Who is Xi Jinping?published at 21:50 BST
21:50 BST
BBC Global China Unit
Image source, Getty Images
Xi Jinping’s story began in privilege.
Born in Beijing in 1953, he is the sixth child of Xi
Zhongxun, a Communist revolutionary who helped establish the People’s Republic
of China. His father eventually became a senior party leader and vice premier.
As a young child, Xi attended prestigious schools and
enjoyed privileges unavailable to most families.
Then politics turned against his family. In the early 1960s,
Xi’s father was accused of being part of an “anti-party” clique,
banished to the countryside to work in a factory and purged from the party.
As the son of someone deemed to be a
“counter-revolutionary”, teenage Xi was forcibly sent to a
re-education facility. Heeding the calls of then leader Mao Zedong to go to the
villages and learn from the peasantry, 15-year-old Xi headed to the countryside
with millions of other city students.
At 22, he left the countryside to study chemical engineering
at Tsinghua University, one of China’s best academic institutions. After
graduating, he worked as a local official. His father’s rehabilitation after
Mao’s death helped Xi land positions in the central government and the
military, building relationships within the party.
In 2007, after a brief stint as top leader in Shanghai, Xi
joined the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top decision-making body.
Five
years later, he succeeded Hu Jintao as the leader of the Communist Party.