Zhang Dejiang

First row, third from the left is Zhang Dejiang

He was born in November of 1946 in Tai'an County in Liaoning Province. While serving as an "educated youth" in Wangqing County, Jilin Province, he joined the party in 1971.

Zhang studied the Korean language in Jilin Province's Yanbian University from 1972 to 1978, and then went to Kim Il-Sung University in Pyongyang to study economics, where he served as the secretary of the International Communist Party branch. He then returned to Yanbian University as vice-president, before becoming deputy secretary for the City Party Committee and the Municipal Committee of Yanji – a city in Jilin with a sizable ethnic Korean population.