Hu Heping, former Governor of Shaanxi Province in northwest China, was appointed the new minister of culture and tourism at the 21st Session of the Standing Committee of the 13th National People's Congress on August 11.

Hu majored in hydraulic and hydropower engineering from Tsinghua University and served there after graduation in 1986 until he left for the University of Tokyo to study engineering in 1992. After three years, he joined the Japanese firm Institute of New Architecture and in 1996, returned to Tsinghua, where he worked for 17 years. He became secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Tsinghua University Committee in 2008.

In 2013, he became chief of the Organization Department, the CPC Zhejiang Provincial Committee. He was then appointed to Shaanxi for five years as governor in 2016, and secretary of the CPC Shaanxi Provincial Committee in 2017.

Since July, Hu has also been deputy head of the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee.