Qiaoqiao was born in 1949 in Yenan, the first child of the veteran couple after Xi Zhongxun’s remarriage. When she went to high school her father changed her family name to his wife’s. It was quite common at the time that the children of high-ranking officials followed their mothers’ name. One of the reasons was protection, but also a sign of the gender liberation that the Communist Party had introduced to China. Chinese men were certainly quite generous with their names.
When Cultural Revolution broke out, Qi Qiaoqiao was already twenty. Qi Qiaoqiao had to follow the mainstream. Like millions of young people she was caught up in the turbulent revolution at an awkward age. Her tragedy was that she was old enough to decide what she was going to do, to be brainwashed or not.
Qi Qiaoqiao was already a model student at her school holding an enviable membership in the Communist Youth League. When the Cultural Revolution broke out, because of her father she couldn’t join any Red Guard organization; instead she had to face the scrutiny of the Red Guards who would challenge her over her father’s misfortunes. Mao’s critique against her father was well-known to everyone by then. She wasn’t alone; many descendants would be facing the same problem, they had to show their loyalty towards Mao by denouncing their own parents.
Qi Qiaoqiao was sent to “Mao’s Thoughts Study Group” as a child of the “Black Gangs”, another terms for the anti-revolutionaries. As she remembered, she didn’t behave correctly according to the Red Guards. The overwhelming propaganda at the time would have no mercy on her and she could be easily carried away by the sheer madness of it all. To resist this massive assault on her family, she needed strong political insight. But how could she survive it all at the age of twenty? There are no records about her at this time between 1966 and 1968.
But the political environment definitely left its trace on her. In 1969 she volunteered to go to China’s semi-autonomous region of Inner Mongolia to follow Mao’s call of going to the countryside, which was a gesture that she wanted to be singled out as dutiful and loyal. She chose a place which was well-known for its harsh winter. She recalled:
“At that time I desired the harsh life, because I thought the harsh life could bring us closer, make people forget I was a descendant of the Black Gangs. I felt the harsher the better to show my values, more chance given to me, to reduce the impact of my family background.”
Qi Qiaoqiao was certainly quite aware of her problem associated with her father. Did she hold any grudge for it? We don’t know. As she has said, she didn’t ask permission to go to Inner Mongolia; she made this decision on her own. Obviously she wanted to be different. On her journey she carried Mao’s statue with her to Inner Mongolia. The place where she was heading off to was Urad Houqu, some 600 kilometers from Beijing, and only 200 kilometers from the border with Outer Mongolia, then still under Russian control.
The life in Inner Mongolia was not any better than in Shaanxi where her brother was sent. Here the winter lasts five months and the temperature often plunges to minus forty degrees Celsius as strong winds sweep across its vast plains. Just the cold and desolation in the region could drain away the strongest spirit. But Qi Qiaoqiao had to make her living there.
Five hundred young men and women came to the region. They were organized in military style. The dormitories they lived in once accommodated prisoners. On the walls there were slogans to read. “Confession would bring pardon, Resistance the strict hand”.
The winters in Inner Mongolia were particularly harsh while Qi Qiaoqiao was there. She stayed roughly two years and suffered tuberculosis, arthritis and myriad other infections. Her physical condition was deteriorating badly and into an alarming state. Like many other passionate young people, Qi Qiaoqiao paid a high price for her naïveté. They wanted a revolution and Mao offered them one. They never expected that the revolutionary train ended in the most remote areas far away from Beijing. They were deluded and their passion soon turned toward a great escape, if they could manage one.
As Qi Qiaoqiao has said she was saved by Ulaan Hüü’s daughter. Ulaan Hüü was a true Mongolian Communist. Dubbed the ‘King of Mongolia’, he was another Vice-premier of the People’s Republic and a friend of Xi Zhongxun. Ulaan Hüü was also under house arrest at the beginning of the Cultural Revolution, but his situation was certainly not as bad as Xi Zhongxun’s. As least he was able to save his former colleague’s daughter.
But how could Ulaan Hüü’s daughter know Qi Qiaoqiao was in such an appalling condition? We shouldn’t forget the fact that moving around in China during the Cultural Revolution was extremely difficult most of the time and endless permissions and mountains of paperwork had to be done just to apply. Without a high-profile person’s help, it was impossible for anyone to move his residence.
Under that circumstance, Qi Qiaoqiao’s condition could hardly be noticed by anyone from the outside world. Therefore it could be easily assumed that someone send for help. It could be herself or her mother. At that time, the only means of communication were letters. Xi’s far-flung family members, like millions of others, were only connected by letters, and these were infrequent, unreliable, and of course subject to censorship.
Somehow Ulaan Hüü’s help was summoned and actually materialized. Qi Qiaoqiao was transferred to Tongliao, in the other end of Inner Mongolia, 1,500 kilometers away, where the living conditions were much better. She was saved and stayed there as a farm laborer for another four years until the end of the Cultural Revolution.
Qi Qiaoqiao’s story was in some ways similar and in other ways quite different than her brother’s. She went to the countryside with the idea that she needed to change herself to convert herself into a real revolutionary. Her brother Xi Jinping was a little too young to understand what was going on. He was still refusing to accept this upside-down world. But the Cultural Revolution which was poised to last ten years would also eventually change him. The best ten years of life for millions of young Chinese were about to be wasted in meaningless labor and re-education in remote rural areas.
Xi Jinping had spent just a few months in his new home in the small Shaanxi village when he had to move out because the family needed the room for one of their children to marry. It was, and often still is in rural China the custom for a newly married son to bring home the girl to live with his family. Faced with this predicament, and having stayed in Liangjia River only half a year, Xi Jinping thought this must be the time to leave. He somehow sneaked back to Beijing. It was brave, but totally illegal. Having been sent to the countryside, he now had no right to stay in the capital Beijing any more, as in those days internal travel and residency was strictly controlled. He wasn’t the only youth to secretly and illegally return to his city. But as the numbers grew, the officials took notice, and this would cause trouble for himself sooner or later.
By the time he returned to Beijing, things had changed even more for his family. Xi Jinping’s mother, Qi Xin, had already left Beijing with his younger brother and was now living in Henan province to the south. Now the young Xi Jinping, having braved his internal illegal immigrant journey, arrived only to find he had no home in Beijing. What could he do? As with all Chinese, he turned to his extended family. His aunt, his mother’s sister, still lived there. She and her husband both were PLA veterans. This veteran couple had played a vital part in Xi’s family life during those turbulent years. Without their presence in Beijing, everyone’s life would be much more difficult. Yet there is not much information about them, not even their names are known.
Their young nephew, with nowhere else to go, turned to them for help. But in such a situation they couldn’t do much for him. Running away from Mao’s campaign was already a crime. To live in Beijing, Xi Jinping needed not just a residency permit; he also needed a food rations card. After he had left Beijing, he had lost his rights to both. He was an official peasant now and had to earn his food with his hands and the sweat of his brow, not a ration from the government. If he stayed illegally in Beijing any longer he could
