Jia Zhijie (; born 1935) is a retired politician of the

People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...

. He was born in

Jilin ) , image_skyline = Changbaishan Tianchi from western rim.jpg , image_alt = , image_caption = View of Heaven Lake , image_map = Jilin in China (+all claims hatched).svg , mapsize = 275px , map_al ...

Province. He graduated from the Moscow Petroleum Institute in 1960, the same year he joined the

Chinese Communist Party The Communist Party of China (CPC), also translated into English as Chinese Communist Party (CCP), is the founding and One-party state, sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Founded in 1921, the CCP emerged victorious in the ...

(CCP). He served as governor of

Gansu Gansu is a provinces of China, province in Northwestern China. Its capital and largest city is Lanzhou, in the southeastern part of the province. The seventh-largest administrative district by area at , Gansu lies between the Tibetan Plateau, Ti ...

(1986–1993) and

Hubei Hubei is a province of China, province in Central China. It has the List of Chinese provincial-level divisions by GDP, seventh-largest economy among Chinese provinces, the second-largest within Central China, and the third-largest among inland ...

. As governor of Gansu, he defended the state's first

eugenics Eugenics is a set of largely discredited beliefs and practices that aim to improve the genetic quality of a human population. Historically, eugenicists have attempted to alter the frequency of various human phenotypes by inhibiting the fer ...

law passed in 1989. About 1.2 percent of Gansu's 22 million people were

intellectually disabled Intellectual disability (ID), also known as general learning disability (in the United Kingdom), and formerly mental retardation (in the United States), Rosa's Law, Pub. L. 111-256124 Stat. 2643(2010).Archive is a generalized neurodevelopmental ...

, the highest rate in China. Jia Zhijie stated that, "Insane, dull-witted and idiotic people must first complete sterilization operations before they can register for marriage. Some people say this is inhumane, but we think just the opposite is true."

Political career

References

1935 births Living people People's Republic of China politicians from Jilin Chinese Communist Party politicians from Jilin Governors of Gansu Governors of Hubei Political office-holders in Hubei {{China-politician-stub