Xi Jinping’s brother marks 100th birthday of father in Gansu

Xi Yuanping, the younger brother of Chinese President Xi Jinping, attended a meeting with provincial leaders in China’s northwestern Gansu province on Wednesday to honour the 100th anniversary of the birth of their father, the late reformist leader Xi Zhongxun, reported the Gansu Daily.

Xi Yuanping, who has kept a low profile away from the public eye, is Xi Jinping’s only brother among three siblings from their father’s second marriage to Qi Xin. Xi Zhongxun also had a son, Xi Zhengning, from his previous marriage with his first wife, according to Chinese media reports.

Xi Zhongxun joined leaders of the Red Army in 1933 in founding the Shaanxi–Gansu Border Region Soviet Area. He later led guerrillas in the region in fighting Nationalist incursions.

In an interview with Phoenix TV last year, Xi Yuanping revealed a trip he took in 1975 to visit Xi Jinping in Yanchuan county, Shaanxi province, where his father lived and worked. He said he was shocked to find his brother sleeping on a straw mat spread out on a bed heated with wood-burning stoves, a traditional method used in by farmers in rural China to keep themselves warm in winters. 

Video: Chinese president Xi Jinping's brother and sister recall hardship on TV