Born into a prominent revolutionary family, Vice-President Xi Jinping is set to become China’s next top leader, succeeding Hu Jintao (胡锦涛).
Xi has already assumed the country’s most powerful post, general secretary of the Communist Party of China at the 18thNational Party Congress in November 2012. Xi also became chairman of the Party’s arm of the Central Military Commission, China’s top military body.
He is expected to take over the presidency at the joint session of the National People’s Congress, and the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference in March 2013.
When Hu retires from the state Central Military Commission, Xi will almost certainly be confirmed as chairman, confirming his place at the helm of China’s military.
The 59-year-old leader has built a formidable power base through his considerable family connections and shrewdness in balancing the support of opposing factions.
Despite his prominent family background and marriage to a renowned folk singer, Xi has kept a relatively low profile throughout his career.
Embroiled in politics at an early age
As a boy, Xi experienced first-hand the brutal nature of Chinese politics when his father, a high-ranking official from the early days of the People’s Republic, was purged by Chairman Mao Zedong (毛泽东).
Xi Zhongxun (习仲勋) was one of Mao’s early lieutenants, and a founder of the Communist guerrilla movement in northwest China. He became part of the first generation of leadership after the Communist revolution in 1949. The younger Xi was born among the privileged elite in Beijing, where his father was chief secretary to the cabinet.
Life changed dramatically for father and son in 1962, when Mao accused the elder Xi of being part of an anti-Party plot. Young Xi was nine years old at the time, and he and his siblings were left to support themselves as their father was persecuted – the elder Xi was sent to work in a factory in Luoyang, Henan Province. He was tortured during the Cultural Revolution(1966-1976), and was then jailed in Beijing for another seven years, according to an official Party account.
At 16, Xi was forced to leave Beijing when he was sent down to the countryside as a farm laborer in Liangjiahe Village, Shaanxi Province, where his father once commanded guerrillas for Mao. There, Xi was required to attend daily “struggle” sessions, where he was forced to read out denunciations of his father.
But his size and strength helped him to survive in the countryside, where he won wrestling matches with farmers and became known for extraordinary strength.
“I ate a lot more bitterness than most people,” Xi said in a 1996 interview, referring to his seven years of exile.
But, as he noted in a published essay in 2003, “Much of my pragmatic thinking took root back then, and still exerts a constant influence on me.”
Early career
Because of his father’s poor standing, Xi’s applications to join the Party were repeatedly denied until 1974, when he was nominated by the local production brigade (equivalent to a village) where he worked.
A year later, he was admitted to Tsinghua University in Beijing as a “worker-peasant-soldier” student. At the time, college entrance relied on political recommendations instead of entrance exams, and Xi’s family ties, as well as a recommendation from the local government, helped him secure a seat at the elite university – known as the MIT of China.
Xi majored in chemical engineering and after graduating in 1979, he joined the People’s Liberation Army. His political career began as a personal assistant to Geng Biao (耿彪), a powerful military ally of his father who was a vice-premier and secretary-general of the Central Military Commission, the country’s top military organization. This three-year experience left Xi with a particular fondness for the armed forces and his career-long affiliation with the PLA.
While many of his peers were resuming their lives in Beijing after the Cultural Revolution, Xi chose to return to the countryside to get hands-on experience and broaden his connections.
He had become “impatient with the influence-mongering and court flattery of Beijing,” according to “China’s New Rulers: The Secret Files”, a book based on leaked Party documents. He was aware of the “resentment of his connections,” which might one day obstruct his career development if he didn’t leave Beijing, the Financial Times reported.
In 1982, Xi took his first local post in poor, rural Zhengding county, Hebei province, where he gained a reputation for being practical and assiduous, boosting local tourism and the rural economy.
By then, Party elders had already identified Xi as one of a group of prospective future leaders, reported The New York Times.
Following his father’s footsteps in Fujian
In 1985, at the age of 32, Xi was promoted to vice-mayor of Xiamen city, the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, one of China’s wealthiest and most strategically important provinces.
Like Guangdong Province, where his father once worked, Fujian was also one of the sites of Deng Xiaoping’s (邓小平) market-based reforms, and a driving force of China’s export-led growth. The elder Xi implemented China’s first special economic zone in Shenzhen in 1980 when he was Guangdong provincial governor.
