China Unveils Xi Jinping As New Leader

Who Is Xi Jinping?

Updated: 7:25am UK, Thursday 15 November 2012

By Mark Stone, China Correspondent

He will lead the world's most populous nation of 1.3 billion people for the next 10 years and could be at the helm when China becomes the world's largest economy but who is Xi Jinping? And why should you care anyway?

Mr Xi is a "princeling" -  the son of one of the founding members of the Chinese Communists, Xi Zhongxun, a guerrilla commander who went on to form the party alongside Chairman Mao.

Mr Xi's father and Mao fell out. Xi Senior was tortured and placed in jail for several years.

During the Cultural Revolution - when millions of Chinese died under Mao's leadership - the Xi family were sent to live in communes as peasants along with so many others.

In recent and rare interviews Xi Jingping talks about this difficult time in his life which he refers to as a "struggle" which helped develop him into a stronger man.

Mr Xi and those around him now represent the first generation of leaders to experience first-hand the struggle of being a child through the Cultural Revolution. Many speculate that this could mould his leadership, especially in terms of how he deals with the widening gap between rich and poor in China.

After the chaos of the Cultural Revolution, Mr Xi moved back to Beijing to continue his education. He was educated into Communist Party and quickly rose through the ranks, first in Hebei Province and then in Fujian Province.

In 2000 he was made governor of Fujian Province followed by acting governor of Zhejiang in 2002. He built economies in those two provinces which have become larger than both Hong Kong and Taiwan.

He has a daughter who studies at Harvard and a wife who is more famous than he is.

Peng Liyuan is a folk singer, fluent in English and a Major-General in the People's Liberation Army. She is, by all accounts, a beautiful woman - her name even means "beautious beauty".

Ms Peng will be far more of an American-style first lady when compared with her elderly and reclusive predecessor, Hu Jintao's wife.

In public, Mr Xi also contrasts with his stiff and formal predecessor. He is a charismatic and a relaxed public speaker.

He is well travelled too, having lived in the United States for a short time as a young man. In recent years, in preparation for his rise to the very top, he's been to a number of Western capitals.

Mr Xi's inner thoughts, aspirations for his country's direction and attitude towards the West are not widely known.

A comment he made on a 2010 visit to Mexico is often used as an example of his true colours.

"Foreigners with full bellies, and nothing better to do than point fingers at China. China does not export revolution, or famine, or poverty or mess around with other countries. So what else is there to say," he said.

But his first speech to the media on Thursday as leader was more conciliatory.

"Just as China needs to learn more about the world, so does the world need to learn more about China," he said.

However, despite all that, walk down any street in Beijing and you'll find the Chinese know very little about their new leader. And in the West it would not be an embarrassment to admit to not having ever heard of the man.

The reason for this is simple. China operates what can be called a black-box system of government. It is a system closed to its subjects. It is extremely hard to see how it operates and who is pulling the levers.

The Communist Party runs or contributes to almost every facet of life in China. Its 80 million or so members make it the largest political party in the world. And yet China is so large, they represent just 6% of the country's population.

It is that 6% who have some say over who in community rises up each of the thousands of different party organisations.

With a pyramid effect fewer and fewer people endorse those who will sit above them - and that is why very few people know who Mr Xi is, what he is like, what he stands for and in what direction he will take the world's most populous nation.

Reform is the buzzword for China's next 10 years. Many had believed that following the country's economic reforms in the 1990s, political and social reform would come under Mr Hu and Mr Wen. It didn't happen.

China is now at a crossroads. Past Chinese leaders have lifted the country economically beyond all expectations; it is now the world's second wealthiest country.

But its economic explosion coupled with a downturn in exports to the West has produced a long list of explosive problems.

The wealth gap is wider than ever. Corruption is rife. The cities are the most polluted in the world. Factory production is slowing. Now mix all that in with an increasingly restive population which is more technologically connected and geographically mobile than ever: this is the China Xi Jinping must lead.

He has never really revealed whether he is just a moderniser or a genuine reformer. The direction he chooses will determine China's fate.

And remember, China's fate matters to the West.

China has holdings of more than $1trn (£631bn) of US debt. It is buying up Western companies and increasingly Western companies are investing in China.

If further reform comes, think of the opportunities which could help lift the West out of economic crisis.

But if China crashes, it could bring the rest of us down with it.

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