The Cosmos Foundation is pleased to announce that Ambassador Li Debiao, a distinguished retired Chinese diplomat, has joined its Advisory Board as a Member.

Ambassador Li Debiao, a native of Ningho in the Zhejiang province, joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Beijing, China in 1949.

He devoted the next four decades of his life and career to the service of China and its Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As a diplomat he spent a total of twenty-six years years in foreign postings. Of these, twenty were spent in Europe, two in Africa and four in Asia.

He was Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the Kingdom of Nepal. In course of his tour of duty there he made a significant contribution towards advancing Sino-Nepalese bilateral relations.

At the Ministry, he worked in the Department of Soviet and European Affairs and in the department of Asian Affairs.

He was also Directorof the the Office of Policy Research and Study.

Following his retirement, he has been Advisor to a number of prominent institutions in China.

The other members of the advisory Board of the Cosmos foundation are: Dr Danilo Turk, former President of the republic of Slovenia; Ambassador George Edward Moose, Vice Chairman United States Institute for Peace; Ambassador Krishnan Srinivasan, former Foreign Secretary of India; and Professor Haider A. Khan of the Korbel School of Institute of International Studies at the University of Denver.

Dr Iftekhar Ahmed Chowdhury, Principal Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian studies at the National University of Singapore and former Foreign Advisor, Government of Bangladesh, is the President of the Cosmos Foundation.