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### Viewing cable 09BEIJING3128, PORTRAIT OF VICE PRESIDENT XI JINPING: "AMBITIOUS

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Reference ID | Created | Released | Classification | Origin
--- | --- | --- | --- | ---
09BEIJING3128 | 2009-11-16 12:12 | 2010-12-28 21:09 | CONFIDENTIAL | Embassy Beijing

`

    VZCZCXRO9016
    OO RUEHCN RUEHGH RUEHVC
    DE RUEHBJ #3128/01 3201220
    ZNY CCCCC ZZH
    O 161220Z NOV 09
    FM AMEMBASSY BEIJING
    TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC IMMEDIATE 6865
    INFO RUEHOO/CHINA POSTS COLLECTIVE
    RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC

` `

    C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 06 BEIJING 003128

    SIPDIS

    E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/16/2034
    TAGS: PGOV PINR PREL CH TW
    SUBJECT: PORTRAIT OF VICE PRESIDENT XI JINPING: "AMBITIOUS
    SURVIVOR" OF THE CULTURAL REVOLUTION

    Classified By: Political Minister Counselor Aubrey Carlson. Reasons 1.
    4 (b/d).

    Summary
    -------

    ¶1. (C) According to a well connected Embassy contact,
    Politburo Standing Committee Member and Vice President Xi
    Jinping is "exceptionally ambitious," confident and focused,
    and has had his "eye on the prize" from early adulthood.
    Unlike many youth who "made up for lost time by having fun"
    after the Cultural Revolution, Xi "chose to survive by
    becoming redder than the red." He joined the Party and began
    mapping out a career plan that would take him to the top of
    the system. In our contact's view, Xi is supremely pragmatic
    and a realist, driven not by ideology but by a combination of
    ambition and "self-protection." Xi is a true "elitist" at
    heart, according to our contact, believing that rule by a
    dedicated and committed Communist Party leadership is the key
    to enduring social stability and national strength. The most
    permanent influences shaping Xi's worldview were his
    "princeling" pedigree and formative years growing up with
    families of first-generation CCP revolutionaries in Beijing's
    exclusive residential compounds. Our contact is convinced
    that Xi has a genuine sense of "entitlement," believing that
    members of his generation are the "legitimate heirs" to the
    revolutionary achievements of their parents and therefore
    "deserve to rule China."

    ¶2. (C) Xi is not corrupt and does not care about money, but
    could be "corrupted by power," in our contact's view. Xi at
    one point early in his career was quite taken with Buddhist
    mysticism, displaying a fascination with (and knowledge of)
    Buddhist martial arts and mystical powers said to aid health.
    The contact stated that Xi is very familiar with the West,
    including the United States, and has a favorable outlook
    toward the United States. He also understands Taiwan and the
    Taiwan people from his long tenure as an official in Fujian
    Province. End Summary.

    Introduction
    ------------

    ¶3. (C) A longtime Embassy contact and former close friend of
    Politburo Standing Committee Member and Vice President Xi
    Jinping has shared with PolOff his first-hand knowledge of
    Xi's family background, upbringing, early adulthood, and
    political career, as well as his impressions and assessments
    of Xi's personality and political views. The information was
    acquired in multiple conversations over a two-year period
    2007-2009. The contact is an American citizen of Chinese
    descent who teaches political science at XXXXXXXXXXXX "

    Fifteen-Year Relationship with Xi
    ---------------------------------

    ¶4. (C) XXXXXXXXXXXX and Xi Jinping were
    both born in 1953 and grew up in similar circumstances.
    According to the professor, they lived with other sons and
    daughters of China's first-generation revolutionaries in the
    senior leaders' compounds in Beijing and were groomed to
    become China's ruling elite. The professor did not know Xi
    personally until they had both reached their late teens, when
    the professor began to hear about Xi from the professor's
    best friend, XXXXXXXXXXXX, who was later sent to the
    same village as Xi in Shaanxi province during the Cultural
    Revolution. (Note: According to the professor, Zhou
    Sanhua's father was a former editor-in-chief of the People's
    Liberation Army (PLA) Daily.) By the time the professor and
    Xi had returned separately from the countryside, they had
    come to know each other personally, initially through Zhou
    Sanhua's introduction, and maintained a relationship for the
    next 15 years (ca. 1972 to 1987), even though their lives and
    careers took markedly different paths.

