luo started work in 1971 and joined the party in 1981. He has a postgraduate degree in Communist Party theory and party building from the Central Party School.
His official public biography does not say when he joined the department. But some state-run online news outlets said Luo was an editor of the party's flagship journal Qiushi before joining the department, and going on to be one of its deputy chiefs in April, 2000. He became the department's executive deputy chief in 2008, and doubled as general office director for the party's Central Commission for Guiding Cultural and Ethical Progress.