New | Official paper praises Xi Jinping's friendship with late writer in image campaign

Amid a state media campaign to highlight the "man of the people" charm of Chinese president Xi Jinping, a Communist Party mouthpiece has republished a 15-year-old article penned by Xi in memory of a dead writer friend.

Xi recalled in the article his friendship with Jia Dashan, a novelist he befriended and confided in while working as a local party official in the rural Zhengding County, Hebei province between 1982 and 1985.

In Xi's eulogy of his writer friend, who passed away in 1997, the Communist Party leader recounted that Jia was the first local that he paid a home visit to after he transferred to the rural county as a deputy party secretary. Xi was previously working in Beijing as a secretary at the General Office of the State Council and the Central Military Committee.

Upon his first visit to the writer, they had a long conversation that ranged from literature, art, operas, films to social issues, and the two quickly became good friends, Xi wrote.

Jia, then a public servant at the county cultural office and a part-time writer, was promoted to the head of the county Cultural Bureau by the end of the year. He oversaw the construction of many cultural facilities and renovation of many ancient cultural relics in the county, Xi wrote.

Jia, who was not a Communist Party member, later became "a window on public opinions" for Xi as he often shared "unique, insightful analyses and reasonable advice on social issues that people had strong reactions to" with Xi, then a rising political star in his early 30s.