Chinese president Xi Jinping held talks together with his US counterpart Joe Biden final November. However, there was a person seated subsequent to the Chinese chief who gained quite a lot of consideration.
Cai Qi, a member of the Politburo Standing Committee, is Jinping’s chief of employees. He is the primary particular person to carry each the positions because the Mao period. He is barely politburo member to publicly journey together with his boss through the latter’s stint as president.
Cai Qi was one of many first officers to publicly check with Xi Jinping in equal phrases to Mao.(Bloomberg)
Qi has additionally attended abroad summits with Russia’s Vladimir Putin and South Africa’s Cyril Ramaphosa final 12 months.
Here are 5 issues to find out about Qi, mentioned to get pleasure from distinctive belief and empowerment from Communist China’s supreme chief.
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Who is Cai Qi?
1. Raised in mainland China’s Fujian province, Cai Qi labored in authorities and celebration positions early in his profession. It was in Fujian within the Nineteen Eighties when he first met Jinping. They later moved to rich Zhejiang on the flip of the century. People who labored with Qi bear in mind him as clever and approachable.
2. His larger profile places Qi on the same standing to China’s No. 2, Premier Li Qiang, as Xi continues to interrupt norms after stacking the celebration’s prime physique with loyalists.
3. Qi was remembered as a prolific social media person with 10 million followers who introduced consideration to points corresponding to youth suicide. But after Jinping turned the chief, Qi’s on-line accounts went silent and his public persona hardened, as he was known as to Beijing to serve on China’s prime nationwide safety fee.
4. Qi was catapulted to the top-decision making Politburo, a uncommon leap for an official who had by no means even served within the a lot bigger Central Committee, usually a prerequisite. In 2017, he turned Beijing’s celebration chief, in control of securing the house of the nation’s prime rulers.
5. Qi earned a fame as a hardliner. After a lethal hearth threw a highlight on the capital’s poorer inhabitants, he vowed to “see blood” in a marketing campaign towards unlawful migrant dwellings that left 1000’s homeless, and drew widespread public criticism, Bloomberg reported.
6. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Beijing averted going into lockdown, not like neighboring Shanghai. That feat was extra spectacular given town held the 2022 Winter Olympics, constructing a so-called Covid bubble for overseas athletes to protect the native inhabitants from attainable infections. Later that 12 months, the capital convened 1000’s of individuals for a management congress, as Cai imposed strict testing necessities and limits on motion.
7. Qi was one of many first officers to publicly check with Xi Jinping in equal phrases to Mao, saying that he was “piloting at the helm” — a phrase beforehand reserved for Mao.
8. In 2022, Jinping smashed celebration norms to increase his personal rule and promote trusted lieutenants, a transfer that noticed Cai elevated to the elite Standing Committee. Months later, he was appointed because the president’s prime aide, gaining extra entry to the president.
9. Qi’s function as China’s No. 5 additionally makes him the best ranked official on a physique in control of convening the Politburo.
10. Steve Tsang, director of the SOAS China Institute, mentioned,“Cai’s power comes from enjoying the confidence and patronage of Xi,” he added. “The security of a hatchet man rests ultimately on retaining the trust of the supreme leader.”
Source: www.hindustantimes.com