Perhaps following his father’s footsteps, Xi Jinping boosted the market-oriented economy in Fujian by helping to attract investments from Taiwan and opening up a “green lane” for private enterprise. Throughout his governorship, private enterprises comprised two-thirds of the province’s economy. Xi worked in Fujian for 17 years, climbing his way up through the ranks – from deputy mayor of Xiamen city to governor of the province.
Xi was appointed governor in 2000 after serving as acting governor for a year and was soon tasked with overseeing the investigation into a multi-billion dollar corruption scandal that broke just as Xi took office.
Central authorities in Beijing accused a trading company called the Yuanhua Group of bribing officials to allow a massive smuggling ring in the 1990s, a case that implicated more than 200 senior figures. In the end, 14 people were sentenced to death and 13 were sentenced to life in prison, including senior government, police, customs and financial officials.
Xi’s task became particularly sensitive when the media, citing Party insiders, linked former Fujian Party chief Jia Qinglin (贾庆林) and his wife to the scandal. Jia’s wife, Lin Youfang (林幼芳), publicly denied any wrongdoing, Reuters reported.
By the time the smuggling ring was exposed in 1999 Jia, a protégé of former Party chief Jiang Zemin (江泽民), was already Party secretary of Beijing and expected to enter the nextPolitburo.
After the Fujian scandal, Jiang “made a point of appearing in public with Jia,” Reuters reported.
In January 2000, newly appointed Fujian governor Xi, told the Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po newspaper that the foreign media’s reports on Lin’s involvement in the smuggling case were “totally created out of thin air.”
And Xi – reportedly close to Jiang – “handled the investigation in such a way that Jia was not politically damaged,” according to “China’s New Rulers: The Secret Files”, a book based on leaked Party documents.
A rising star: Zhejiang and Shanghai
Despite being widely regarded as a rising star, Xi has been cautious about his future. When a Reuters journalist asked him in 2002 if he was likely to be one of China’s new generation of leaders, the Fujian governor expressed shock. “I nearly spilt water all down my shirt,” he said. “Are you trying to give me a fright?”
Xi had good reason to be cautious. At the 15th Party congress, five years earlier, he failed to receive enough votes in the election for members and alternates of the Central Committeedue to the unpopularity of princelings and because he was not well known at the time. Still, Xi was selected as an “over-quota supplemental” (ewai zengbu 额外增补) alternate with the help of Jiang Zemin and Zeng Qinghong (曾庆红).
The setback did not block Xi’s rise in the Party. In 2002, he was first appointed as a deputy Party secretary and later as acting governor of neighboring Zhejiang Province. Although the transfer did not raise Xi’s political rank, Zhejiang, one of China’s richest provinces, carries a lot of weight in the country’s politics and this position helped consolidate his credentials within the fifth generation of leadership.
Xi’s leadership in booming coastal provinces has won him fame as an economic reformer and pro-business leader, and gave him precious experience in a fast-growing China. The former U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, who regards Xi as a friend, described him as “the kind of guy who knows how to get things over the goal line.”
The turning point in Xi’s career came in March 2007, when he was promoted to Party secretary of Shanghai, home turf of Jiang Zemin, after a pension fund scandal felled Chen Liangyu (陈良宇), the city’s former Party head, and a prominent figure in the so-called Shanghai Clique (上海帮), an influential Party faction led by Jiang. A handful of senior city officials and leading businessmen also fell as a result of the scandal.
Xi continued to walk a fine line between supporting Hu Jintaoand former leader Jiang Zemin, as he had done for years. He helped mitigate the negative effects of the scandal on the Shanghai Clique, while stabilizing and reenergizing the city. Meanwhile, Xi vowed loyalty to Hu Jintao’s political agenda, managing Shanghai in accord with central government policies in a break from his less conformist predecessor.
From dark horse to heir apparent
Weeks before the 17th Party congress in 2007, Xi was not yet regarded as a front-runner to succeed Hu Jintao, whose favorite was protégé Vice-Premier Li Keqiang (李克强).
However, Xi, originally a dark horse, emerged as the heir-apparent in October 2007 when he was transferred to Beijing and elevated to the all-powerful Politburo Standing Committee. His quick promotion to the committee, after only a seven-month stint running Shanghai – itself a prestigious position usually occupied for years – surprised some observers.
As China’s boss-in-waiting, Xi was then responsible for preparing the 2008 Beijing Olympics and overseeing Hong Kong/Macau affairs, as well as presiding over the Central Party School, the highest institution for training high and middle-ranking Party cadres.
