Liu Qibao, a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China, a Secretary of the Secretariat, as well as the head of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee. [Courtesy of Xinhua News]
(Eds note: This biography on Liu Qibao focuses on his thought and political background, based on articles carried by China's official media.)
Liu Qibao, a Politburo member of China's Communist Party who heads the Central Committee's Publicity Department, is an upright and committed advocate of socialism and its values, known for his long and abundant experience in propaganda and ideology.
Liu, who also serves as secretary of the Secretariat, came from a poor background and rose to the upper echelons of the party. And now he is seen by outsiders as one of China's promising next leaders for his broad leadership experience in the State Council and top provincial posts.
Born in January 1953 into a humble family of farmers with four children in Susong County in Anhui Province, he worked on a farm after graduating from high school and started his political career as a young cadre at the Communist Party of China (CPC) and the Communist Youth League (CYL).
After graduating from Anhui Normal University in 1974, he continued his education at Jilin University in Changchun and graduated with a master's degree in economic management.
His rapid career advancement began with his job for the CYL Anhui Provincial Committee. At the age of 31, he became the mayor of Suzhou in 1984 and was transferred a year later to the CYL national organization where he worked alongside future leaders like Liu Yandong and Li Keqiang.
Since then Liu has been regarded as one of China's rising politicians with a background in the Communist Youth League which groups young communist pioneers and has produced a number of top echelon leaders.
The proliferation of leaders with a Youth League background has led to the informal name "Youth League faction (tuanpai)" being used to describe certain members of the leadership at different times.
Liu is a core "tuanpai" member along with several other promising politicians such as Wang Yang, one of China's four vice premiers. Liu and Wang are known to have maintained a close relationship which began during their work together in Anhui in the early 1980s.
[Liu Qibao (L front), a member of the Political Bureau of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee and the Secretariat of the CPC Central Committee, who is also head of the CPC Central Committee's Publicity Department, makes an inspection at the Tsinghua University in Beijing, May 8, 2015 - Xinhua/Ding Lin]
Liu, who established a relationship with China's former president Hu Jintao in Anhui, was made deputy chief editor of the People's Daily in 1993 and worked as deputy secretary-general of the State Council from 1994 to 2000.
He began receiving attention after he became the party chief of southwestern China's Sichuan province in December 2007 and went on to be selected as chairman of the Standing Committee of the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress.
Liu's name was widely mentioned in May 2008 when a strong earthquake hit Sichuan. He risked his life to lead a successful on-site rescue operation at the epicenter of the quake with voluntary support from local residents.
After serving as Sichuan's party chief from 2008 to 2012, Liu was promoted to the 18th Politburo in November 2012 and headed the Central Committee's Propaganda Department, succeeding Liu Yunshan.
His first principal patron was Wan Li, a heavyweight politician who served as first party secretary of Anhui province from 1977 to 1980 when Liu was an aide in the general office of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee.
In Sichuan, Liu put emphasis on technology-led enterprises, industrial innovation and the economic development of small cities. Unlike other media-shy senior party officials, he has engaged with ordinary people via online questions and used the popular Twitter-like social media service, Sina Weibo, to send messages.
His emphasis on prosperity based on socialism was well expressed in his article carried by Qiushi Journal, the flagship magazine of the CPC Central Committee, in November 2014: "We need to continue strengthening our ideological, theoretical, and emotional identification with Chinese socialism."
"We have every confidence that the past of socialism with Chinese characteristics will become broader as it goes, and that the Chinese dream -- the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation -- will become a reality," he said in the article.
[Liu Qibao (R), head of the Publicity Department of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, shakes hands with Kim Han-kyu, chief delegate of the Republic of Korea (ROK) media delegation and also chairman of the 21st Century ROK-China Exchange Association, in Beijing, China, Nov. 11, 2015. -Xinhua/Yao Dawei)]
As publicity chief in charge of disseminating official policy and viewpoints, he has steadily called for strengthened party leadership and socialist values, trying to instill confidence in the party and its policies and to ensure a monopoly on the flow of information so that the party's line and priorities should be sung loudly.
In particular, he took a hard-line stance against the unruly Internet, describing it as "a major battlefield" for a crackdown, and urged Chinese journalists, writers and filmmakers to play a leading role in promoting socialist values.
In his comment published by China's official Xinhua news agency in January this year, Liu ordered a "crackdown on illegal publications and online pornography. "Authorities should strengthen supervision over the border entry, printing and delivery of publications and strictly control the circulation of illegal ones," he was quoted as saying.
With his strong leadership in propaganda, there has been speculation among some political observers that he would be promoted at next year's party congress.
Aju News Lim Chang-won and Park Sae-jin
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