Li Shangfu (; born February 1958) is a Chinese

aerospace engineer Aerospace engineering is the primary field of engineering concerned with the development of aircraft and spacecraft. It has two major and overlapping branches: aeronautical engineering and astronautical engineering. Avionics engineering is si ...

and general of the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the principal military force of the People's Republic of China and the armed wing of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The PLA consists of five service branches: the Ground Force, Navy, Air Force, ...

(PLA). He has been head of the Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission since September 2017. He previously served as Deputy Commander of the PLA Strategic Support Force and Deputy Commander of the

PLA General Armaments Department People's Liberation Army General Armaments Department (GAD; ) was founded in April 1998 and is in charge of equipping and arming the People's Liberation Army, as well as overseeing and improving military technology. It is one of the four "general d ...

. He spent 31 years working at the

Xichang Satellite Launch Center The Xichang Satellite Launch Center (XSLC), also known as the Xichang Space Center, is a spaceport of China. It is located in Zeyuan Town (), approximately northwest of Xichang, Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan. The facility bec ...

, including 10 years as its director.

Biography

Li Shangfu was born in February 1958 in

Chengdu Chengdu (, ; Simplified Chinese characters, simplified Chinese: 成都; pinyin: ''Chéngdū''; Sichuanese dialects, Sichuanese pronunciation: , Standard Chinese pronunciation: ), Chinese postal romanization, alternatively Romanization of Chi ...

Sichuan Sichuan (; zh, c=, labels=no, ; zh, p=Sìchuān; alternatively romanized as Szechuan or Szechwan; formerly also referred to as "West China" or "Western China" by Protestant missions) is a province in Southwest China occupying most of the ...

Province, with his

ancestral home An ancestral home is the place of origin of one's extended family, particularly the home owned and preserved by the same family for several generations. The term can refer to an individual house or estate, or to a broader geographic area such as a ...

Xingguo County Xingguo County () is a county in south central Jiangxi province, People's Republic of China. It is under the administration of and located in the north of the prefecture-level city of Ganzhou, with a total area of . Its population was 719,830 at ...

Jiangxi Jiangxi (; ; formerly romanized as Kiangsi or Chianghsi) is a landlocked province in the east of the People's Republic of China. Its major cities include Nanchang and Jiujiang. Spanning from the banks of the Yangtze river in the north int ...

Province. He is the son of Li Shaozhu (), a

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army (Russian: Рабо́че-крестья́нская Кра́сная армия),) often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and, after ...

veteran and former high-ranking officer of the PLA Railway Force. Li Shangfu joined the PLA when he entered the

National University of Defense Technology The National University of Defense Technology (NUDT; ) is a National university, national Public university, public research university in Changsha, Hunan, China. Founded in 1953 as the People's Liberation Army Military Academy of Engineering, ...

in 1978. After graduating in 1982, he began working at the

as a technician. In December 2003, he was promoted to Director (Commander) of the center at the age of 45. In 2006, he attained the rank of

major general Major general (abbreviated MG, maj. gen. and similar) is a military rank used in many countries. It is derived from the older rank of sergeant major general. The disappearance of the "sergeant" in the title explains the apparent confusion of a ...

. In his ten years as director of the Xichang center, Li oversaw several rocket launches, including the launch of the

Chang'e 2 Chang'e 2 (; ) is a Chinese unmanned lunar probe that was launched on 1 October 2010. It was a follow-up to the Chang'e 1 lunar probe, which was launched in 2007. Chang'e 2 was part of the first phase of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, and ...

lunar probe in October 2010. After 31 years working in Xichang, Li was appointed

Chief of Staff The title chief of staff (or head of staff) identifies the leader of a complex organization such as the armed forces, institution, or body of persons and it also may identify a principal staff officer (PSO), who is the coordinator of the supporti ...

of the

(GAD) in 2013, replacing Major General Shang Hong. A year later, he was made Deputy Director of the GAD. In 2016, Li was appointed Deputy Commander of the newly established PLA Strategic Support Force, which is responsible for cyberspace, space, and other high-tech warfare. He was promoted to the rank of lieutenant general in the same year. In September 2017, Li was appointed Director of the

Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission The Equipment Development Department of the Central Military Commission () is the chief organ under the Central Military Commission of the People's Republic of China. It was founded on January 11, 2016, under Xi Jinping's military reforms. The ...

, the successor department of the GAD, replacing General

Zhang Youxia Zhang Youxia (; born July 1950) is a general in the People's Liberation Army (PLA) of China and currently the second-ranked Vice Chairman of the Central Military Commission of the Central Military Commission (CMC). He previously served as Head ...

. In October 2017, Li was elected a member of the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party. On 20 September 2018, Li Shangfu, along with the Equipment Development Department, were sanctioned by the U.S. government for "engaging in significant transactions with persons" sanctioned under

CAATSA The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA) is a United States federal law that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea, and Russia. The bill was passed by the Senate on July 27, 2017, 98–2, after it passed the House 419 ...

, namely for transactions that involved ″Russia's transfer to China of Su-35 combat aircraft and

S-400 The S-400 Triumf (russian: link=no, C-400 Триумф – Triumf; translation: Triumph; NATO reporting name: SA-21 Growler), previously known as the S-300 PMU-3, is a mobile, surface-to-air missile (SAM) system developed in the 1990s by Russ ...

surface-to-air missile system-related equipment″.U.S. sanctions China for buying Russian fighter jets, missiles
Reuters, 20 September 2018.
U.S. Department of State, September 20, 2018.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Li, Shangfu 1958 births Living people People's Liberation Army generals from Sichuan People from Chengdu Members of the 19th Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party National University of Defense Technology alumni Chinese aerospace engineers Engineers from Sichuan International sanctions