Cui Tiankai, male, was born in 1952. He is a native of Ningbo, Zhejiang Province. Majored in School of Foreign Languages of East China Normal University. Postgraduate from School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University. Master of Public Administration. He was Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs from 2010 to 2013, and prior to that, Chinese ambassador to Japan.
He served as the 10th Chinese ambassador to the United States from 2013 to 2021.