Standing in the Party and Career Highlights:

[Updated July 2011] Xi Jinping is the man expected to succeed Hu Jintao in 2012.

He is a top-ranking member of the Secretariat of the CPC, China’s Vice President, Principal of the Central Party School, and number four in the Politburo Standing Committee. In October 2010 he achieved the last step in assuring his succession to the Party’s top job, by being appointed a Vice Chair of the Central Military Commission.

Some evidence exists to show that some tension exists between Xi Jinping and Hu Jintao. Hu would have preferred Li Keqiang to succeed but the Party chose Xi. (Xi is not part of the Youth League clique and was a protégé of Jiang Zemin).

With a career that spans Hebei, Fujian, Zhejiang and Shanghai (where he was drafted in after a pension fund scandal) Xi is known as a liberal who is tough on crime. In face of public protests (some with as many as 50,000 participants) in provinces before moving to Central, he sent in troops and police to restore order. He is known to get “difficult” assignments — Corruption, the Olympics, Hong Kong, 60th anniversary etc. He visited the Tibet Autonomous Region in 1998 when Deputy Party Secretary of Fujian Province as part of a “pairing up” support system and attended the 5th work forum on Tibet in April 2010.

Between 17 and 22 July 2011 Xi headed a large Central government delegation to the Tibet Autonomous Region for events to mark the 60th Anniversary of what China calls the “peaceful liberation of Tibet.” In Lhasa on 19 July Xi presided over a major ceremony in the square below the Potala Palace. His message adhered to the Party line; “[We] should thoroughly fight against separatist activities by the Dalai clique by firmly relying on all ethnic groups… and completely smash any plot to destroy stability in Tibet and jeopardise national unity.” [Full text of speech Xinhua, 19 July 2011.] He also visited the Jokhang Temple where he urged monks to stay clear of “separatist forces.”

His visit took him to Tashilhunpo Monastery in Shigatse, where according to State media he “called on the religious circle in Tibet to continue their efforts to promote patriotism and maintain ethnic and national unity” and the town of Bayi in Kongpo where he congratulated People’s Liberation Army soldiers in the area for their contributions to “ethnic unity.” [State Media reports and images.]

Xi visited Xinjiang in June 2009 where John Gittings (UK journalist) reported “He insisted that the local party should appoint officials who could do a better job of handling ethnic relations. He warned that they should solve the “real difficulties” that Uighurs suffer in housing, food, health, education and employment.”

Personal Information

Xi Jinping’s father was Xi Zhongxun, former Vice Premier and mastermind of the Shenzhen economic zone. Xi Zhongxun was close to the 10th Panchen Lama and a Wikileaks cable quotes a dissident writer as saying “the Dalai Lama still had great affection” for Xi senior. Xi Zhongxun was an interlocutor for exiled Tibetan envoys in the 1980s, and he was known to carry a photo of His Holiness. Xi senior was purged 3 times by Mao, supported Hu Yaobang’s progressive ideas including political reform, and publicly denounced the use of military force in Tiananmen Square, after which he disappeared from public. He died in 2002. Photos of Xi Zhongxun on a visit to the United States can be viewed here. (Note: the Financial Times reports that – like Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao – Xi Jinping visits Hu Yaobang’s widow every Chinese New Year, and that the Xi family sent a wreath to the funeral of ousted leader Zhao Ziyang in 2005.)

It is not clear whether Xi Jinping has been influenced by his father. He and his siblings were persecuted for their father’s ‘crimes” during the Cultural Revolution; a 1992 article in the Washington Post said that one daughter died during this time. Xi junior was sent down to Shaanxi for seven years, where – he says – he leaned to serve the people. It is notable that he joined the Party in 1974 when his father was still in prison and – according to a childhood friend – “Xi chose to survive by becoming redder than red.”

Xi Jinping is married to famous folk singer, Peng Liyuan (see below). This is his 2nd marriage but there are rumours of discord (his first marriage was to the daughter of a former Chinese Ambassador to the UK; the marriage broke up when she wanted to come and study in the UK, but he felt living in the West was impossible for a future Politburo Standing Committee Member). Peng Liyuan is a PLA Major General and in 2011 was appointed as a goodwill ambassador for the World Health Organisation. Xi has family overseas – his daughter is studying at Harvard under a pseudonym; his older sister, Xi An’an, is thought to live in Canada and his younger brother, Xi Yuanping, spent time in Hong Kong while it was under British rule.

In December 2010 and January 2011, a flurry of profiles of Xi appeared in international media, using new information based on leaked US cables. The most interesting featured the opinions of an unnamed professor who was a childhood friend of Xi. The professor reportedly said Xi was drawn to Buddhism during his early career, and had a “seeming belief in supernatural forces”. The professor added that Xi was incorruptible by money, did not drink or take drugs and women felt he was “boring”. (Malcolm Moore, The Telegraph). The leaked cables also revealed that Xi is a fan of the films “Saving Private Ryan” and “The Departed”, saying that in US movies “good usually prevails”, whereas some Chinese film-makers neglected “values they should promote”.

Peng Liyuan in her PLA Uniform.

Quotations By/Comments About

• Former Prime Miinister of Singapore, Lee Kuan Yew (quoted in Time): “I would put him in the Nelson Mandela class of persons. A person with enormous emotional stability who does not allow his personal misfortunes or sufferings to affect his judgment. In other words, he is impressive”.
• Former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson (quoted in Time) is said to be a friend of Xi, describing him as “the kind of guy who knows how to get things over the goal line.”
• Xi Jinping, in Mexico; “there are a few foreigners, with full bellies, who have nothing better to do than try to point fingers at our county. China does not export revolution, hunger, poverty, nor does China cause you any headaches. Just what else do you want?” (reported to be an uncharacteristic response to criticism.)
• Xi Jinping, 1992; “Even if you don’t understand, you are forced to understand”, he said with a trace of bitterness. “It makes you mature earlier.”" Xi was speaking about being locked up 3-4 times at the age of 15 because of his father’s ‘crimes’. Banished to Yunnan, he had to attend daily ‘struggle’ sessions, where he was often forced to read out denunciations of his father. (The Washington Post, Lena H Sun, June 1992).
• Financial Times, 4 March 2011“The tantalising thing about Xi Jinping is that here is a guy who really suffered during the Cultural Revolution, much more than most, and whose father actually condemned the killings in Tiananmen,” says a professor at a university in Beijing who knows the family. “That, to say the least, is an interesting biography.” (Financial Times, 4 March 2011).

Xi Jinping’s Contact Information:

• Address: Zhongnanhai, Xi Chang’an Jie, Beijing 100017.
• Website: www.gov.cn
• Phone: + 86 10 6307 0913
• Fax: + 86 10 6307 0900

Xi Jinping Profile Downloads:

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Little-known past of China’s ‘next leader’ (Al Jazeera, 25 January 2012)