Qi Xin

Qi Xin, female, of Han ethnicity, was born in Gaoyang, Hebei Province. She is a proletarian revolutionary of China, the wife of senior CCP leader Xi Zhongxun, and the mother of Xi Jinping, the current General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party.

In 1939, Qi Xin followed her elder sister Qi Yun to Tunliu, Shanxi, where she entered the Anti-Japanese Military and Political University (Kangda) and became a soldier of the Eighth Route Army. On August 14 of that year, she joined the Chinese Communist Party as a probationary member. Later that winter, she graduated from the fifth term of Kangda and served in various posts, including instructor of the women’s cadre team at the Changzhi Cadre School, and clerk in the General Affairs and Health Offices of Kangda’s First Branch. In 1940, she was approved for early admission as a full CCP member and was soon sent to Yan’an for further studies.

In the spring of 1941, Qi Xin entered the Central Party School, but in the autumn she was dispatched to Longdong for grain requisition work, where she remained until the mission was completed. In the spring of 1942, she returned to Yan’an and studied at the middle school division of Yan’an University. In April 1943, she was chosen as one of the leaders of a group of young cadres sent by the Northwest Bureau to Suide Normal School and Mizhi Middle School to carry out work in the guise of students. At Suide Normal School, she met Xi Zhongxun, and the two married in 1944.

In the autumn of 1952, Xi Zhongxun moved to Beijing to serve as Minister of the Central Propaganda Department. At the end of the year, Qi Xin brought their daughters Qi Qiaoqiao and Qi An’an to Beijing, where the family was reunited. She first studied at the Marxism-Leninism Institute and later worked at the Central Party School. Because her workplace was far from home, she was unable to look after her children closely. As a result, her eldest daughter Qi Qiaoqiao was sent to Beihai Kindergarten at just over three years old, and her younger daughter An’an was largely raised on powdered milk.

In 1962, Xi Zhongxun was investigated and demoted. During the Cultural Revolution, he was further persecuted and imprisoned, while Qi Xin was also implicated and sent down to a May Seventh Cadre School in Henan, where she spent over seven difficult years. In February 1978, the family was finally reunited in Beijing.

Qi Xin’s life reflects both the hardships and perseverance of China’s revolutionary generation. She was not only a loyal partner to Xi Zhongxun but also a central figure in her family, providing resilience and support through turbulent times, and playing a formative role in Xi Jinping’s upbringing.