Wú Yí (Chinese: 吴仪) (born November 1938 in Wuhan, China) is one of four vice-premiers of the State Council of the People's Republic of China. In 2006, Forbes magazine considers her the third most powerful woman in the world (after Angela Merkel and Condoleeza Rice). She previously ranked second place on the list for both 2004 and 2005.[1] [2]

In April of 1962, she joined the Communist Party of China. In August of the same year, she graduated from the Petroleum Refinery department at the Beijing Petroleum Institute, with a degree in petroleum engineering. She spent much of her career as a petroleum technician, eventually becoming deputy manager at the Beijing Dongfang Hong refinery, and assistant manager and Party secretary at the Beijing Yanshan Petrochemical Corporation.

She was elected deputy mayor of Beijing in 1988, and held that office until 1991. Following the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, she persuaded coal-workers threatening to go on strike to continue working after some of their colleagues had been killed. From 1991 until 1998, she held successively the posts of Deputy Minister of Foreign Economic Relations and Trade, Minister of International Trade and Economic Cooperation, and member of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth CPC Central Committees. A protege of Zhu Rongji, she became a state councillor in 1998, and was appointed vice-premier of the State Council in March 2003. She helped negotiate the PRC's entry into the World Trade Organization and reorganized the customs service after U.S. complaints over the widespread violation of intellectual property rights.

During the SARS crisis, she replaced Zhang Wenkang, who had been fired over the coverup, as health minister and headed a committee to solve the crisis. She was called the "goddess of transparency" by Time magazine for her leadership during the SARS crisis and named one of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2004. In the middle of the SARS endemic, Wu fiercely snubbed the advocation for Republic of China's WHO participation during the WHO general assembly. One video clip aired widely in Taiwan showed Wu and her official company rebuffing on the question of Taiwan's representation during interview by a Taiwanese reporter.

Called by some Chinese media as the "iron lady of China", Wu is regarded as a firm and direct woman who, unlike her colleagues, is neither male nor has dyed her graying hair black. She remains unmarried, and has denied rumors of a relationship with Yang Shangkun in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Since becoming Vice-premier, Wu has been an able diplomat in signing agreements with neighboring Asian countries. She also makes frequent inspection visits to many southern Chinese regions.

                       

Courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wu_Yi