Who Are You, Hu?Hu Jintao is the president of the People's Republic of China. He is a long-standing member of the Communist party who enjoys table tennis and ballroom dancing.
Hu Jintao was born in Jiangyan, Jiangsu in December 1942. He joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in April 1964 and began to work in July 1965 after he graduated from the Water Conservancy Engineering Department of Qinghua University, majoring in hydraulic engineering.
After graduating, he worked his way up through the ranks in the Ministry of Water Conservancy and Power until the early 1980s, when he had a number of roles in the leadership of the Communist Youth League, Young Pioneers and All-China Youth Federation. His rise at this time was propelled by the patronage of Hu Yaobang, the
Communist party chief under Deng Xiaoping and a liberal reformer.
Hu was appointed party secretary of Tibet and the far-western province of Guizhou from 1985-1992.
In 1995, Deng Xiaoping promoted Hu to the Communist party's ruling Politburo, thereby anointing him the man chosen to succeed Jiang Zemin as the top dog of the Communist Party's fourth generation of leaders. For much of the 1990's, he was the head of Beijing's Communist Party School, which handles the ideological indoctrination of elite Chinese leaders.
As the president of the People's Republic of China, Hu is the head of state, as well as the supreme representative of China both internally and externally. China's system of the head of state is a system of collective leadership. The president is subordinate to the National People's Congress and directly receives instructions from the supreme organ of state power.
To date, six men have held the office of the president of the People's Republic of China: Mao Zedong, Liu Shaoqi, Li Xiannian, Yang Shangkun, Jiang Zemin, and the current president, Hu Jintao.
Hu and his wife Liu Yongqing were schoolmates at Qinghua University. The couple have a son and a daughter, who are also graduates of Qinghua University.
It is believed that Hu enjoys table tennis and ballroom dancing. He is said to have a photographic memory.
Hu Jintao Poll Results
This poll ran from August 6 to 12, 2007.
| Mondo Stars Poll Results
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"China has long ignored reports about shoddy products."
True
   761/94%
False
46/6%
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| Votes: 807 |
From the article "Made (badly) in China" by Oliver August, published in the July 29. 2007 issue of The Los Angeles Times. August is a former Beijing bureau chief for the Times of London.
August writes that "the reason so many Chinese products sold in American malls are faulty is not a lack of regulation, but corruption."
"Only now that (Beijing) has been embarrassed by the export of the problem is it taking note. Last week, Zheng Xiaoyu, a former food and drug safety watchdog, was executed after being found guilty of corruption and dereliction of duty." Zheng had confessed to accepting gifts and bribes from eight drug companies that sought special favors. He received a car, a villa, furniture, cash and corporate stock. In all, he and his family accepted gifts valued at more than $850,000. In China, the average worker earns less than $2,000 a year.
August concludes that "the system of governance that has allowed people like Zheng to break the rules until they become a nuisance will stay in place. It has worked well for Beijing. And it has worked well for American consumers who have enjoyed low-cost Chinese products. Until now."
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