engineering

Zhang Qingwei

Zhang Qingwei is a engineering topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Zhang Qingwei rather than just read about it. In short: Zhang Qingwei (Chinese: 张庆伟; born 7 November 1961) is a Chinese politician, business executive, and aerospace engineer, who is a vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. He was formerly the Party Secretary of Hunan, the Party Secretary of Heilongjiang, Governor of Hebei, and chairperson of the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND).

Key takeaways

Zhang Qingwei belongs to engineering; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Zhang Qingwei to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Zhang Qingwei from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Zhang Qingwei (Chinese: 张庆伟; born 7 November 1961) is a Chinese politician, business executive, and aerospace engineer, who is a vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress. He was formerly the Party Secretary of Hunan, the Party Secretary of Heilongjiang, Governor of Hebei, and chairperson of the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND). Prior to his government career he was president of China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) and chairman of Comac, an aerospace manufacturer. Zhang was well known for his work for military contractors, and headed the team that designed and constructed the Xian JH-7 "flying leopard" combat aircraft. He was also the deputy leader of the project to send a Chinese man into space, and the leader of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program, Chang'e 1. In 2009, Zhang was named one of China's 40 most powerful people by BusinessWeek.

Early life and education Zhang was born in Jilin City, Jilin Province on 7 November 1961, but is considered a native of his ancestral home of Laoting County, Hebei province by Chinese convention. His family later moved to Tangshan, Hebei. Zhang studied at the aircraft department of Northwestern Polytechnical University (NPU) in Xi'an from September 1978 to August 1982, majoring in aircraft design. After graduation, he was assigned to No. 603 Research Institute of the Ministry of Aerospace Industry, designing aircraft tails. Within three years he became the leader of a team that developed the FBC-1 fighter-bomber that is still in use by the People's Liberation Army Air Force. In 1985, Zhang returned to NPU to continue his studies, and received a Master of Engineering degree in aircraft control in 1988.

Aerospace industry In 1988 Zhang returned to work for the Ministry of Aerospace Industry and later joined China Academy of Launch Vehicle Technology (CALT), the birthplace of China's Long March rocket. He showed exceptional talent at CALT and was credited with the 1990 launch of the AsiaSat 1 satellite for the American company Hughes Satellite Systems. It marked the first time for the Long March rocket to successfully launch a foreign satellite. After the success with AsiaSat 1, Zhang was tasked with developing the Long March 2 rocket for China's human spaceflight program (later called the Shenzhou program). He became the deputy director of CALT in 1996, and the vice-manager of the newly established China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation (CASC) in 1999. In 2001 he was appointed president of CASC, and starting in February 2002 he concurrently served as deputy chief commander of the Shenzhou program. In October 2003 Shenzhou 5 completed China's first ever human spaceflight mission, and two years later two more astronauts safely returned to earth after a five-day spaceflight on Shenzhou 6. In August 2007 Zhang was appointed chairperson of the Commission for Science, Technology and Industry for National Defense (COSTIND), becoming one of the youngest persons to hold a minister-level post in China. He guided the merger of COSTIND with the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in 2008. He also concurrently served as head of the Chinese Lunar Exploration Program. In 2008 Zhang was appointed chairman of the Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (Comac), a state-owned enterprise that was newly established to develop China's own jumbo jets. In 2009, he drew international attention after being named one of China's 40 most powerful people by BusinessWeek.

Political career Zhang joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in December 1992. In 2002, less than ten years after he joined the party, he was appointed to the 16th Central Committee of the CCP, the party's top authority. At age 41 he was the youngest full member of the committee. He has subsequently been elected to full memberships of the 17th and 18th Central Committees. In August 2011 Zhang left Comac and was appointed acting governor of Hebei Province, replacing Chen Quanguo, who had been promoted to Party Secretary of Tibet Autonomous Region. In January 2012 he was officially elected by the Hebei Provincial Congress as governor, and reelected in January 2013. Zhang was one of the earliest examples of rocket scientists taking on major political posts in China, a trend that intensified following Xi Jinping's ascension to the General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party in 2012, with many "space alumni" joining government ranks thereafter. Zhang was transferred to Heilongjiang to serve as party secretary in April 2017, becoming the fourth official born after 1960 to assume a provincial party secretary post. On 18 October 2021, he was transferred to central China's Hunan province and appointed Party Secretary, the top political position in the province. On March 10, 2023, during the 14th National People's Congress, he was appointed Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress.

Awards Top ten young scientists in the space industry (1991) Top ten outstanding young people in China (1999) CCTV business figure of the year (2003)

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Zhang Qingwei

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Zhang Qingwei claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In engineering, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Zhang Qingwei before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Zhang Qingwei ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Zhang Qingwei

In research: Zhang Qingwei appears in engineering research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Zhang Qingwei in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Zhang Qingwei is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1961 births, Businesspeople from Jilin, Chinese Communist Party politicians from Jilin, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Zhang Qingwei outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Zhang Qingwei in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Zhang Qingwei means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Zhang Qingwei out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Zhang Qingwei in simple terms?

Why does Zhang Qingwei matter?

Because it connects several engineering ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Zhang Qingwei?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Zhang Qingwei.