Topic: Jia Qinglin

Jia Qinglin (simplified Chinese: 贾庆林; traditional Chinese: 賈慶林; pinyin: Jiǎ Qìnglín; Pe̍h-ōe-jī: Ka Kheng-lim; born March 1940 in Botou, Cangzhou, Hebei) is a senior leader of the People's Republic of China. He is the fourth ranking member of the Politburo Standing Committee of the Communist Party of China, the Chairman and Party secretary of the National Committee of the People's Political Consultative Conference. Jia's functions as the head of China's consultative legislative body are largely ceremonial in nature. Earlier he had served as the CPC Party Chief in the country's southern Fujian province, and also as Mayor of Beijing.

An engineer by profession, and one of former General Secretary Jiang Zemin's trusted allies and protege, Jia Qinglin's rise in the politburo has been attributed due to his relationship with Jiang. Jia served in the early 1990s as the Party chief in Fujian. Jia was later transferred to Beijing in 1996 to replace then Beijing Party-chief Chen Xitong who had been arrested on charges of corruption. Jia served as the acting Mayor, Mayor and Party Chief in Beijing, coming onto the national and international spotlight during the 50th Anniversary of PRC celebrations as the event's host.

Because of his high local position and his ties with then-General Secretary Jiang Zemin, in November 2002 Jia became the fourth-ranking member on the powerful Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) of the Communist Party of China. Although his ceremonial role as the Chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, a quasi-consultative upper house in China's political system, makes him fourth in the order of precedence, it is widely accepted that the position has very little power, perhaps the least amount of power in the nine PSC members. Jia Qinglin was the most senior Chinese official to attend the funeral of Zhao Ziyang. With the transition of authority to Hu Jintao in 2005, Jia appears to have been given the job of coordinating policy on Taiwan.