5 June 2013 Last updated at 09:10 GMT Profile: Xi Jinping Mr. Xi has called for "the great renaissance of the Chinese nation" Continue reading the main story China's New Leaders Xi Jinping, president of China and Communist Party chief, is expected to lead China for the next decade. Since being confirmed as leader of the world's second-largest economy, Mr Xi has vowed to crack down on corruption. He has also urged the country to achieve the "China Dream", something he has linked to a Chinese renaissance, where the country can take its rightful place in the world. He now heads to the US for a high profile summit with President Barack Obama. Path to the top - The 59-year-old is seen as a "princeling" - a term applied to senior officials who are thought to owe at least some of their success to family connections. Born in Beijing in 1953, Xi Jinping is the son of revolutionary veteran Xi Zhongxun, one of the Communist Party's founding fathers. Xi Zhongxun was purged from the post of vice-premier in 1962 prior to the Cultural Revolution and eventually imprisoned. The younger Xi was then sent, aged 15, to work in the remote village of Liangjiahe for seven years, like most other "intellectual youth" of the time. A local village official who knew Mr Xi at that time described him as "very sincere and honest", adding that he was just like one of them "so everybody liked him very much". Mr Xi has acknowledged that this time spent working alongside villagers was a key experience for him. He went on to study chemical engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing, which has produced many of China's current top leaders, including Hu Jintao. The Associated Press reports he tried to join the Communist Party at least nine times but was rejected because of his father's issues. Accepted into the party in 1974, Mr Xi served as a local party secretary in Hebei province and then went on to ever more senior roles in Fujian and then Zhejiang provinces. |
AuthorGraham Chua Lim, the Presentor of this news from BBC Network Archives
July 2014
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