Chinese officials in a spin over acrobat cadre who started working at 13
- Taizhou staffing department says waterway bureau chief Kong Yuan joined an acrobatic troupe as a teen – and wasn’t an underage worker – after detail in his online bio gets noticed
Officials in eastern China had to clarify that a local cadre joined an acrobatic troupe when he was 13 – and was not an underage worker – after his online bio listed his first job at that age.
Kong Yuan, head of the waterway bureau in Taizhou, Jiangsu province, was named on Friday as one of 16 leading cadres by the city’s staffing department for the ruling Communist Party.
But eagle-eyed observers quickly noticed an unusually young age listed on his résumé.
His bio, which states he was born in January 1963, said he began working in October 1976, when he would have been just 13 years old.
Kong, who is also a deputy-level cadre, was initially defensive about his early career start, telling reporters from news site Thepaper.cn that no one had raised questions about his background before.
“My résumé has no problems and can withstand scrutiny,” he said, before hanging up the phone.