Following in France’s footsteps, Chinese doctors today performed the country’s first face transplant to reconstruct the face of a man horrifically disfigured after an attack by a black bear.

Li Guoxing received a new right cheek, upper lip, nose and an eyebrow in a 14-hour operation at the Xijing Hospital, a military facility in the northwestern city of Xi’an.

"Up to now, the patient is in good condition," the hospital said. "The operation was successful. It is predicted that the wounds can be healed within one week."

The hospital did not identify the donor, saying only that it was a man who was declared brain-dead before the operation. His family had requested no further information be revealed.

Mr Li’s face had been ripped when he was attacked by a bear in 2004 in southwestern Yunnan province and he had since lived as a recluse because of his disfigurement. Photographs released by the hospital showed the extent of Li’s injuries, his right eye nearly closed and the cheek and lip badly ripped exposing pink flesh. Another picture showed Mr Li, after the operation, lying with a tube in his mouth, his face puffy and with surgical scars running from his lower left ear above his nose to his right ear and around his chin.

The surgeon, Guo Shuzhong, director of the plastic surgery department, said Li was recovering satisfactorily but that it would take six months for feeling to return to his new face. In addition he would need to overcome psychological problems. Mr Guo said: "His wife may take a long time to adjust to his new face."

The partial face transplant comes only six months after doctors in Amiens, France, performed the world’s first such procedure on Isabelle Dinoire, 38, whose lips and nose were torn off by her own dog. Han Yan, deputy director of Xijing’s plastic surgery department, said: "The surgery is even more complex than the first face transplant in France."

The hospital had performed the surgery free of charge after hearing of Mr Li’s plight and his poverty, state media said.

China is increasingly eager to demonstrate its scientific prowess. Over the past decade, the government has poured money into advanced scientific fields, from aerospace to biotechnology, directing grant money and pooling resources to create research centres to rival the West. China is only the third country with a successful manned space programme, and its gene research has won praise from scientists abroad.

However, Chinese and foreign experts have previously criticised the government for lax oversight of research and said that the push for breakthroughs was creating ethical problems. The government tightened up regulations on research and clinical drug trials after Chinese reporters accused a US-funded project of conducting research on asthma medication without the proper consent of farmers in central China in the 1990s.

Last month, the Health Ministry banned sales of human organs, apparently to try to clean up the lucrative but poorly regulated transplant business. New regulations forbid the buying and selling of organs and require that donors give written permission for their organs to be transplanted. Human rights groups say many organs come from executed who man not have given their permission. Voluntary donations remain far below demand, partly because of age-old cultural biases against organ removal.

Safety concern have also surfaced. Last month, Japan announced it was examining cases involving at least eight Japanese patients who fell ill or died from infections and other problems after receiving transplants in China.

Doctors at the Xijing had already claimed success in performing a facial skin transplant operation on a rabbit in December, transplanting skin tissue from a New Zealand rabbit. A fortnight later the rabbit was in good condition with the eye on the transplanted side blinking naturally, the hospital said.

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