Posted on 30 May 2022
Li XInchuang, vice president of the China Iron and Steel Association, president of the China Metallurgical Planning and Research Institute (MPI) and regular contributor to Kallanish’s conferences passed away in Beijing on Friday morning aged 58.
Li was born in Yuncheng in Shanxi in 1964 and graduated from the Central South Mining and Metallurgical College in 1984, before securing a masters from the Beijing University of Science and Technology in 1989. He also studied at the Lulea University of Technology in Sweden in 1996 and earned an MBA from the Peking University-Fordham University joint programme.
After a career in metallurgical design and planning policy in Shanxi and Beijing, he became best known as president of the China Metallurgical Planning and Research Institute. In that role his unique capabilities resulted in his forging the role into something distinct in the Chinese steel industry: a bridge between China and the world.
His routine began daily with listening to English language programmes, giving him a level of confidence in English hard to find alongside his deep technical and policy knowledge. As a result, he became both the face of the Chinese steel industry to the rest of the world, and a go-to source for Chinese investors and policymakers seeking to understand the industry outside China. He was not only the most prolific spokesman of the Chinese industry in English, but also worked on important projects to enable Chinese investments overseas, as well as working intensively on domestic policy and investment. Few, perhaps no, foreigners understood the Chinese industry as he did, and none in the Chinese industry interacted so regularly and consistently with the steel world overseas.
Among steel industry media, he will be best remembered for his information-packed and energetic presentations. He spoke with the insider knowledge of the apparatchik, but without the tediousness, with the technical background of an engineer, but with the ability to communicate to a broad audience. Key to all this was that he was a true believer not only that China was important in the world, but that China’s industry should be better explained to the wider world. He worked to give the Chinese steel industry a voice in global debates and to tell its side of the story. Those debates could, at times, be combative. But whether you took his side or not, he would engage with energy but without vitriol.
With the loss of Li Xinchuang, the Chinese steel industry loses its best communicator and one of its few popular advocates in the rest of the world. In the current environment, with growing lack of trust and increasing global tensions, who can now step into his shoes and tell China’s story with a balance between passion and goodwill?
Source:Kallanish
