LI keqiang—Chinese Vice-premier， Politburo Standing Committee member of CPC Central Committee, visited Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) and inspected the EAST Superconducting Tokamak on November 29th 2009. Dr. LI Jiangang, the director of ASIPP, reported to the visitors of the current progresses on fusion energy research.

LI Keqiang was very pleased that, with self-reliance and hard work, ASIPP has successfully challenged a variety of extreme conditions and thus developed the first EAST device on the world. He was also very concerned about the realization of fusion energy process for peaceful purposes. 

LI Keqiang also asked the current progress in the ITER program and China's participation in the relevant areas. He highly acknowledged the important role EAST has played and the significant contributions by Chinese scientists to the ITER program. In the end, LI Ke-qiang expressed his high expectation to ASIPP in accelerating  the early realization of fusion energy for peaceful uses.