During the Chinese New Year in 2010, Xi sent out a surprise gift, a personal text message, to a million grass-roots cadres and Party members. “On behalf of the central Party, I pass on dear greetings to all grass-roots party organization secretaries, university students and village officials,” said the message, signed by Xi.
The unusual message was seen as a sign of his effort to enhance his personal prestige within the Party.
Later that year, Xi was appointed the vice-president of the CMC, the final step on the ladder to China’s top post. This move, together with his previous two appointments – to thePolitburo Standing Committee in 2007 and as vice-president in 2008 – sealed his position as the heir-apparent to all three sources of power in China: Party, state and military.
Family
Born in 1953, Xi is a native of the poor, inland Shaanxi province, which is the home of the terracotta warriors. He obtained a PhD degree in law, majoring in Marxist theory, from Tsinghua University, after undergraduate study in chemical engineering.
Xi is divorced from his first wife, Ke Xiaoming (柯小明), who is the daughter of China’s former ambassador to the United Kingdom Ke Hua (柯华). The couple had a difficult relationship and argued “almost every day,” and they split up when Ke Xiaoming moved to England, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks and published by the South China Morning Post.
In Fujian, Xi met and married his second wife, Peng Liyuan(彭丽媛), a famous folk opera singer, who holds the rank of major-general and heads the People’s Liberation Army song and dance troupe. The song “On the Field of Hope” made her a household name in the 1980s. For many years, Peng was better-known than her husband.
According to Peng, Xi is “the best”. She once described him in an interview with a state-run magazine as frugal, hardworking and down-to-earth.
Ever since Xi’s promotion to the central leadership, Peng has rarely performed. She is also a member of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference and the World Health Organization’s Goodwill Ambassador for Tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS.
The couple has a daughter, Xi Mingze (习明泽), who is studying at Harvard University under an assumed name. Born in 1992, the daughter is nicknamed Muzi (木子).
In 2008, the 16-year-old girl hit the headlines. In a rare move for the children of princelings, she was reported to have volunteered to work in earthquake-hit areas of Sichuan, rescuing the injured and comforting children at a collapsed primary school.
The compromise candidate
Analysts say Xi Jinping was the ideal compromise candidate.
Since the end of Deng Xiaoping’s rule, China has been run by two rival factions: Jiang Zemin’s Shanghai Clique and theTuanpai, headed by Hu Jintao and comprising officials who came up through the Communist Youth League (CYL).
As a princeling, Xi has a heritage of political reliability and natural access to both groups, without being a close ally of either.
On the one hand, Xi’s father Xi Zhongxun was a close ally ofHu Yaobang (胡耀邦), former head of the CYL and an early mentor of Hu Jintao. In 1987, when Hu Yaobang was forced to step down, the elder Xi was the only Politburo member who defended him at a Party life meeting, calling the sacking illegal.
On the other hand, the younger Xi is reportedly close to Jiang Zemin, leader of the Shanghai Clique. Jiang’s protégé, Jia Qinglin, was left unscathed after Xi’s investigation into the Xiamen Yuanhua case.
When Xi was appointed as the Party secretary of Shanghai, Jiang’s power base, the former leader was “consulted and gave his blessing”. With Shanghai known for rarely accepting non-Shanghainese for their top post, Xi became the first outsider to govern China’s commercial capital in nearly 20 years. He repaid the trust of the Shanghai Clique by reenergizing the city in the wake of the pension fund scandal.
It has been reported that Xi is closer to the former vice-president, and Jiang’s principal confidant, Zeng Qinghong. Both were secretaries of different vice-premiers at the same time: Xi worked for Geng Biao from 1979 to 1982, and Zeng worked for Yu Qiuli (余秋里), also a State Planning Commission head and a leading military figure, from 1979 to 1981.
Zeng, together with Jiang, supported Xi’s continued rise in 1997 when Xi almost lost his seat in the Party Central Committee.
It was widely reported that Zeng played a key role in the appointment of Xi as Shanghai’s Party secretary and to thePolitburo Standing Committee in 2007. After the 17th Party Congress, Xi took over from Zeng as Beijing’s top official overseeing Party affairs and Hong Kong/Macau affairs.
