Xi Jinping present and 7th President of the People’s Republic of China since 15 November 2012.
Preceeded by: Hu Jintao
Date of Birth: 15 June 1953.
Birth Place: Beijing, China.
Family: Ke Lingling, Peng Liyuan (Spouses), Xi Mingze(Children), Xi Zhongxun (father), Qi Xin (mother)
Party: Communist (since 1974).
About: Xi went to the Beijing No. 25 School and then the Beijing Bayi School in the 1960s. He became friends with Liu He, who attended Beijing No. 101 School in the same district and later became China’s vice premier and a close advisor to Xi after he became China’s paramount leader. After his father’s death, Xi has to work in Liangjiahe Village, Wen’anyi, Yanchuan County, Yan’an, Shaanxi, in 1969 as part of Mao Zedong’s Down to the Countryside Movement. He worked as the party secretary of Liangjiahe, where he lived in a cave house. The misfortunes and suffering of his family in his early years hardened Xi’s view of politics. During an interview in 2000, he said, “People who have little contact with power, who are far from it, always see these things as mysterious and novel. But what I see is not just the superficial: the power, the flowers, the glory, the applause. I see the bullpens and how people can blow hot and cold. I understand politics on a deeper level.” The “bullpens” (牛棚) were a reference to Red Guards’ detention houses during the Cultural Revolution.