    Revolutionary Fathers
    ---------------------

    ¶5. (C) Xi's father, Xi Zhongxun, was a communist guerilla
    leader in northwest China in the 1930s, when Mao and the CCP
    leaders reached Yan'an at the end of the Long March. Xi
    Zhongxun was one of the few local leaders to survive later
    purges, siding with the Mao Zedong faction and rising quickly
    through Party ranks to become a Vice Premier in the 1950s
    while still in his thirties. According to the professor, Xi
    Zhongxun was the youngest Vice Premier among the early
    generation of CCP leaders. Despite his association with
    Mao's group, said the professor, Xi Zhongxun was also "good
    friends" with Deng Xiaoping and was "actually closer to Deng
    than to Mao."

    BEIJING 00003128 002 OF 006

    ¶6. (C) The professor's father was also an early revolutionary
    and contemporary of Mao, from a neighboring county to Mao's
    in Hunan province. The professor's father participated in
    the revolution periodically but also spent time in Japan and
    Hong Kong, distinguishing himself as a labor leader. In
    1949, according to the professor, his father agreed to return
    to Beijing at Mao's insistence and became the PRC's first
    Minister of Labor and a member of the first Chinese People's
    Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) Standing Committee.

    ¶7. (C) Despite Communist Party rhetoric regarding the
    creation of a "classless" society, the professor described,
    the pre-Cultural Revolution society and leadership compounds
    in which he and Xi Jinping grew up were, ironically, the
    "most precisely class-based mini-society ever constructed."
    Everything was determined by one's "internal party class
    status," the professor asserted, including the kindergarten
    one attended, the place where one shopped, and the type of
    car one could own. All of these "benefits" were determined
    by Party rank, such as Politburo Standing Committee member,
    Vice Minister, or Central Committee member. One's every
    action, every day, was in some way an indication of one's
    "class" status, the professor stated. The children of this
    revolutionary elite were told that they, too, would someday
    take their rightful place in the Chinese leadership. All of
    this came to an end in the Cultural Revolution, the professor
    said, but consciousness of membership in an entitled, elite
    generation of future rulers has remained among most of the
    members of this class.

    Cultural Revolution and Return to Beijing
    -----------------------------------------

    ¶8. (C) Both Xi Zhongxun and the professor's father were
    purged during the Cultural Revolution and spent time in
    prison, according to the professor. (Note: Xi Zhongxun was
    purged in the early 1960s, several years before the Cultural
    Revolution began, but things got worse for him and his family
    once the Cultural Revolution started.) The professor's
    father was falsely accused of supporting Liu Shaoqi and spent
    most of the Cultural Revolution years (1966-1976) in prison.
    Both Xi Zhongxun and the professor's father were later
    rehabilitated when Deng Xiaoping returned to power. Xi was
    rehabilitated by Deng in 1978 and was appointed by Deng as
    Party Secretary in Guangdong in the 1980s.

    ¶9. (C) In the early 1970s, the circle of youthful friends,
    including Xi Jinping and the professor, managed to return to
    Beijing from the countryside. The professor described
    themselves as "fugitives" of one kind or another. The
    professor himself served prison time and spent "years on the
    run" due to his father's status as a "counter-revolutionary."
    At this time, the professor said, he knew Xi, but they did
    not spend a great deal of time together.

    ¶10. (C) The professor said that he and others found
    dramatically different ways to "survive" the aftermath of the
    Cultural Revolution. While the professor and his closest
    circle of friends descended into the pursuit of romantic
    relationships, drink, movies and Western literature as a
    release from the hardships of the time, Xi Jinping, by
    contrast "chose to survive by becoming redder than the red."
    (Note: The professor commented that, in a continuation of
    his attempt to deal with the Cultural Revolution, the
    professor eventually decided to "flee" China and pursue
    graduate study -- and a new life -- in the United States.)
    Unlike the professor and others who shared his Cultural
    Revolution experience in rural villages, Xi turned to serious
    politics upon his return to Beijing, joining the CCP in 1974
    while his father was still in prison. The professor and his
    friends were reading DeGaulle and Nixon and "trying to catch
    up for lost years by having fun," while Xi was reading Marx
    and laying the foundation for a career in politics. Xi even
    went off to join a "worker-peasant-soldier revolutionary
    committee" (note: a label given provincial governing units
    during the Cultural Revolution), after which the professor
    had presumed he would never see Xi again. It was an "open
    secret," the professor said, that it was through the
    "worker-peasant-soldier revolutionary committee" that Xi got
    his "bachelor's education." The professor said Xi's first
    degree was not a "real" university education, but instead a
    three-year degree in applied Marxism. (Note: Xi's official
    biography provides no information on Xi between his
    assignment to Yanchuan county, Shaanxi province, in 1969, and
    1975, when, it states, he became a student at Tsinghua
    University, graduating in 1979.)

