Xi, China And The Communist Party
Updated: 4:19am UK, Thursday 08 November 2012
By Mark Stone, China Correspondent
It would not be an embarrassment to admit to not having ever heard of Xi Jinping.
Indeed, the vast majority of people in China know little about the man who is almost certain to be their leader for the next 10 years. Why?
China operates what can be called a black-box system of government. It is closed to its subjects. It is extremely hard to see how it operates and who is pulling the leavers.
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. But China is so large, they represent just 6% of the country's population.
It is that 6% who have some say over who in their village, town, city or province 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.
Over the next week, just a handful of men will announce their endorsement of the new top man: Mr Xi.
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.
Despite that though, Xi Jinping, 59, has been touted as a possible heir-apparent for over a decade.
The Communist Party is almost unique in its desire and ability to control the ascent of its leaders.
Potential candidates are groomed for the top jobs for years.
This week's leadership transition is not a single event but the result of years of careful planning and power-jockeying.
Look at articles and books written more than 10 years ago and you will see Mr Xi's name mentioned as a possible contender for the 2012 top job.
China's New Rulers, for example, written before the last leadership change in 2002, has a whole chapter on Mr Xi and the man expected to be his deputy, Li Keqiang.
In the 10 years since that book was written, the Communist Party has been moulding those men and controlling everything they can to ensure that it is they who take over as leaders today. It has worked.
So who is Mr Xi?
With a bit of research it is relatively easy to find out quite a bit about the man, but together it all amounts to little more than a series of facts rather than any degree of substance about his views.
Mr Xi is a "princeling": the son of one of the founding members of the Communist Party, Xi Zhongxun.
He was a Communist guerrilla commander who went on to form the Communist Party alongside Chairman Mao.
Mr Xi's father and Mao fell out and he 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 difficulties of being a child through the Cultural Revolution.
Many speculate that his 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 famous 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 "beautius beauty".
Peng will be far more of an American-style first lady when compared with her elderly and recluse predecessor, Hu Jintao's wife.
"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 his deputy Wen Jiabao. It did not happen.
China is now at a crossroads. Mr Hu and Mr Wen lifted the country economically beyond all expectations; it is now the world's second largest economy.
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 Mr Xi must lead.
He has never revealed whether he is a reformer or a hardliner. The direction he chooses will determine China's fate.
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