Who is Xi Jinping? Simon, you began your post with something about googling "Obama" and "Australia". Xi Jinping will be China's Obama.

Dig a little deeper. To the people worried about human rights, Xi Jinping’s father was a victim of human rights abuses, purged several times. Xi Jingping himself was a "sent-down youth", sent to the countryside for re-education by peasants during the Cultural Revolution. An experience that broke many lives, by all accounts, was the making of Xi Jinping. The farmers given the task of re-educating the young Xi Jinping ended up electing him as their local party chairman. Even China doesn't know what it's in for yet because not everything about this man's biography is released to the public.

The tide has obviously turned in the Communist Party, Li Keqiang was originally the handpicked successor but he doesn't have the numbers - yes, you do need the numbers. The ground has shifted and the moderates who usually get the post of Prime Minister (Wen Jiabao and before him and Zhu Rongji) are now actually going to be controlling China's destiny. I think we will see an openness and honesty from this man that will take people's breath away.

Everyone should be taking a closer look at this man. He was a transforming figure in his stints as governor in two provinces and in stepping in to clean up after a major corruption scandal in Shanghai.

As for the people chanting "Free Tibet", they are actually acting against the Dalai Lama's wishes. The Dalai Lama has said for years that he wishes for more autonomy for Tibet while remaining inside China's borders. There is an extremely nationalistic mood in China at the moment, waving around Tibetan flags only exacerbates this, it enrages ordinary Chinese citizens and makes them block their ears to any discussion of the legitimate grievances of ethnic minorities within China.

In 2012 the Earth may shift on its axis, but not in the way the movie predicts. A first term Xi Jinping Presidency with a second term Obama Presidency is a tantalizing prospect.

Hi matteo

Xi Jinping is no man of mystery. Chinese sources have been remarkably open about him:

"Xi Jinping was born in June 1953...He is the youngest son of Xi Zhongxun, one of the founders of the Communist guerrilla movement in Shaanxi Province in northern China and former Vice-Premier. At the time his father served as the head of the Communist Party's propaganda department, and later Vice-Chairman of the National People's Congress.

[When Xi was] 10, - during the Cultural Revolution, Xi's father was purged and was sent to work in a factory in Luoyang, and jailed in 1968. Without the protection of his father, Xi went to work in Yanchuan County, Shanxi, in 1969 in Mao Zedong's Socialist Re-education movement....

{Xi] later became the Party branch Secretary of the production team. When he left in 1975, he was only 22 years old. When asked about this experience later by state television, Xi recalled it saying, "...it was emotional. It was a mood. And when the ideals of the Cultural Revolution could not be realised, it proved an illusion...".[3]

[THE FOLLOWNG BIT IS OF MOST CONCERN. THAT IS EXTRORDINARY LEAPFROGS IN XI'S ACADEMIC CAREER POSSIBLY BASED ON HIS FATHER'S SENIOR PARTY STATUS AND TO LI'S OWN PARTY STATUS. OTHERWISE KNOWN AS POSSIBLE NEPOTISM AND CORRUPTION.]

From 1975 to 1979, Xi studied Chemical Engineering at Beijing's prestigious Tsinghua University. There have, however, been some questions about his educational background as it is believed he entered university without studying or completing high school and went to gain a doctorate [IN A TOTALLY DIFFERENT AREA - IE "DOCTOR OF LAW AND IDEOLOGICAL EDUCATION"] without previously holding a masters degree." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_Jinping

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/oct/26/china.uknews4 "Despite his pedigree as the son of a high official of the revolutionary era, Mr Xi's elevation was a surprise to many politburo watchers, but it signals the growing strength of party "princelings" and the diffusion of power inside the world's biggest political party."
[26 October 2007]

Pete
(critic of all political shades http://gentleseas.blogspot.com/search/label/Cheney )

MORE TO FOLLOW

Hi matteo - PART TWO

So perhaps there are no dramas about Xi Jinping. Maybe the usual Party nepotism producing continuity, particularly as Xi Jinping appears to be a machine/consensus man (so far).

Xi's odd academic record may indicate a systemic/trend that Li has been promoted beyond his own efforts and ability (much as Bush Jr (Republican front puppet) was promoted due to his father's Republican Party and Presidential status.)

Pete

Plantagenet: Yes, he is a Prineceling but more in the Aung San Su Kyi or Benigno Aquino Jr. mould. George W. Bush was never forcibly sent to the countryside for re-education, his father was never purged and silenced by his party and the whole country's media. Xi Jinping's father was a supporter of Hu Yaobang and an opponent of the Tiananmen crackdown (www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1490336/Xi-Jinping). There is silence about this in the Chinese media, just as there is silence about the fact that the current Premier, Wen Jia Bao worked as the private secretary of former Premier Zhao Ziyang and was by his side in Tiananmen Square when he tearfully pleaded with students to go home because he had been out-manouvered and the decision to use force to clear the square by force had been made.

Li Keqiang had been the leadership's consensus figure but Xi Jinping is more popular within the broader party. This indicates a shift away from business as usual. The supporters of Hu Yaobang and Zhao Ziyang remained within the party, unable to say what was on their hearts for 20 year. There time is coming. George W. Bush's father backed dictators and oil companies not pro-democracy student protesters.

The murkiness about his major may have something to do with the dominance of engineers within the party's leadership. There is a misleading comment in Wikipedia about him going to university without going to high school. There was a whole generation of mature aged students in China in the late 70s and early 80s because they had been taken out of high schools and sent to the countryside to be re-educated by farmers. Deng Xiaoping gave them a chance to go to university when the Cultural Revolution ended.

As for his ability, there is a lot of praise for his term as Party Secretary in Fujian and Shanghai and his work in Jiangsu. He also seems to be popular with academics in China, another difference with George W.

* Apologies for my previous post, he was Party Secretary in Fujian not Governor