Ling Jihua

Ling Jihua (born 22 October 1956) is a former Chinese politician and one of the principal political advisers of former leader Hu Jintao.

In December 1973, as with many other young Chinese, he was sent to work in the countryside as part of the Down to the Countryside Movement.

Ling worked in a printing factory.

"Linghu" is a very rare surname, eventually most members of the Ling family shortened the "Linghu" to "Ling".

In June 1975, Ling was admitted into the Communist Youth League (CYL) organization in Pinglu County, and was soon elevated to deputy secretary of the local CYL committee.

He joined the Chinese Communist Party in June 1976.

In December 1978, Ling was transferred to Communist Party's Yuncheng Committee in Shanxi.

His Youth League involvement propelled him to the national-level organization in 1979.

At the Youth League Ling worked in its propaganda department and edited its flagship newspaper.

In 1979, Communist Youth League's central organization selected young cadres nationwide to work in the capital.

Ling, at the age of 23, was recruited to work in the propaganda department of CYL Central Committee.

From August 1983, Ling studied at the Communist Youth League Academy (later China Youth University of Political Studies), majoring in political education.

In July 1985, Ling worked in the political theory section of the propaganda department of the Communist Youth League.

At that time, Hu Jintao was the First Secretary (i.e., leader) of the Youth League, though it is not clear whether there was direct contact between Ling and Hu.

From June 1988, Ling served in various posts in CYL, mostly as part of the CYL Secretariat and the CYL General Office.

He also served as editor-in-chief of Chinese Communist Youth League, the primary theory publication of the CYL, and between 1994 and 1995, and the CYL's chief of propaganda.

Between 1994 and 1996 Ling obtained an "on-job master's degree" in commercial management at Hunan University.

In December 1995, after serving in CYL for over ten years, Ling was transferred to General Office of the Chinese Communist Party, and continued his work in political theory.

In June 1998, he was promoted to head of research office of the General Office (中央办公厅调研室主任).

Closely following the footsteps of his patron Hu Jintao, Ling was promoted to a leadership position in the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party in 1999, and became an important member of the State Commission for Public Sector Reform.

In December 1999, Ling was appointed as deputy director of General Office.

Later, he also served as the deputy chief of the General Office in charge of the Central Institutional Organization Commission, and chief of staff of the Office of General Secretary Hu Jintao.

Ling was best known for his tenure as chief of the General Office of the Chinese Communist Party between 2007 and 2012.

Ling was charged with corruption, bribery, and other misconduct and was sentenced to life imprisonment as part of a larger anti-corruption campaign carried out by Xi Jinping.

Ling began his career as a functionary in regional branches of the Communist Youth League in his native Shanxi Province.

Ling rose to become the Director of the General Office, an organ that handles day-to-day logistics and bureaucratic functions of the Communist Party, in 2007, when Hu was the party's General Secretary (i.e., paramount leader).

On September 19, 2007, Ling was promoted to become Director of General Office of the Chinese Communist Party, the nerve center of the party that was in charge of all manner of administrative activities of the party's central authorities, including communications and leaders' scheduling and agendas.

He also became a Secretary of the Central Secretariat, in charge of the implementation of tasks set forth by the party's Politburo.

Throughout Hu Jintao's leadership, Ling accompanied Hu on trips abroad and was often seen with Hu on inspection visits around the country.

As one of Hu Jintao's closest associates and most trusted advisors, in addition to being of an appropriate level of seniority, Ling seemed long destined for higher office.

He was initially seen as a promising candidate for promotion to the top leadership at the 18th Party Congress in 2012.

However, his political fortunes abruptly took a turn when his 23-year-old son was killed while driving a Ferrari in 2012, an event that caused embarrassment for the party elite.

Ling was then politically sidelined.

Ling's political fortunes, however, took an abrupt turn in 2012.

In December 2014, Ling was placed under investigation by the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection (party's anti-graft agency) and removed from office.

He was expelled from the Communist Party and tried on charges of corruption, illegal possession of state secrets, and abuse of power, and was sentenced to life imprisonment in July 2016.

Born Linghu Jihua, Ling was the third son to Linghu Ye (令狐野), a party official, in Pinglu County, Shanxi Province.

He and all four of his siblings received names related to the Communist Party's policies.

His own name, Jihua, means "planning".

On March 18, Ling's only son, 23-year-old Ling Gu, was killed in a car crash on Beijing's 4th Ring Road while driving a black Ferrari 458 Spider accompanied by two women, reportedly of Tibetan ethnicity, one of which who also died.