Bekri was appointed director of the National Energy Administration in 2014, and was at that point still seen as a political rising star, before hitting major political hurdles last year, beginning when he was surprisingly not invited to the National Party Congress of more than 2,000 of the Communist Party elite. Nur Bekri, a tall, jocular figure who speaks almost totally unaccented Mandarin and was known for being more open to foreign media than most Chinese officials, was the 12th senior official from the energy administration to be felled since it was founded in 2008. Bekri, 57, has headed the National Energy Administration since 2014 and also is deputy chairman of the Cabinet's economic planning agency, the National Development and Reform Commission. The energy industry has been the target of President Xi Jinping’s anti-graft crackdown, with several top officials at China’s state-owned oil companies coming under investigation in recent years. Nur Bekri, an ethnic Uighur, had worked his way up in his native Xinjiang, eventually rising to deputy party secretary and government chairman in the far western region, before receiving the post at the energy administration in 2014.
The director of the National Energy Administration of China, Nur Bekri, is placed under investigation for graft.