Miao Wei (; born May 1955) is a politician and business executive of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's List of countries and dependencies by population, most populous country, with a Population of China, population exceeding 1.4 billion, slig ...

. He was the Minister of Industry and Information Technology until August 2020 and as well as the former

Communist Party Chief A Party Committee Secretary () is the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organization in a province, city, village, or other administrative unit. In most cases, it is the ''de facto'' highest political office of its area of jurisdictio ...

Wuhan Wuhan (, ; ; ) is the capital of Hubei Province in the People's Republic of China. It is the largest city in Hubei and the most populous city in Central China, with a population of over eleven million, the ninth-most populous Chinese city a ...

, capital of

Hubei Hubei (; ; alternately Hupeh) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, and is part of the Central China region. The name of the province means "north of the lake", referring to its position north of Dongting Lake. The p ...

province. Prior to that Miao was President of

Dongfeng Motor Dongfeng Motor Corporation Ltd. is a Chinese state-owned automobile manufacturer headquartered in Wuhan, Hubei. Founded in 1969, it is currently the third largest of the " Big Four" state-owned car manufacturers of China, namely: SAIC Motor, FAW ...

, China's then second biggest carmaker. He was credited with rescuing Dongfeng from near bankruptcy and turning it into a profitable company.

Career

Miao Wei is a native of

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the Capital city, capital of the China, People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's Li ...

. Beginning to 1974 he worked as a

rusticated youth The sent-down, rusticated, or "educated" youth (), also known as the ''zhiqing'', were the young people who—beginning in the 1950s until the end of the Cultural Revolution, willingly or under coercion—left the urban districts of the ...

in rural

Feixi County Feixi County () is a county of Anhui Province, East China, it is under the administration of the prefecture-level city of Hefei, the capital of Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic ...

Anhui Anhui , (; formerly romanized as Anhwei) is a landlocked province of the People's Republic of China, part of the East China region. Its provincial capital and largest city is Hefei. The province is located across the basins of the Yangtze Riv ...

province. After the

Cultural Revolution The Cultural Revolution, formally known as the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution, was a sociopolitical movement in the People's Republic of China (PRC) launched by Mao Zedong in 1966, and lasting until his death in 1976. Its stated goa ...

he was admitted to

Hefei University of Technology Hefei University of Technology () is a key university in China, with particular strength in Engineering and Management Science. Located in Hefei, the capital of the Anhui Province, it is also a Chinese state Double First Class University Plan u ...

in 1978, where he studied at the department of the

internal combustion engine An internal combustion engine (ICE or IC engine) is a heat engine in which the combustion of a fuel occurs with an oxidizer (usually air) in a combustion chamber that is an integral part of the working fluid flow circuit. In an internal co ...

, graduating in 1982. He joined the

Chinese Communist Party The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), officially the Communist Party of China (CPC), is the founding and sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the CCP emerged victorious in the Chinese Ci ...

in September 1984. After college Miao worked for the China Auto Import-Export Corporation for ten years. By the age of 30 he was deputy manager for the company's sales division as well as the manufacturing division. In 1993 he was transferred to the then First Ministry of Machine-Building Industry, where he was the Deputy Director of the Automobile Department until 1995 and Assistant General Engineer for the next two years. In September 1997 the central government transferred Miao to the government-owned

Dongfeng Motor Corporation Dongfeng Motor Corporation Ltd. is a Chinese state-owned automobile manufacturer headquartered in Wuhan, Hubei. Founded in 1969, it is currently the third largest of the " Big Four" state-owned car manufacturers of China, namely: SAIC Motor, ...

to lead its turnaround effort. Then China's second-biggest carmaker, Dongfeng had 120,000 employees and lost over 500 million yuan in 1998. Miao implemented radical reforms at Dongfeng, adopting Western management methodology and establishing alliances with foreign carmakers

Nissan , trading as Nissan Motor Corporation and often shortened to Nissan, is a Japanese multinational automobile manufacturer headquartered in Nishi-ku, Yokohama, Japan. The company sells its vehicles under the Nissan, Infiniti, and Datsun bra ...

and

PSA Peugeot Citroën The PSA Group (), legally known as Peugeot S.A. (Peugeot Société Anonyme, trading as Groupe PSA; formerly known as PSA Peugeot Citroën from 1991 to 2016) was a French multinational automotive manufacturing company which produced automobiles ...

. The company turned a profit within two years, and by 2003 its profits had rocketed to 6.1 billion yuan. In 2004 ''

BusinessWeek ''Bloomberg Businessweek'', previously known as ''BusinessWeek'', is an American weekly business magazine published fifty times a year. Since 2009, the magazine is owned by New York City-based Bloomberg L.P. The magazine debuted in New York City ...

'' nominated Miao Wei as a "Star of Asia" for "transform ngDongfeng from an almost bankrupt military truck maker into a profitable manufacturer of both trucks and passenger cars." In May 2005 Miao Wei was appointed the

, capital of

province and where Dongfeng is headquartered. He was also made a member of the Hubei Provincial Committee of the Communist Party. In March 2008 Miao was transferred to the central government to serve as Vice Minister of Industry and Information Technology, and was promoted to Minister in December 2010, replacing

Li Yizhong Li Yizhong (; born 1945) is a former director of Minister of Industry and Information Technology of the People's Republic of China. Personal life and Education Yizhong was born during 1945 in Datong City, Shanxi Province. He graduated Beijing Pet ...

. Miao was an alternate member of the

17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party The 17th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party was elected by the 17th Congress on 21 October 2007, and sat until the 18th National Congress in 2012. The 17th CC is composed of full members and alternate members. It was followed by the ...

, and is a full member of the 18th Central Committee.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Miao, Wei Living people 1955 births Hefei University of Technology alumni Government ministers of the People's Republic of China Political office-holders in Hubei Chinese Communist Party politicians from Beijing People's Republic of China politicians from Beijing Businesspeople from Beijing