Xu Jialu is vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress

Standing Committee of the National People's Congress

The Standing Committee of the National People's Congress is a committee of about 150 members of the National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China , which is convened between plenary sessions of the NPC. It has the constitutional authority to modify legislation within limits set by...

 and head of the College of Chinese Language and Culture at Beijing Normal University

Beijing Normal University

Beijing Normal University , colloqiually known as 北师大 or Beishida, is a public research university located in Beijing with strong emphasis on basic disciplines of humanities and sciences...

Life

Xu was born in Beijing

Beijing

Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...

, though his ancestral home is in Huai'an

Huai'an

Huai'an , known as Huaiyin before 2001, is a prefecture-level city in northern Jiangsu province of Eastern China. It borders Suqian to the northwest, Lianyungang to the north, Yancheng to the east, Yangzhou to the southeast, and the province of Anhui to the southwest.The municipality has 4,799,889...

, Jiangsu

Jiangsu

' is a province of the People's Republic of China, located along the east coast of the country. The name comes from jiang, short for the city of Jiangning , and su, for the city of Suzhou. The abbreviation for this province is "苏" , the second character of its name...

.

He studied at Beijing Normal University from 1954 to 1959 and graduated with a degree in Chinese literature

Chinese literature

Chinese literature extends thousands of years, from the earliest recorded dynastic court archives to the mature fictional novels that arose during the Ming Dynasty to entertain the masses of literate Chinese...

. He worked as assistant lecturer, associate professor, dean and finally vice-president at Beijing Normal University from 1959 to 1987. Xu was a standing committee member of the China Association for Promoting Democracy

China Association for Promoting Democracy

The China Association for Promoting Democracy is one of the eight legally recognised political parties in the People's Republic of China that follow the direction of the Communist Party of China and is a member of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference...

 (CAPD) Central Committee, vice chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference

Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference

The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference [], shortened as 人民政协, Rénmín Zhèngxié, i.e. "People's PCC"; or just 政协, Zhèngxié, i.e. "The PCC"), abbreviated CPPCC, is a political advisory body in the People's Republic of China...

 Beijing Municipal Committee, vice chairman of the 9th CAPD Central Committee, chairman of the CAPD Central Committee in 1987-1994, chairman of the State language Work Committee and chairman of the State Language Work Committee in 1994-1997, president of the CAPD National Committee and chairman of the State Language Work Committee in 1997-1998. In 2003, Xu received an honorary doctorate from the Hong Kong Baptist University

Hong Kong Baptist University

Hong Kong Baptist University is a publicly-funded tertiary institution with a Christian education heritage. It is the sole surviving institution of 13 major Christian universities that once operated on the Chinese mainland,...

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