Four decades ago, Xi was a low-ranking local official from northern China who travelled to the American Midwest on a visit.
During the trip, he spent several days in Iowa, where he learned about agriculture, visited farms and stayed with a local family in their home.
Chinese state media has highlighted Xi’s friendship with Terry Branstad, who was governor of Iowa at the time and later served as the US ambassador to China under President Donald Trump, to emphasise Xi’s personal ties with the United States.
Today, US-China relations are very different, defined by competition for global influence, retaliatory tariffs, technology restrictions and military rivalry.
And the 73-year-old Xi is no longer a low-ranking official.
During nearly 14 years as China’s leader, he has transformed the Communist Party and the country’s position in the world.
The ‘Princeling’ Who Lost Everything
Xi’s family suffered persecution during the Cultural Revolution, which lasted from 1966 to 1976 and was launched by then-leader Mao Zedong against people he considered political opponents.
Xi’s story began with privilege.
Born in Beijing in 1953, Xi was the sixth child of Xi Zhongxun, a Communist revolutionary who helped establish the People’s Republic of China.
His father later became a senior party official and vice premier.
As a child, Xi attended prestigious schools and benefited from privileges that were unavailable to most families. Then politics changed the course of his family’s life.
In the early 1960s, Xi’s father was accused of being part of an ‘anti-party’ group, sent to work at a factory in a rural area and expelled from the party.
While living in the remote village of Liangjiahe, Xi spent years in cave-like homes carved into the hillsides.
As the son of a man branded a ‘counter-revolutionary’, the young Xi was forcibly sent to a re-education centre.
Responding to Mao Zedong’s call for young people to go to the countryside and learn from farmers, 15-year-old Xi joined millions of other urban students who were sent to rural areas.
In a 2004 interview, he described that journey, saying: ‘Everyone on the train was crying. I was the only one smiling... If I had not left, I would have been crying. If I had stayed there, I don’t know whether I would even be alive today.’
Xi arrived in Liangjiahe, a remote mountainous village in western China’s Shaanxi province, where he spent seven years living in a yaodong, a cave-like dwelling carved into the hillside, and worked farming, carrying manure and digging irrigation channels.
He later said of his time there: ‘Pickled vegetables became my favourite food. Even today, I remember them fondly.’
He was ‘shocked’ by the workload and initially struggled with hunger, but found some relief during cigarette breaks before lunch.
Rise to Power
At the age of 22, he left the rural area and went on to study chemical engineering at Tsinghua University, one of China’s leading educational institutions.
After completing his studies, he worked as a local official in Fujian and Zhejiang, coastal provinces that became among China’s wealthiest regions after the economy began opening up in the 1980s.
The rehabilitation of his father after Mao’s death helped Xi secure positions in the central government and military, where he built relationships within the party.
Many of those officials later became part of his trusted inner circle.
Xi married Ke Lingling, the daughter of China’s former ambassador to Britain, in 1979, but they divorced three years later.
A mutual friend introduced Xi to his second and current wife, Peng Liyuan, a folk singer who was already a well-known figure in China because she performed at the annual Lunar New Year television gala watched by hundreds of millions of viewers.
During the 1980s and 1990s, Peng was better known to many Chinese citizens than the provincial official she had married.
Peng has often accompanied Xi on foreign trips, representing a more prominent role than the traditionally low-profile position of China’s first lady.
Their daughter and only child, Xi Mingze, was born in 1992.
Very little is publicly known about her, apart from the fact that she studied at Harvard University in the United States.
After briefly serving as Shanghai’s top leader in 2007, Xi joined the Politburo Standing Committee, China’s highest decision-making body.
Five years later, he took over the leadership of the Communist Party from Hu Jintao.
As China’s leader, Xi has transformed the country’s economic and political systems in ways few people expected.
The China Xi Shaped
Under Xi’s 14-year rule, China has become increasingly assertive.
Abroad, Xi has expanded China’s global influence through initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative, while presenting Beijing as a supporter of the Global South.
At the same time, relations with several major democracies have become more strained, including growing tensions in the South China Sea, increased pressure around Taiwan and intensifying competition with the United States.
But a key feature of Xi’s legacy is the increase in political control inside China.
Under Xi, China has placed far greater emphasis on security and political stability, introducing measures in places such as Xinjiang, Tibet and Hong Kong that supporters say have restored order, while critics argue they have significantly restricted civil liberties.
He promoted a theory named after himself, ‘Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’, something neither of his two predecessors had done.
Xi also removed the constitutional limit on presidential terms, allowing him to remain in office for more than two terms.
Chinese state media portrays Xi as a serious figure, but he has occasionally shown another side.
He has spoken about his love of football, even joking with the Thai prime minister about his disappointment with China’s men’s national team, shared a glass of beer with former British Prime Minister David Cameron, and joked with the South Korean president that the Chinese-made Xiaomi phones he had gifted him should be checked for any ‘backdoor’ before being accepted.
Friend or Rival?
Xi’s relationships with foreign leaders have had their ups and downs, reflecting China’s broader foreign policy priorities.
No foreign leader is as close to him as Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Since Xi came to power, the two have met more than 40 times, and Xi has described Putin as his ‘closest friend’.
His relationship with Trump is more complicated.
Despite launching a trade war against China, Trump has often spoken warmly about Xi, called him a friend and praised his political power.
Xi initially invested heavily in personal diplomacy with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
The two held informal meetings to highlight cooperation between the Asian powers, but deadly border clashes in 2020 pushed China-India relations to their lowest point in decades.
Unlike leaders known for personal charm or making decisions based on circumstances, Xi rarely puts individual relationships ahead of state interests.
When Xi travels to Washington, D.C., this week, he will not arrive as the curious local official who once visited farms in Iowa, but as one of the defining political figures of the 21st century.
