Guan was born in December 1931 in
Muling,
Heilongjiang Province in
northeast China. He was a
Manchu. He joined the
Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in July 1948. From 1947 to 1949 Guan worked as an accountant in Muling. In 1949, he was transferred to
Hubei Province in central China, working in the provincial finance department. In 1964 he acquired a degree in finance from
Hubei University through
correspondence learning. From 1993 to 2002, Guan served as Chairman of the Hubei Provincial People's Congress. He was a member of the
12th,
13th, and
14th Central Committees of the CCP, serving from 1985 to 1997. After retiring from politics Guan focused on painting, and was interviewed in his studio by
Xinhua News Agency in 2010. He said he was especially fond of
Shennongjia, and was proud of his policies protecting the nature reserve. He died in
Wuhan on 16 April 2016. ==References==