YAO Yunzhu - Major General (Retired). Senior Advisor, China Association of Military Sciences; Academic Committee Member, CISS, Tsinghua University.

She is a retired major general of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China, senior advisor to the China Association of Military Sciences and director emeritus of the Center on China-American Defense Relations, the Academy of Military Sciences (AMS). She joined the PLA in 1970, served in the PLA as an Army soldier, a staff officer, an instructor, a researcher, deputy director and director of a research office, and director of a research center.

She holds a Master of Arts degree from the PLA’s Foreign Languages Institute, a Ph.D. in Military Science from the Academy of Military Sciences. She had been a visiting scholar at the School of Oriental and African Studies, London University, an Eisenhower Fellow and a visiting fellow at Harvard University.

She has published books, translated books, articles and papers on international military and security issues, US military affairs, nuclear weapon policy and arms control, and Asia-Pacific security issues. 

She was a member of the 10th National People’s Congress of the PRC, and a member of the 17th Chinese Communist Party Congress.