However, family ties have also hindered Xi. His father had strong differences with the more conservative Song Ping (宋平) and Bo Yibo (薄一波). Both favored sidelining the elder Xi in 1987 and thus feared retribution if Xi Jinping rose to power. This was an obstacle to Xi Jinping’s candidacy for Party secretary, as Song preferred Li Keqiang and Bo preferred his own son Bo Xilai (薄熙来).
After working in the provinces for 25 years, Xi has become a rarity among officials of his age and rank in having experience working at almost all levels of administration (village, county, city and province) and governing in both poor inland rural areas and rich coastal regions.
Xi had emerged as a contender without any serious scandal or controversy marring his 30-year career.
Compared with his two predecessors, Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin, Xi had deeper ties with the military before becoming top leader. Xi was once in charge of the national defense mobilization commission in both Fujian and Zhejiang, and he served as a secretary to Geng Biao in the CMC for three years.
During his time working in the provinces, Xi frequently visited local troops, often watching open-air movies with soldiers at night. Xi is one of the few leaders of his generation to have direct defense-related experience and military ties.
Thanks to his family background, institutional, military and provincial links and his work experiences at various levels of government, Xi “appeals to the widest constituencies in the Party,” according to Kerry Brown, China expert at the University of Sydney.
In addition, Xi’s ability to maintain a non-threatening low profile and avoid making enemies, contributed to his steady rise.
Xi is “very cautious and sits in the back of the room with his arms folded — he doesn’t make mistakes,” a prominent Shanghai-based journalist said, according to a state department cable released by WikiLeaks and cited by McClatchy Newspapers.
What to expect
As Xi begins his reign as Party chief, observers inside and outside China are wondering what to expect from the leader.
Given his previous work experience in prosperous provinces, many see Xi as likely to promote free-market economic reforms.
“Xi Jinping, in my view, will promote private sector, including property development, including the openness for foreign investment and also China’s participation in the global economy,” Cheng Li, an expert on Chinese elite politics at the Brookings Institution, said in an interview with Reuters.
While Xi has spoken out against corruption and has made the issue one of his early priorities, his other political inclinations are less clear.
Some observers think Xi may have inherited some of his father’s liberal legacy. Compared with Hu Jintao, who has made no big moves towards political reform, Xi, with more support within the Party and military, may have more freedom to try new ideas.
But others believe Xi will probably follow Hu’s direction. “On political reforms, he didn’t take any risks that would catch flak,” Zhang Xiaojin, a political scientist at Tsinghua University, told The New York Times.
His views of the West remain a question mark. According to a U.S. diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks, Xi is a self-confessed fan of the Spielberg film “Saving Private Ryan” and he particularly likes Hollywood movies about World War II, saying they are “grand and truthful”.
On a visit to Mexico in 2009, the normally unexpressive vice-president bluntly defended China’s rise in the world, saying, “there are some foreigners, with full bellies, who have nothing better to do than try to point fingers at our country.” He added, “China does not, first, export revolution; second, export poverty and hunger; third, cause troubles for you. So what else is there to say?”
Commentators saw the barb as aimed at countries calling for improved human rights in China, an unguarded display of nationalism and an indication of his true feelings towards the U.S.
Chinese nationalists supported Xi’s hardline position and his frankness in comparison to the “staid caution” of his predecessor, Hu Jintao. However, his speech was judged too “inflammatory” by Chinese censors and quickly disappeared from websites and news reports.
In August 2011, U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden toured China for six days. The trip was at Xi’s invitation and the Chinese vice-president accompanied Biden for most of the tour.
Biden’s visit paved the way for Xi’s trip to Washington in February 2012. That visit included a meeting with U.S. President Barack Obama at the White House, lunch with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and stops in California and Iowa, where he had briefly stayed in 1985. As Xi’s visit fell in a year of leadership changes for both the U.S. and China, neither country was willing to give ground on key disputes – trade, currency policy and human rights.
The U.S. viewed the Xi visit as a rare opportunity to learn more about China’s heir-apparent, while for China the aim was to polish Xi’s image at home and abroad as a future world leader capable of managing Sino-U.S. relations.
During this “getting-to-know-you” visit across the United States, Xi presented an image very different from current President Hu Jintao, a stiff and distant leader who made the same journey a decade earlier. Xi appeared confident and affable at various occasions, returning to the tiny Iowa town of Muscatine, which he had visited years earlier, and watching a Los Angeles Lakers basketball game.
However, whether Xi, with a seemingly different style, will bring about breakthroughs between the world’s two largest economies and significant reform within China, remains to be seen.
