China promotes high-profile law enforcer working with US in fentanyl fight to senior police job
- Hu Binchen, director of International Cooperation Bureau and international face of China’s security forces, elevated in Ministry of Public Security
- Highly decorated Liu Zhongyi, director of Criminal Investigation Bureau and famed for solving series of cold cases, also appointed assistant minister
The promotion of Hu Binchen, the 53-year-old director of the International Cooperation Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security, to assistant minister rank and as member of the ministry’s Communist Party committee, was announced by the State Council, China’s cabinet, on Tuesday.
The ministry also promoted Liu Zhongyi, 59, director of its Criminal Investigation Bureau, to the same position, according to the announcement.
Hu holds a master’s degree in criminology from the University of Cambridge and has spent his career working in international police cooperation for China, according to his official resume.
He served as police counsellor at the Chinese embassy in the US around 2014 after serving as director of the US and Oceania division of the ministry’s International Cooperation Bureau.
China and US vow closer cooperation in fighting America’s fentanyl crisis
US deputy secretary of state Kurt Campbell’s has said that the large number of Chinese “economic migrants” heading to the US in recent months is “gathering concern”.
Asked about the remarks on Wednesday, Chinese foreign ministry’s spokeswoman Mao Ning said “China opposes and firmly cracks down on all forms of illegal migration”.
Liu Zhongyi is a highly decorated crime buster in China from northeastern Heilongjiang province. After decades working in his home province’s police force, He was transferred to the Ministry of Public Security’s Criminal Investigation Bureau in 2011, rising to become its director in 2019.
There, he helped to solve unsolved murder cases, in particular a series of rapes and murders in the city of Baiyin in Gansu province between 1988 and 2022.