Xi Jinping  ( born June 15?, 1953 , Beijing Fuping county, Shaanxi province, ChinaChinese politician and government official who served as vice president of the People’s Republic of China (2008– ) and general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP; 2012– ).

Xi Jinping was the son of Xi Zhongxun, who once served as deputy prime minister of China but was and was an early comrade-in-arms of Mao Zedong. The elder Xi, however, was often out of favour with his party and government, especially before and during the Cultural Revolution (1966–76) and after he openly criticized the government’s actions during the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident. In 1969, during the Cultural Revolution, the younger Xi—like many of his fellow educated urban youth—was The younger Xi’s early childhood was largely spent in the relative luxury of the residential compound of China’s ruling elite in Beijing. During the Cultural Revolution, however, with his father purged and out of favour, Xi Jinping was sent to the countryside in 1969 (he went to the largely rural Shaanxi province), where he worked for six years as a manual labourer on an agricultural commune. During this that period he developed an especially good relationship with the local peasantry, which would aid the well-born wellborn Xi’s credibility in his eventual rise through the ranks of the Chinese Communist Party ( CCP).


In 1982 Xi gave up this that post, choosing instead to leave Beijing and work as a deputy secretary for the CCP in Hebei province. He was based there until 1985, when he was appointed as a party committee member and a vice mayor of Xiamen (Amoy) in Fujian province. While living in Fujian, Xi married the well-known folk singer folksinger Peng Liyuan in 1987. He continued to work his way upward, and by 1995 he had ascended to the post of deputy provincial party secretary.



With this movethat promotion, Xi became the likely successor to Pres. Hu Jintaowas put on a short list of likely successors to Hu Jintao, general secretary of the CCP since 2002 and president of the People’s Republic since 2003. Xi’s status became more assured when in March 2008 he was elected vice president of the People’s RepublicChina. In that role he focused on conservation efforts and on the improvement of improving international relations. In October 2010 Xi was named vice chairman of the powerful Central Military Commission , which further strengthened the case for his eventual succession.(CMC), a post once held by Hu (who since 2004 had been chair of the commission) and generally considered a major stepping-stone to the presidency. In November 2012, during the CCP’s 18th party congress, Xi was again elected to the standing committee of the Political Bureau (reduced to seven members), and he succeeded Hu as general secretary of the party. At that time Hu also relinquished the chair of the CMC to Xi.