page_title: Xi Jinping
section_title: Early life and education
hierarchical_section_title: Xi Jinping / Early life and education
caption_attribution_description: English: Xi Jinping (born in 1953, the General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since November 2012, left), Xi Yuanping (born in 1956, younger brother of Xi Jinping, middle) and Xi Zhongxun (born in 1913, Xi Jinping and Xi Yuanping's father, former Vice Premier and secretariat member, right) were together in 1958. 中文（中国大陆）‎: 1958年，习近平（1953年生，2012年11月起任中国共产党中央委员会总书记，左）、习远平（1956年生，习近平的弟弟，中）和习仲勋（1913年生，习近平和习远平的父亲，前国务院副总理和中共中央书记处书记，右）在一起。
context_page_description: Xi Jinping is a Chinese politician who has served as General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2012, and President of the People's Republic of China since 2013. Xi has been the paramount leader, the most prominent political leader in China, since 2012, and he officially received the title of "leadership core" from the Chinese Communist Party in 2016. Xi has also been a member of the 17th, 18th, 19th CCP Politburo Standing Committee since 2007. Some have considered him the de facto Emperor of China ever since 2018, when he abolished term limits allowing him to rule indefinitely and unrestrained. This has prompted some to compare him to Yuan Shikai, the first president of the Republic of China, who during his reign slowly gave himself more and more power, before declaring himself emperor in 1915.
  The son of Chinese Communist veteran Xi Zhongxun, he was exiled to rural Yanchuan County as a teenager following his father's purge during the Cultural Revolution, and lived in a cave in the village of Liangjiahe, where he joined the CCP and worked as the party secretary.
context_section_description: Xi Jinping was born in Beijing on 15 June 1953, the second son of Xi Zhongxun and his wife Qi Xin. After the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949 by Mao Zedong, Xi's father held a series of posts, including Party propaganda chief, vice-premier, and Vice Chairperson of the National People's Congress. Xi had two older sisters, Qiaoqiao (Chinese: 桥桥), born in 1949 and An'an (Chinese: 安安), born in 1952. Xi's father was from Fuping County, Shaanxi, and Xi could further trace his patrilineal descent from Xiying in Dengzhou, Henan.
  Xi went to the Beijing No. 25 School in the 1960s. He became friends with Liu He, who attended Beijing No. 101 School in the same district, who later became China's vice-premier and a close advisor to Xi after he became China's paramount leader. In 1963, when he was age 10, his father was purged from the Party and sent to work in a factory in Luoyang, Henan. In May 1966, the Cultural Revolution cut short Xi's secondary education when all secondary classes were halted for students to criticise and fight their teachers. Student militants ransacked the Xi family home and one of Xi's sisters, Xi Heping, committed suicide from the pressure. Later, his mother was forced to publicly denounce his father, as he was paraded before a crowd as an enemy of the revolution. His father was later thrown into prison in 1968 when Xi was aged 15. Without the protection of his father, Xi was sent to work in Liangjiahe Village, Wen'anyi Town, Yanchuan County, Yan'an, Shaanxi, in 1969 in Mao Zedong's Down to the Countryside Movement. He worked as the party secretary of Liangjiahe, where he lived in a cave house. After a few months, unable to stand rural life, he ran away to Beijing. He was arrested during a crackdown on deserters from the countryside and sent to a work camp to dig ditches.
  After being rejected seven times, Xi joined the Communist Youth League of China in 1971 by befriending a local official. He reunited with his father in 1972, because of a family reunion ordered by Premier Zhou Enlai. From 1973, he applied to join the Chinese Communist Party ten times and was finally accepted on his tenth attempt in 1974.
  From 1975 to 1979, Xi studied chemical engineering at Beijing's Tsinghua University as a "Worker-Peasant-Soldier student". The engineering majors there spent about 15 percent of their time studying Marxism–Leninism–Mao Zedong thought and 5 percent of their time doing farm work and "learning from the People's Liberation Army".
caption: Five-year-old Xi Jinping (left) with younger brother Xi Yuanping (center) and father Xi Zhongxun (right) in 1958
exif: {}