Ma Keqing

Ma Keqing (; born October 1955) is a Chinese diplomat who served as Chinese ambassador to Finland from 2006 to 2009, the Philippines from 2012 to 2013, and the Czech Republic from 2014 to 2018.

Early life and education Ma was from Longkou, Shandong, born in October 1955. She studied at Tianjin Foreign Language School, where she studied English. In 1973, Ma Keqing was selected to study Finnish at the University of Helsinki in Finland.

Philippines

In 2009, she served as the deputy executive secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In January 2012, she became the Ambassador of China to the Philippines. During her ambassadorship to the country, she was known to defend China's sovereign rights over the South China Sea. In February 2013, Ma returned the note verbale notification for international arbitration on China's claims given by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs as China rejected such attempt by the Philippines. In that same year, she had been in discussions and negotiations with Philippine officials regarding incidents that occurred in disputed areas.

Upon her leaving as ambassador in December 2013, Philippine foreign secretary Albert del Rosario held a Christmas farewell lunch for Ma, calling her as "our dearest friend" while acknowledging the "challenges" of the Philippine-China relations over the South China Sea dispute. Ma told Del Rosario that she wished the relations could have been better between the two nations.

Later career In February 2014, she was appointed Ambassador of China to the Czech Republic. In August 2018, she retired from her position as ambassador. In January 2020, she was appointed Executive Vice Chairman of the Chinese National Committee for Pacific Economic Cooperation.