Dai Bingguo (simplified Chinese: 戴秉国; traditional Chinese: 戴秉國; pinyin: Dài Bǐngguó; born March 31, 1941) is a Chinese politician and professional diplomat. Starting in 2008, Dai emerged as one of the foremost and highest-ranking figures of Chinese foreign policy in the Hu Jintao administration.

A graduate of Sichuan University, majoring in Russian language, Dai was instrumental in the normalization of diplomatic relations between China and the Soviet Union. Between 1989 and 1991 Dai served as the Chinese ambassador to Hungary. He then served in a succession of roles in the Department of Foreign Affairs. He served as a State Councilor, director of the Office of the Central Foreign Affairs Leading Group of CCP Central Committee, an office that acts as the primary foreign affairs organ of the Chinese Communist Party, and director of the general office of the National Security Leadership Group of the CCP Central Committee, in which he serves in the capacity as a national security advisor to the CCP General Secretary.

Dai Bingguo was born on 31 March 1941 into a Tujia family in a remote village in Yinjiang County, Guizhou. His family descended from ancestors who had migrated from Ji'an, Jiangxi during the late Ming dynasty and integrated with the local population in Guizhou. Raised in a traditional four-generation rural household living under impoverished circumstances, Dai began working in the fields at age five. His childhood was marked by severe hardship and personal loss; three of his six siblings died young from disease, overwork and extreme poverty. His early education included studying classical Confucian texts in a local private school, a foundation preserved by his father during political turmoil. Because his home county lacked a high school at the time, Dai had to walk barefoot for three days across more than 150 km of mountainous terrain to reach the school, a journey he repeated twice a year over three years.

In 1959, Dai became the only student from Songtao Middle School admitted to an out-of-province key university, entering the Department of Foreign Languages at Sichuan University to major in Russian. Lacking financial resources, he gathered travel funds from local authorities, family members and high school teachers, arriving in Chengdu nine days after the term began. Following graduation, he studied at the China Foreign Affairs University (CFAU) from 1964 to 1965. Shortly after, he spent a year in Liuyang, Hunan, taking part in the Socialist Education Movement.

In 1966, he joined the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and worked in the Department of Soviet and Eastern European Affairs. In 1969, he was posted as an attaché at the Chinese Embassy in the Soviet Union, where he served until 1973. He joined the Chinese Communist Party in June 1973. After returning to China, he spent a year performing labour at the Ministry's May 7 Cadre School before returning to the Department of Soviet and Eastern European Affairs. Between 1974 and 1985, he served successively as a staff member, deputy division director, and division director. He was also deputy head of the Ministry's Sino-Soviet Negotiation Office from 1980 to 1982 and served with the Central Party Rectification Steering Committee's liaison group in Anhui from 1983 to 1985. He became deputy director-general of the department in 1985, director-general in 1986 and served as China's ambassador to Hungary from 1989 to 1991.

Following his ambassadorial tenure, he returned to Beijing as Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs and a member of the ministry's Party Committee from 1991 to 1993. He then served as Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs and a member of the Party Committee from 1993 to 1995. In June 1995, Dai was transferred from the "foreign affairs system" of the State Council to the "international liaison system" of the Central Committee of the CCP and became Vice Director of the International Department of the Central Committee of the CCP. In August 1997, on the eve of the 15th CCP National Congress, he was promoted to Director of the International Department. In May 2003, Dai returned to the Foreign Ministry and served as Vice Minister until April 2008, being responsible for handling the North Korean nuclear crisis.

In March 2008, he was appointed State Councillor and Party group member on the State Council. On 8 July 2009, Dai replaced Chinese President Hu Jintao at the G8 summit in L'Aquila, Italy after Hu had to leave the summit because of July 2009 Ürümqi riots involving Uyghurs and Han Chinese.

Dai was appointed by Hu as his special representative to chair the Strategic Track of the U.S.-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue for the Chinese side in 2009. From 2003 to 2013, he served as China's Special Representative for the India–China boundary question. After leaving office, he argued in 2017 that the border dispute could be resolved through Indian concessions on Tawang, a suggestion dismissed by Indian officials as impractical and impossible as Tawang is considered an integral part of the Indian state of Arunachal Pradesh.