Xi Jinping

From Sent-Down Youth to Paramount Leader

Xi Jinping was born on 15 June 1953 in Beijing, the son of Xi Zhongxun, a veteran revolutionary and senior official who was later purged and publicly denounced during the Cultural Revolution. According to multiple biographical accounts, Xi himself was also affected as a teenager, reportedly held for a period of investigation and detention around 1966. In January 1969, at age 15, he was sent to Liangjiahe, a village in Yanchuan County on the loess plateau of Shaanxi, as part of the "sent-down youth" programme. He spent seven years there, an experience he has repeatedly invoked as formative. He joined the Party in 1974 and studied chemical engineering at Tsinghua University.

Provincial Career and Rise to the Centre

Xi subsequently served as Party Secretary of Zhengding County, Hebei (1983–1985); Vice Mayor of Xiamen, Fujian (1985–1988); Party Secretary of Ningde prefecture, Fujian (1988–1990); Party Secretary of Fuzhou, Fujian (1990–1996); Acting Governor of Fujian from 1999 and Governor from 2000 to 2002; Party Secretary of Zhejiang (2002–2007); and, from March to October 2007, Party Secretary of Shanghai, appointed following the corruption case against his predecessor Chen Liangyu. At the 17th Party Congress in October 2007, he was elevated to the Politburo Standing Committee, ranked sixth of nine — ahead of Li Keqiang, who ranked seventh — a positioning widely read as designating him rather than Li as heir apparent. He concurrently became President of the Central Party School that December and Vice President of the PRC in March 2008. On 15 November 2012, the First Plenum of the 18th Party Congress elected him General Secretary of the CCP and Chairman of the Central Military Commission; on 14 March 2013, the First Session of the 12th National People's Congress elected him President of the People's Republic of China.

Marriage and Family

Xi's first wife was Ke Lingling, the daughter of a diplomat; they married in 1979 and divorced in 1982, without children. On 1 September 1987, while serving as Vice Mayor of Xiamen, Xi married Peng Liyuan, a celebrated folk singer. Peng joined the People's Liberation Army in 1980 and long performed as a soloist with its General Political Department Song and Dance Ensemble, becoming widely known for her appearances on CCTV's Spring Festival Gala from 1982 onward. The couple have one daughter, Xi Mingze, born 25 June 1992, who studied at Zhejiang University before attending Harvard University, where she completed a degree in psychology in 2014; she has maintained a low public profile since.

Anti-Corruption and Consolidation

Xi Jinping's first and most consequential act as leader was the launch of a sweeping anti-corruption campaign that, by 2023, had investigated over 4.7 million officials at all levels. While framed as a clean-government initiative, the campaign also served as a tool for eliminating political rivals and factional opponents — bringing down senior figures including Zhou Yongkang (former security chief), Bo Xilai (already purged), Xu Caihou and Guo Boxiong (former CMC vice chairmen), and later Sun Zhengcai (a potential successor). By the end of his first term, Xi had accumulated more personal power than any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.

Ideology and Centralisation

Xi Jinping reversed the trend toward technocratic, consensus-based governance that had characterised the Hu Jintao era, restoring ideology as a central instrument of governance. On 29 November 2012, during a visit to the "Road to Rejuvenation" exhibition at the National Museum of China, he first articulated the "Chinese Dream" as a governing concept. In October 2016, the 6th Plenum of the 18th Central Committee formally designated him the Party's "core" leader. "Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era" was written into both the Party constitution (2017) and the state constitution (2018). Presidential term limits were removed from the state constitution in 2018, clearing the path for indefinite rule. From 2013 onward, he assumed the chairmanship or directorship of a series of central commissions (several reorganised from earlier "leading small groups") covering finance and economics, comprehensively deepening reform, national security, cyberspace affairs, military-civil fusion, and foreign affairs — a pattern commentators have called governing as "chairman of everything," widely seen as reflecting the continued concentration of decision-making power in his hands. Internet censorship intensified, civil society was suppressed, independent lawyers were detained in the "709 crackdown" (2015), and the media was brought under tighter Party control.

China Under Xi

Under Xi Jinping, China has pursued increasingly assertive foreign policies: island-building in the South China Sea, the Belt and Road Initiative, economic and military pressure on Taiwan, and confrontation with the United States on trade and technology. On 4 February 2022, twenty days before Russia's invasion of Ukraine, China and Russia issued a joint statement in Beijing declaring that cooperation between the two countries had "no limits." Domestically, the Xinjiang internment programme, the 2020 National Security Law imposed on Hong Kong, and zero-COVID policies (2020–22) represented the most coercive exercises of state power since the Cultural Revolution. Xi entered his third term as General Secretary at the 20th Party Congress in October 2022, with no designated successor and no visible constraint on his authority.

On Taiwan, on 7 November 2015 he met Taiwan's leader Ma Ying-jeou in Singapore, the first meeting between leaders of the two sides since 1949. On 2 January 2019, at a meeting marking the 40th anniversary of the Message to Compatriots in Taiwan, he set out five proposals including exploring a "two systems" plan for Taiwan, saying: "We make no promise to renounce the use of force and reserve the option of taking all necessary measures; this targets interference by external forces and the very small number of 'Taiwan independence' separatists and their activities, and is by no means aimed at our compatriots in Taiwan." Tsai Ing-wen responded that "we have never accepted the '1992 Consensus'". After US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi visited Taiwan in August 2022, and after Tsai met House Speaker Kevin McCarthy in April 2023, the PLA Eastern Theater Command staged large-scale exercises around Taiwan.

The Third Term: The End of Zero-COVID and Senior Personnel Turmoil

In late November and early December 2022, protests broke out in multiple Chinese cities against COVID-19 restrictions — later known as the "A4" or "White Paper" movement — triggered in part by controversy over the emergency response to a fatal apartment fire in Urumqi. On 7 December 2022, the government issued its "New Ten Measures," sharply easing restrictions and effectively ending the zero-COVID policy. Several senior officials were removed under unusual circumstances during the third term: Foreign Minister Qin Gang was last seen publicly on 25 June 2023 and formally dismissed the following month, with no official explanation given; Defense Minister Li Shangfu disappeared from public view after 29 August 2023 and was formally dismissed on 24 October 2023, likewise without explanation; and multiple senior PLA Rocket Force generals, including its commander and political commissar, were purged from 2023 onward amid corruption investigations, with successors drawn unusually from outside the Rocket Force. In July 2024, the Third Plenum of the 20th Central Committee set a reform agenda extending to 2029. On 30 October 2025, Xi held his first in-person meeting with US President Donald Trump since the start of Trump's second term, in South Korea.