    Neighbors, 1977-1982
    --------------------

    BEIJING 00003128 003 OF 006

    ¶11. (C) When Xi and the professor's fathers were
    rehabilitated following the Cultural Revolution, the
    professor said, their respective families were relocated to
    the "Nanshagou" housing compound in western Beijing, directly
    across from Diaoyutai. The professor opened his Nanshagou
    apartment door one day in 1977 and there was Xi, standing
    across the hall from him. The two friends lived directly
    across from one another and, the professor said, talked
    almost daily for the next five years. Xi became a PLA
    officer "and wore his uniform every day," while the professor
    became a student at Beijing Shifan Daxue (Beijing Normal
    University). There were many prominent leaders in Nanshagou,
    including Wang Daohan, Jiang Zemin's mentor. Jiang
    frequently rode his bike there, and Jia Qinglin (currently
    Politburo Standing Committee member) also had a connection to
    Wang from that time, the professor said.

    Sporadic Contact, 1982-1987
    ---------------------------

    ¶12. (C) From 1982 to 1987, the professor only saw Xi
    periodically, most memorably during a visit to Xiamen in the
    mid-1980s, where Xi was serving as a local official, and in
    1987 when Xi visited the professor in Washington, D.C. In
    Xiamen, Xi treated the professor like royalty, but they did
    not spend much time together during the professor's visit
    there, and Xi said very little of substance. The professor,
    in turn, hosted Xi in Washington, D.C., where the professor
    was a graduate student. Xi's 1987 visit to the United States
    was the last time the two men met face to face. The last
    time the professor spoke with Xi was when his father, Xi
    Zhongxun, passed away several years ago, at which time the
    two spoke briefly over the phone when the professor called to
    offer his condolences. Xi was serving as the Party Secretary
    of Zhejiang Province at the time.

    Xi's Family
    -----------

    ¶13. (C) Xi was the middle child in a family of three children
    that included an older sister and a younger brother, all of
    whom were apparently from his father's second marriage,
    according to the professor. Xi's older sister, Xi An'an, at
    some point left China for Canada, and as far as the professor
    knows, still resides there. Xi An'an's husband was in the
    PLA, the professor said. Xi's younger brother, Xi Yuanping,
    moved to Hong Kong when it was under British rule. The last
    time the professor saw Xi Yuanping was in the 1980s, at a
    time when Xi's father Xi Zhongxun was still Party Secretary
    in Guangdong province. The brother had become both obese and
    very wealthy, the professor said, sporting "expensive jewelry
    and designer clothing." The professor has lost contact with
    him since. (Note: Unofficial biographies published in Hong
    Kong claim Xi had other siblings as well.)

    Marriage and Divorce
    --------------------

    ¶14. (C) Xi Jinping's first marriage was to Ke Xiaoming, the
    daughter of China's 1978-1983 ambassador to Great Britain, Ke
    Hua. According to the professor, Ke Xiaoming was elegant and
    well educated. The couple initially lived with Xi's parents
    in the Nanshagou housing compound, but as his father's
    political fortunes rose, his parents moved to a new house in
    "East" Beijing, near the Drum Tower and close to the houses
    of Deng Xiaoping and Yang Shangkun, leaving the young couple
    to themselves in the Nanshagou apartment. The couple fought
    "almost every day," the professor said, and the marriage
    ended when Ke Xiaoming returned to England and Xi refused to
    go with her. The professor remarked that he thought Xi's
    "distant" quality contributed to the couple's divorce. He
    noted that he had watched Xi "drift" further and further from
    Ke Xiaoming, until she finally left for England. There was,
    "of course," no way that Xi would go with her, the professor
    said. Xi later married a famous PLA singer.

