Li
rose through the party ranks through the Communist Youth League. From 1998 to
2004, Li served as the Governor of Henan and the province's Party secretary,
and then the Liaoning party secretary, an office that made him first-in-charge
in that province. Li is a leading figure of the "fifth generation"
(Xi-Li Administration) of Communist Party leadership.
Early Life
Li
Keqiang was born on 1 July 1955 in Dingyuan County, Anhui Province. His father
was a local official in Anhui. Li graduated from high school in 1974, during
the Cultural Revolution, and was sent for rural labour in Fengyang County,
Anhui, where he eventually joined the Communist Party of China and made his way
to becoming the party head of the local production team. He was awarded with
the honour of Outstanding Individual in the Study of Mao Zedong Thought during
this time.
He
refused his father's offer of grooming him for the local county's party
leadership and entered the School of Law at Peking University, where he
received his LLB and became the Chairman of the University's Student Council.
He would go on to acquire a PhD in Economics. In 1980 he became the Communist
Youth League Secretary at Peking University. He entered the top leadership of
the Communist Youth League (CYL) in 1982 as a member of its Secretariat, and
has worked closely with current General Secretary Hu Jintao, who also rose
through the ranks of the CYL, ever since. Li became the organization's General
Secretary in 1993, and served until 1998. He is a representative member of the
first generation to have risen from the CYL leadership.
Personal Life
Li
is married to Cheng Hong, a professor at Capital University of Economics and
Business in Beijing. His father-in-law was once the vice-secretary of the
Communist Youth League Central Committee.
From: www.wikipedia.org