BEIJING (AP) — Prestigious Peking University has appointed as its top leader a former head of the national spy agency's branch in the Chinese capital.
Qiu Shuiping's appointment comes as President Xi Jinping's administration seeks to enforce academic conformity and tighten the ruling Communist Party's power over academia and other sectors not under its direct control.
The university said in a news release that Qiu aimed as its party secretary to turn it into a "world-class university with Chinese characteristics." Qiu graduated from Peking University in 1983 with a law degree.
Qiu's lengthy official resume says that from the end of 2013 to the end of 2014, he was party secretary of Beijing's State Security Bureau. That is the local branch of the ministry of the same name responsible for espionage and counterespionage.