    Xi's Early Career: Single-Minded Pursuit of Power
    --------------------------------------------- -----

    ¶15. (C) According to the professor, Xi was always
    "exceptionally ambitious" and had his "eye on the prize" from
    the very beginning. Once Xi had returned from his education
    in the worker-soldier-peasant revolutionary committee, he
    carefully laid out a career plan that would maximize his
    opportunities to rise to the top levels of the Party
    hierarchy, first becoming a PLA officer in the late 1970s and
    then serving in a variety of provincial leadership positions,
    progressively rising through the ranks. By 1979, Xi was on
    the staffs of the State Council and the Central Military
    Commission (CMC), serving as an assistant to the CMC
    Secretary General and later Minister of National Defense

    BEIJING 00003128 004 OF 006

    (1982), General Geng Biao, a revolutionary comrade of his
    father's. The professor said he had the impression that Geng
    Biao had helped Xi Jinping get the PLA job, and that Xi
    Zhongxun had, in turn, given Geng's daughter a position in
    Guangdong when he was Party Secretary there.

    ¶16. (C) According to the professor, Xi subsequently became
    even more serious in plotting a career path to the top. By
    all appearances, with his father having been politically
    rehabilitated and rapidly regaining his power, Xi Jinping
    could have continued to rise quickly in the Central Party
    apparatus. Xi, however, reasoned that in the long run,
    staying in Beijing would limit his career potential. Xi told
    the professor that staying with Geng Biao would eventually
    shrink his power base, which would ultimately rest primarily
    on his father's and Geng's networks and political support.
    Moreover, in time, people would turn against him if he stayed
    in the Center.

    ¶17. (C) So in a calculated move to lay the basis for a future
    return as a Central leader, Xi asked for a position in the
    countryside and, in 1982, became a local official in
    Shijiazhuang, the capital of Hebei province. Xi later became
    the Deputy Party Secretary in Zhengding county, also in
    Hebei. Xi told the professor at the time that he "would be
    back one day." (Note: Xi later served for many years in
    Fujian province, becoming Governor in 2000, then moving to
    Zhejiang province in 2002 to be Party Secretary, and then to
    Shanghai as Party Secretary in 2007. He was elevated to the
    Politburo Standing Committee at the 17th National CCP
    Congress in October 2007 and was appointed Vice President at
    the National People's Congress in March 2008.)

    ¶18. (C) Xi told the professor at the time that going to the
    provinces was his "only path to central power." Xi thought
    it was important to know people in the Central Organization
    Department and to keep his eyes on the Center, even as he
    worked his way up the ladder as a local official. According
    to the professor, Xi "had promotion to the Center in mind
    from day one." Xi knew how to develop personal networks and
    work the system, first using his father's networks and later
    building his own.

    Xi the Person
    -------------

    ¶19. (C) The professor offered his personal assessment --
    based on their similar upbringing and his long association
    with Xi during his formative years -- of Xi's personality and
    political views. Although he had not seen Xi in person in
    more than 20 years, "one cannot entirely escape one's past,"
    he asserted, and "Xi does not want to." The professor on
    repeated occasions painted a portrait of Xi Jinping as an
    ambitious, calculating, confident and focused person who in
    early adulthood demonstrated his singleness of purpose by
    distinguishing himself from his peers and turning his
    attention to politics even before the Cultural Revolution had
    concluded. The professor marveled that Xi joined the
    Communist Party while his father still languished in a Party
    prison for alleged political crimes. At the time, the
    professor and his friend Zhou felt "betrayed" by Xi's embrace
    of the CCP, but both realized this was one way to "survive."
    Xi chose to "join the system" to get ahead. Although Xi
    never said so explicitly, he sent a message that, in China,
    there was a better way forward than what the professor had
    chosen: namely, do not give up on the system. Xi was
    reserved and detached and "difficult to read," said the
    professor. He had a "strong mind" and understood power, but
    "from day one, never showed his hand."

    ¶20. (C) Unlike those in the social circles the professor ran
    in, Xi Jinping could not talk about women and movies and did
    not drink or do drugs. Xi was considered of only average
    intelligence, the professor said, and not as smart as the
    professor's peer group. Women thought Xi was "boring." The
    professor never felt completely relaxed around Xi, who seemed
    extremely "driven." Nevertheless, despite Xi's lack of
    popularity in the conventional sense and his "cold and
    calculating" demeanor in these early years, the professor
    said, Xi was "not cold-hearted." He was still considered a
    "good guy" in other ways. Xi was outwardly friendly, "always
    knew the answers" to questions, and would "always take care
    of you." The professor surmised that Xi's newfound
    popularity today, which the professor found surprising, must
    stem in part from Xi's being "generous and loyal." Xi also
    does not care at all about money and is not corrupt, the
    professor stated. Xi can afford to be incorruptible, the
    professor wryly noted, given that he was born with a silver
    spoon in his mouth. It is likely that Xi could, however, be
    "corrupted by power."

