Hi Haifeng

Official Portrait of Hi Haifeng

Signature

Hi Haifeng (Chinese: 胡海峰; pinyin: *Hyī Hǎifēng*; born September 1st, 2001) is currently serving as the Governor of the Pacific (State), and formerly a member of the House of Representatives. Hi Haifeng is known for his work within the Myanmar Embassy, during the peak of the military junta's control over the nation after a coup in 2021, where he highlighted human rights abuses, and worked with the Independent International Fact-Finding Mission on Myanmar to promote a return to democracy and an end to a state sponsored genocide.

Following a voicing of opposition for constitutional amendments in Myanmar that would have lead the way for a continued junta legitimacy and immortalisation of the coup planners, credible death threats forced Hi Haifeng and his family to return to the United States for safety. Upon his return, he remained a low level political activist, before joining the Socialist Unity Party in 2046.

## Early Life

### Childhood

Hi Haifeng was born in Fresno, California, to two parents of Chinese descent. Following the student protests of Tiananmen Square in 1989, both of his parents migrated to the United States, and obtained citizenship through a succesful political asylum campaign. With the help of the USCRI, both of his parents obtained work within Fresno, his mother as a mathematics teacher, and his father as a labour worker in a promotional products supplier factory.

Hi Haifeng has previously mentioned that struggles with dyslexia made his early life extremely difficult, and he was consistently delayed and held back in early education, affecting his ability to read, write, and work with numbers. He attended the Westside Chinese School of Southern California, relying on a combination of audiobooks, largely helped by the arrival of mobile technology in the early 2000s to the United States.

In highschool, he played tennis, learnt the keyboard, and graduated in 2020.

### University

Haifeng attended the University of California, Berkeley, to obtain a Bachelor of Science with a major in political science. His time spent at university was littered with political activism, motivated by the knowledge of what forced his parents to flee the People's Republic of China. Initially, much of this activism was focused on promoting equality and marriage rights for ethnic and sexual minorities within the United States, preceding his coming out as gay upon his second year at university.

In 2021, a military coup in the Asian country of Myanmar marked a troubling time for his family, with some relatives trapped within the nation. This gave Hi Haifeng a compulsion to campaign for an end to the junta, by pressring the United States government to back sanctions and provide humanitarian support to rebellion groups. His mother opened their home to a family from Myanmar, instilling the importance of public service into Hi Haifeng, as he worked three part time jobs to help his family and those taken in to make ends meet.

Following his graduation from the University of California, Berkeley in 2024, he went on to obtain a masters in Public Diplomacy at the University of Southern California.

## Career

### Sabor Cocina Latina & Bar

Hi Haifeng has frequently cited Sabor Cocina Latina & Bar as his first place of work, a medium dining Mexican inspired restaurant in Fresno, California, where he was born. It is known that his career at this location began when he was fifteen years of age, and he started as a barback, primarily cleaning glasses and preparing cocktail syrups and purees to be used by the mixologists. He would often work on weekends, attending school throughout the rest of the week. This remained his place of work until he left for university. Over the course of his part time career, he moved from being a bar back, to being a table busser, to being a waiter. All of these positions were on a part time basis.

Hi Haifeng has previously referenced a particular manager to being a huge inspiration, teaching him the importance of dedication, forward planning, order of priorities and never giving up, as they worked many long weekend shifts together.

### Embassy of the United States, Yangon

The Yangon Embassy serves as the main base of operations for United States diplomacy and activity within Myanmar. Hi Haifeng began working here as an administrative assistant to Thomas Vajda, the Ambassador to Myanmar of the United States at the time. Though the beginning of this career operated on 9 to 5 hours, Hi Haifeng has compared the experience at Yangon Embassy to that of a chocolate factory workers in the late 1800s, noting that despite the regular shift pattern and standard working hours, due to the political situation outside of the embassy, staff were restricted in their comings and goings from the embassy, and their ability to leisurely move around the nation was limited, and so overall the experience felt like living in a company town.

Over the time in which Hi Haifeng was stationed as an assistant at the embassy, he worked with over 700 American firms, dealt with 9,000 incidents experienced by American tourists and became a vital asset to the embassy in relation to communication with the Myanmar Government over the developing political situation and military junta.

It is also during this time that Hi Haifeng worked with many other non governmental organisations, charities, and humanitarian organisations to publish original article content highlighting ongoing human rights abuses across the nation and the deteriorating situation in relation to personal and political freedoms for citizens in Myanmar.

In 2027, he was promoted to the position of Deputy Ambassador, and a sudden health condition falling on the serving ambassador offered him an unexpected promotion to the top position within one year. This also meant that Hi Haifeng joined the UN fact finding mission working in Myanmar aiming to combat the situation taking place, and to provide support to those that needed, whilst providing important intelligence for nations across the World to act on. It is also at this time that Hi Haifeng met his now husband, Robert Sann Aung, a human rights lawyer also working with the UN in opposition to the junta.

The 2032 Constitional Referendum became the centre of much debate in the international Myanmar watching community, and as the US ambassador, Hi Haifeng, alongside the United States Government, signed a declaration in opposition to the proposed amendments that would grant the military junta permanent power over the nation's legislative branch, whilst immortalising the orchestrators of the 2021 coup. The fallout from this condemnation led to the family of Hi Haifeng living at the embassy to face death threats, and for the sake of safety, him, his husband, and legally adopted child returned to California.

## Political Career

### United States Representative

#### 2046 - 2047

Hi Haifeng earned himself a seat as a United States Representative for the Pacific in the 2044 election, and took his oath on a copy of the United States Constitution.

A chance in regulations relating to the joint position holding of United States politicians forced Hi Haifeng to choose between serving as the Governor of the Pacific, or as a United States Representative, leading to a resignation from the House, and a nomination of Alice Buxton in his place.

### Governor of the Pacific States

#### 2047 - 2050

Hi Haifeng was appointed the Lt. Governor of the Pacific States under the adminstration of Fateema el-Farman, shortly after the outbreak of the Pacific Riots of 2047. She then promptly resigned, giving Hi Haifeng the position of Governor through the order of succession.

## Legacy

### Awards

In 2029, he became a finalist for the Martin Ennals Award for Human Rights Defenders.