page_title: Hu Jintao
section_title: Early life
hierarchical_section_title: Hu Jintao / Early life
caption_attribution_description: English: Old buildings in Jiāngyàn (姜堰), Tàizhōu, Jiāngsū, China, near the birthplace of Hu Jintao.
context_page_description: Hu Jintao is a Chinese politician who was the paramount leader of China from 2004 to 2012. He held the offices of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 2002 to 2012, President of the People's Republic of China from 2003 to 2013 and Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 2004 to 2012. He was a member of the CCP Politburo Standing Committee, China's de facto top decision-making body, from 1992 to 2012.
  Hu participated in the Chinese Communist Party for most of his career, notably as Party Committee Secretary for Guizhou province and the Tibet Autonomous Region and then later First Secretary of the CCP Central Secretariat and Vice-President under former leader Jiang Zemin. Hu was the first leader of the Communist Party from a generation younger than those who participated in the civil war and the founding of the republic.
  During his term in office, Hu reintroduced state control in some sectors of the economy that were relaxed by the previous administration, and was conservative with political reforms.
context_section_description: Hu Jintao was born on 21 December 1942 in Taizhou, Jiangsu province. He is a direct descendant of the Ming dynasty general Hu Zongxian, known for fighting Japanese pirates. His branch of the family migrated from Jixi County, Anhui to Taizhou during his grandfather's generation. Though his father owned a small tea trading business in Taizhou, the family was relatively poor. His mother was a teacher and died when he was 7, and he was raised by an aunt. Hu's father was denounced during the Cultural Revolution, an event that (together with his relatively humble origins) apparently had a deep effect upon Hu, who diligently tried to clear his father's name.
  He joined the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in April 1964 and began to work as an engineer in July 1965 after he graduated from the Water Conservancy Engineering Department at Tsinghua University, where he majored in the study of hub hydropower stations.
  During his time at Tsinghua, he met his wife Liu Yongqing.
  In 1968, Hu volunteered for his service in Gansu and worked on the construction of Liujiaxia Hydroelectric Station while also managing CCP affairs for the local branch of the Ministry of Water Resources and Electric Power. From 1969 to 1974, he worked for Sinohydro Engineering Bureau as an engineer.
caption: Hu's birthplace, Jiangyan, Jiangsu
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