New | Album showcasing life of Xi Jinping’s father is latest bid to raise president’s popularity
The book published by the state-run People’s Press comprises almost 300 photographs and is accompanied by a 70,000-word biography on his life.
An album of photos showcasing the life of President Xi Jinping’s father, communist revolutionary Xi Zhongxun, has been published in an apparent public relations campaign to promote the president’s popularity.
The book, A Pictorial Biography of Xi Zhongxun, published by the state-run People’s Press, comprises almost 300 photographs of the late political leader and is accompanied by a 70,000-word biography on his life.
The collection also features several pictures of President Xi in his younger days, some of which were published on The Beijing News daily on Monday.
One showed the younger Xi – then a Tsinghua University student – with his father during a visit to a rural Guangdong village in 1978. Xi Zhongxun had just been appointed the province’s party chief that year, and was commissioned to pioneer China’s market reform initiated by the late paramount leader Deng Xiaoping. The younger Xi used the visit to conduct social research, The Beijing News said.
Another photo showed father and son visiting a People’s Liberation Army unit in Guangdong.