Xu Lin

Xu Lin (born September 1954) is vice-minister-level official of the People's Republic of China, serving on the State Council. She has held the post of Chief Executive and Director of the Confucius Institutes worldwide since 2004. She is Director General of the Hanban, or Chinese National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language.

Xu Lin was born in Shanxi province. She is a graduate of Fudan University in Shanghai with a degree in Chemistry and has a master's degree in Economics from Beijing Normal University. As a young woman during the Cultural Revolution, she was a worker at the Changzhi Bicycle Factory (长治自行车厂) in Shanxi. According to her resume, she then worked as a lecturer in the Chemistry Department at Shanxi University, staff at the Higher Education Bureau of Shanxi, and choreographer at the Central Educational Film Studio. Subsequently, she worked in the Finance Department of the Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China. During this time she also held the post of Assistant Mayor of Xuchang, Henan province (October 1991-September 1993) and then Director of the Foreign Loans Office of the Ministry of Education. In 2000 Xu Lin became the Education Counsellor at the Chinese Consulate in Vancouver, Canada. She returned to China in 2004 and took her current post as head of Hanban, or the Chinese National Office for Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language.