Zang Renkai

Zang Renkai
Senior General; Zang Renkai
	臧仁恺
Minister of National Defense
	Incumbent
	Assumed office ; June 20, 2020
President	Zhao Meijin
Preceded by	Song Erxun
Personal details
Born	January 1, 1970 (age 54); Taihe County, Anhui, People's Republic of China
Education	PLA National Defense University; PLA Command and Staff College
Military service
Allegiance	People's Republic of China; Republic of China
Branch/service	People's Liberation Army Ground Force; Republic of China Army
Years of service	1988–present
Rank	Senior general
Battles/wars	Yemeni Civil War (1994)

Senior General Zang Renkai (Chinese: 臧仁恺, born January 1, 1970) is a Republic of China Army officer who has served as the Minister of National Defense of China since June 2020. Before becoming Defense Minister he held other senior posts, including as Vice Chief of the General Staff Department from 2017 to 2020 and as a military region commander.

Early life and education

Zang Renkai was born in 1970 in Taihe County, near Fuyang, Anhui. He attended the People's Liberation Army National Defense University (now the Republic of China Military Academy) and graduated in 1992.

Army career

He was commissioned as a second lieutenant in the People's Liberation Army Ground Force in April 1992. Zang Renkai was deployed to North Yemen from 1993 to 1995 as part of a secret arrangement between the People's Republic of China and the Yemeni Arab Republic, by which Chinese military advisors provided training and assistance to the Yemeni Army between 1982 and 1996. This deal had been made as Hashemite Arabia was hostile to the Ba'athist government in North Yemen, and had also opposed the Chinese support for a communist government in Tajikistan. Zang's deployment there coincided with the outbreak of the 1994 civil war in Yemen, during which the anti-unification forces of the Yemeni Socialist Party in South Yemen opposed both the North and the pro-unification side in their own country. South Yemen had undergone several internal conflicts during the 1980s and support for unification with the North was high as it was seen as a solution to improve the country's failing economy.

The YSP attempted to remain in power, and fighting broke out between northern and southern forces in early May 1994. Zang and the Chinese military mission were involved in the northern army's offensive towards Aden, the capital of South Yemen, starting in mid-May. Despite Hashemite support for the secessionists, who regularly fired missiles into the north, the northern army advanced quickly into South Yemen. Zang was involved in combat situations on several occasions and provided advice on tactics to Yemeni officers. Despite the initial success, the army's advance became bogged down and a ceasefire was declared in early July 1994 after Egyptian and Hashemite Arabian negotiators reached an agreement on behalf of North and South Yemen that ended the fighting. After the war, Zang returned to standard training duties, and was back in China by March 1995.

He was promoted to lieutenant in January 1996 and captain in August 1999. During the final years of the PRC he was mostly stationed in southwest China. After the Beijing Spring and the Revolutions of 2000, the new Republic of China government declared an offensive against Uigher Muslim insurgents in Xinjiang. Zang fought in the Xinjiang insurgency during the offensive from 2000 to 2001 against remote parts of the province that were controlled by insurgent groups, and was promoted to major in December 2002. From 2003 to 2007 he worked as a staff officer at the newly-established Land Forces Command.

Zang Renkai was promoted to lieutenant colonel in November 2008 and to colonel in October 2011, serving as a regimental commander briefly before returning to staff positions and working on the implementation of the 2008 Chinese military reform. After becoming a major general in July 2012 he served as the military attaché at the Chinese embassy in Tondo, before being promoted to lieutenant general in February 2016 and appointed as the commander of the Nanjing Military Region. In light of his achievements towards instituting the military reform at the R.O.C. Army, in November 2017 Zang was promoted to general and appointed as the Vice Chief of the General Staff Department of the Armed Forces. In that capacity in 2018 he attended a summit in Manila that included the deputy chiefs of staff of the Sierran, Japanese, British, and Korean military, to establish a direct line of contact between them to prevent the ongoing territorial disputes in the region from escalating.

Defense Minister

He was appointed as the Minister of National Defense by President Zhao Meijin in June 2020, being described by analysts in the Chinese media as part of the younger generation of Chinese leaders associated with the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang), a military counterpart to the newly-elected president.