WikipediaExtracts:Xi Jinping
Extracted from Wikipedia --
Xi Jinping (born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese statesman and politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Party Central Military Commission (CMC) since 2012, and the president of China and chairman of the State Central Military Commission since 2013. Xi has been the leader of the fifth generation of Chinese leadership since 2012.
The elder son of Chinese Red Army veteran Xi Zhongxun's second marriage to Qi Xin, Xi was born in Beijing and was exiled to rural village of Liangjiahe, Yanchuan County, Shaanxi, as a teenager following his father's purge during the Cultural Revolution. He lived in a yaodong in Liangjiahe, where he joined the CCP after several failed attempts and worked as the local party secretary. After studying chemical engineering at Tsinghua University as a worker-peasant-soldier student, Xi rose through the ranks politically in China's coastal provinces. Xi was governor of Fujian from 1999 to 2002, before becoming governor and party secretary of neighboring Zhejiang from 2002 to 2007. Xi was transferred to replace the dismissed Shanghai party secretary Chen Liangyu for a brief period in 2007. He subsequently joined the Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) the same year and was the first-ranking member of the Secretariat in October 2007. In 2008, Xi was appointed the vice president and became vice chairman of the CMC in 2010, making him Hu Jintao's presumed successor as paramount leader. In 2012, he succeeded Hu as the CCP general secretary and Party CMC chairman, and assumed the presidency and the State CMC chairmanship in 2013.
While overseeing China's domestic policy, Xi has introduced far-ranging measures to enforce party discipline and strengthen internal unity. His anti-corruption campaign led to the downfall of prominent incumbent and retired CCP officials. For the sake of promoting "common prosperity", Xi has enacted a series of policies designed to increase equality, overseen targeted poverty alleviation programs as part of the battle against poverty, and directed a broad crackdown in 2021 against the tech and tutoring sectors. Furthermore, he has expanded support for state-owned enterprises (SOEs), emphasized advanced manufacturing and tech development, advanced military–civil fusion, and led attempts to reform the property sector. Following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, he initially presided over a zero-COVID policy from 2020 to 2022 before ultimately shifting towards a mitigation strategy. Xi has pursued a more hardline foreign policy including with regard to relations with the United States, the nine-dash line in the South China Sea, and the Sino-Indian border dispute. Additionally, Xi has sought to expand China's influence in Africa and Eurasia by championing the Belt and Road Initiative. Xi met Taiwanese president Ma Ying-jeou in 2015, but subsequently presided over a deterioration in relations between Beijing and Taipei under the Democratic Progressive Party. In 2020, Xi oversaw the passage of a national security law in Hong Kong, which clamped down on the opposition pro-democracy activists.
Xi's tenure has witnessed restructuring of the People's Liberation Army, a significant increase in censorship and mass surveillance, a deterioration in human rights (including the persecution of Uyghurs), as well as an increased role for the CCP in society. He officially received the title of leadership core from the CCP in 2016 and oversaw the removal of term limits for the presidency in 2018, and became the first PRC president to serve more than three terms following his re-election in 2023. Xi's political ideas and principles, known as Xi Jinping Thought, have been incorporated into the party and national constitutions. As the central figure of the fifth generation of leadership of the PRC, Xi has centralized institutional power by taking on multiple positions, overseen significant reforms of political and military bodies, and increased CCP's influence over state organs.
