BEIJING, March 12. /TASS/. The National People’s Congress of China approved the appointment of General Li Shangfu to the position of the Minister of National Defense on Sunday.

Li Shangfu was born in 1958 in Chengdu, the capital of the southwestern province of Sichuan. He is the serviceman of the second generation - his father Li Shaozhu participated in the civil war in China, in the war against Japan and rose through the ranks to the position of the deputy commander of railway troops of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China.

Li Shangfu served at the Xichang Satellite Launch Center for 31 years in total. In 2003, he was appointed to the position of the chief of the Center.

He was appointed later to positions of the Chief of Staff of the PLA General Armaments Department, the Deputy Commander of the PLA Strategic Support Force, and the Director of the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission.

In 2018, Li Shangfu was sanctioned by the US for the approval, as the US government alleged, of the purchase of Russian S-400 SAM systems and Su-35 fighter jets.