Shohrat Zakir

Career

Zakir was born into a family with revolutionary history. His grandfather Kaur Zakir was a progressive thinker during the warlord era and was executed by state agents along with Mao Zemin and Chen Tanqiu. His father Abdullah Zakrof was one of the earliest ethnic Uyghurs to join the Xinjiang party organization shortly after the foundation of the People's Republic in 1949. Prior to the Cultural Revolution Zakir's father was a member of the regional standing committee and Vice-Chairman of Xinjiang.

Between 1970 and 1972 Zakir received "re-education through labour" in rural Xinjiang. He then worked as a teacher in an elementary school in Urumqi. He was transferred to Diwopu school in 1972. In March 1978 he left his homeland for Hubei to attend the Jianghan Petroleum College (now Yangtze University) located in Jingzhou to study computer science. He then returned to Xinjiang to serve as a researcher at an earth sciences institute. In June 1984 he joined government, working for the regional economic committee.

Between 1982 and 1986, Zakir obtained an English degree at the Urumqi Vocational College. During this time he also joined the Communist Party of China. He then worked in a series of roles supporting economic growth and trade in the regional government. In March 2001 he was named mayor of Urumqi. Beginning in December 2005 he worked for the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps. In 2007 he also earned an Executive MBA from Tianjin University. At the 2008 National People's Congress Zakir was selected to become a member of the National Ethnic Affairs Committee of the National People's Congress. In June 2011 he became Vice-Chair of the State Ethnic Affairs Commission. In January 2014 he became Chairman of the Xinjiang People's Congress, and in December 2014, he was named Chairman of Xinjiang, replacing Nur Bekri.