Liu Zhijun

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Liu Zhijun
刘志军
Minister of Railways
In office 17 March 2003 – 25 February 2011
Premier	Wen Jiabao
Preceded by	Fu Zhihuan
Succeeded by	Sheng Guangzu
Personal details
Born	(1953-01-29) 29 January 1953 (age 71) Ezhou, Hubei
Profession	Railway systems engineering
Signature

Liu Zhijun (simplified Chinese: 刘志军; traditional Chinese: 劉志軍; pinyin: Liú Zhìjūn; born 29 January 1953) is a former Chinese politician who served as Minister of Railway. Liu was a peasant's son who left school in his teens to take a job as a low-level bureaucrat in the Railway Ministry. He rose rapidly within the Ministry, eventually heading several regional railway departments and serving as vice-minister before being promoted to the head of the Railway Ministry in 2003.

As Railway Minister, Liu oversaw numerous expansions of China's railway system, most notably the rapid development of China's high-speed railway. He was a figure of national praise until February 2011, when he was arrested and expelled from the Party over allegations of corruption. After the Wenzhou train collision in July 2011, in which forty people died and one hundred and ninety-two people were injured, a government report singled out his leadership as one of the main contributors to the crash and he was publicly criticized.

In April 2013, Liu was arrested on corruption charges for taking over 64 million yuan in bribes and abusing his power as Minister of Railways.^[1][2][3][4] He was convicted and received a death sentence with reprieve in July 2013.^[5][6] On 14 December 2015, Liu Zhijun's sentence was statutorily commuted to life imprisonment. The prison authorities said that he was expressing repentance and had committed no intentional offences during the reprieve period.^[7]