China’s Central Bank Chief Is Task Master Xi Couldn’t Let Retire
Pan Gongsheng was axed from the Communist Party’s inner web last year. Then a slew of economic problems hit and the technocrat got a surprise promotion
Pan Gongsheng in Beijing in March.
Source: VCG/Getty Images
(This story was originally published on July 29, 2023. In September 2024, People’s Bank of China Governor Pan Gongsheng announced an unprecedented stimulus blitz to support the economy.)
By his early twenties, Pan Gongsheng’s ambition had already propelled him from a farming village in eastern China to a prestigious Beijing graduate school, where he translated books from English — despite never having been abroad.
“Among our classmates, we all thought Pan was impressive because he didn’t have a great college degree,” remembers Liu Xin, a Renmin University professor who studied with China’s new central banker in the 1980s. “But he had English skills outstanding enough to translate a book. We all thought it wasn’t an easy feat.”