Jia Qinglin (; born 13 March 1940) is a retired senior leader of the People's Republic of China and of the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP). He was a member of the CCP's Politburo Standing Committee, the party's highest ruling organ, between 2002 and 2012, and Chairman of the National Committee of the People's Political Consultative Conference between 2003 and 2013.

Jia, an engineer by trade, began his political career in Fujian in 1985. There, he rose steadily through the ranks and led the province during the Yuanhua scandal. In 1996, Jia was transferred to become mayor, then party chief of Beijing. Largely due to his patronage relationship with then General Secretary Jiang Zemin, Jia was promoted to the Politburo in 1997, and remained a mainstay figure in China's political elite for the next fifteen years. He retired in 2013.

Political career

Jia Qinglin was born on 13 March 1940 in rural Jiaohe County (now Botou), Hebei, to an ordinary family of farmers. Owing to his academic ability, he was admitted to the Shijiazhuang Industrial Management School and majored in industrial enterprise planning. Starting in 1958, he began studying electrical motor and appliance design and manufacturing at the Hebei Institute of Technology (now Hebei University of Technology). After graduating in 1962, he was assigned a technician position at the First Machine-Building Ministry and became involved in the Communist Youth League.

During the Cultural Revolution, Jia joined his educated contemporaries to perform manual labor at the May 7 Cadre School at the First Machine Building Ministry in Fengxin County, Jiangxi Province. In 1971, he began work at the Policy Research Office of the First Machine-Building Industry Ministry. In 1973, he was promoted to chief of the product management bureau of the First Ministry of Machine-building Industry. In 1978, he was named general manager of the China National Machinery and Equipment Import and Export Corporation. In 1983, he became director of Taiyuan Heavy Machinery Plant and its party secretary.

As part of wider national efforts by the Communist Party to make officials across the country more youthful and educated, in 1985, Jia made his foray into regional politics, being admitted to the Fujian provincial party standing committee and serving as deputy party secretary. He later also took on the concurrent role as head of party organization in Fujian. In 1990, he was promoted to acting governor, confirmed in 1991. In 1993, Jia was promoted to Party Secretary of Fujian, the top office in the coastal province. When Jia was the party secretary of Fujian, Xi Jinping, the current General Secretary, was the deputy party secretary of Fujian from 1996. Although his ceremonial role as the Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a quasi-consultative upper house in China's political system, made him fourth in the official order of precedence, it was widely accepted that the position carried very little power, perhaps the least powerful in the nine PSC members. Jia Qinglin was the most senior Chinese official to attend the funeral of Zhao Ziyang. With the transition of authority to Hu Jintao, Jia appeared to have been given the job of coordinating policy on Taiwan.

In 2007, Jia was named again to the 17th Politburo Standing Committee during the 17th Party Congress. Prior to the congress, it was speculated that Jia may be thrown out of the running due to his tainted record as the party chief of Fujian during the Yuanhua scandal. However, largely owing to the backing of Jiang Zemin, Jia was able to remain on the body for one more term.

The financial dealings of Jia's granddaughter Jasmine Li () and son-in-law Li Pak-tam were reported on by media during the Panama Papers scandal; Jasmine had been featured on Chinese tabloids for appearing at a Hotel de Crillon debutante ball in Paris in 2009 wearing a Carolina Herrera designer gown.

See also

  • Politics of the People's Republic of China
  • Shanghai clique
  • 16th Politburo Standing Committee of the Chinese Communist Party

References

  • Jia Qinglin biography @ China Vitae