{"id":780412,"date":"2026-09-23T22:44:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T22:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/780412\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T22:44:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T22:44:10","slug":"trump-welcomes-xi-at-airport-with-red-carpet-and-military-flyover-to-kick-off-three-day-us-visit-live-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/780412\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump welcomes Xi at airport with red carpet and military flyover to kick off three-day US visit – live updates"},"content":{"rendered":"

Who is Xi Jinping?published at 21:50 BST<\/p>\n

21:50 BST<\/p>\n

BBC Global China Unit<\/p>\n

\"XiImage source, Getty Images<\/p>\n

Xi Jinping’s story began in privilege.<\/p>\n

Born in Beijing in 1953, he is the sixth child of Xi
\nZhongxun, a Communist revolutionary who helped establish the People’s Republic
\nof China. His father eventually became a senior party leader and vice premier.<\/p>\n

As a young child, Xi attended prestigious schools and
\nenjoyed privileges unavailable to most families. <\/p>\n

Then politics turned against his family. In the early 1960s,
\nXi’s father was accused of being part of an “anti-party” clique,
\nbanished to the countryside to work in a factory and purged from the party.<\/p>\n

As the son of someone deemed to be a
\n“counter-revolutionary”, teenage Xi was forcibly sent to a
\nre-education facility. Heeding the calls of then leader Mao Zedong to go to the
\nvillages and learn from the peasantry, 15-year-old Xi headed to the countryside
\nwith millions of other city students.<\/p>\n

At 22, he left the countryside to study chemical engineering
\nat Tsinghua University, one of China’s best academic institutions. After
\ngraduating, he worked as a local official. His father’s rehabilitation after
\nMao’s death helped Xi land positions in the central government and the
\nmilitary, building relationships within the party.<\/p>\n

In 2007, after a brief stint as top leader in Shanghai, Xi
\njoined the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s top decision-making body.<\/p>\n

Five
\nyears later, he succeeded Hu Jintao as the leader of the Communist Party.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who is Xi Jinping?published at 21:50 BST 21:50 BST BBC Global China Unit Image source, Getty Images Xi…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":780413,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-780412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780412","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=780412"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/780412\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/780413"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=780412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=780412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=780412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}