    BEIJING 00003128 005 OF 006

    Xi's Political Instincts and Biases
    -----------------------------------

    ¶21. (C) In the professor's view, Xi Jinping is supremely
    pragmatic, a realist, driven not by ideology but by a
    combination of ambition and "self-protection." The professor
    saw Xi's early calculations to carefully lay out a realistic
    career path as an illustration of his pragmatism. The most
    permanent influences shaping Xi's worldview were his
    princeling pedigree and formative years growing up with
    families of first-generation CCP revolutionaries in Beijing's
    elite residential compounds. These influences were amplified
    by Xi's decision in his early twenties to join the CCP and
    then the PLA. Xi solidified these views and values during
    his subsequent very successful 30-year career as a Party
    official, the professor concluded.

    ¶22. (C) Xi is a true "elitist" at heart, according to the
    professor, and believes that rule by a dedicated and
    committed Communist Party leadership is the key to enduring
    social stability and national strength, as in the
    (self-perceived) elite-dominated society of his youth, knit
    together by family ties, elders and male authority. After
    years of conversations with Xi, and having shared a common
    upbringing with him, the professor said, he is convinced that
    Xi has a genuine sense of "entitlement," believing that
    members of his generation are the "legitimate heirs" to the
    revolutionary achievements of their parents and therefore
    "deserve to rule China." For this reason, the professor
    maintained, Xi could never be a "true member" of current
    President Hu Jintao's camp, even if Xi did not give any
    indication of opposition to Hu Jintao now. Xi and other
    first-generation princelings derisively refer to people with
    non-Party, non-elite, commercial backgrounds like Hu Jintao
    as "shopkeepers' sons," whose parents did not fight and die
    for the revolution and therefore do not deserve positions of
    power.

    ¶23. (C) Xi knows how very corrupt China is and is repulsed by
    the all-encompassing commercialization of Chinese society,
    with its attendant nouveau riche, official corruption, loss
    of values, dignity, and self-respect, and such "moral evils"
    as drugs and prostitution, the professor stated. The
    professor speculated that if Xi were to become the Party
    General Secretary, he would likely aggressively attempt to
    address these evils, perhaps at the expense of the new
    moneyed class.

    ¶24. (C) Xi at one point early in his career was quite taken
    with Buddhist mysticism, according to the professor. In
    comments Xi made to the professor, including during the
    professor's visit to Xiamen while Xi was serving as an
    official there, Xi displayed a fascination with Buddhist
    martial arts, qigong, and other mystical powers said to aid
    health, as well as with Buddhist sacred sites such as
    Wutaishan. The professor said he does not know whether Xi
    was actually religious, or whether he was simply looking for
    a way to aid his health and well-being. Regardless, the
    professor said, he was extremely surprised by how much Xi
    knew about the subject and Xi's seeming belief in
    supernatural forces.

    Familiarity with the West and Taiwan
    ------------------------------------

    ¶25. (C) Based on personal experience, the professor noted, Xi
    is very familiar with the West, with a sister in Canada, an
    ex-wife in England, a brother in Hong Kong, many friends
    overseas, and prior travel to the United States. As far as
    the professor can discern, Xi's family and friends have had a
    good experience in the West. The professor contrasted Xi's
    experience and attitudes toward the West with those of people
    sent to the United States by their work units, such as the
    nationalist and sometime anti-U.S. Tsinghua University
    scholar Yan Xuetong. Xi was the only one of his immediate
    family to stay behind in China, the professor noted,
    speculating that Xi knew early on that he would "not be
    special" outside of China.

    ¶26. (C) Xi is favorably disposed toward the United States,
    the professor maintained, and would want to maintain good
    relations with Washington. The professor said Xi has "no
    ambition" to "confront" the United States. During Xi's visit
    to Washington, D.C., in 1987, he told the professor that he
    had no strong impressions of the United States. Although Xi
    was not particularly impressed by the United States, he had
    nothing bad to say about it either. Xi took a detached
    stance, as if observing from a distance, viewing what he saw
    as just a normal part of life, not strange, the professor
    said.

    BEIJING 00003128 006 OF 006

    ¶27. (C) Xi also knows Taiwan and the Taiwan people very well,
    the professor said, noting that Xi was in Fujian province for
    more than twenty years. Attracting Taiwan investment to
    Fujian was an important part of his accomplishments as a
    Xiamen official.
    HUNTSMAN
    HUNTSMAN

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