Xia Baolong

Xia Baolong was born in Tianjin. In his youth, Xia was an elementary and high school teacher in Hebei and Tianjin, and a grassroots level official of the Communist Youth League. He joined the Communist Party of China in November 1973. He went to complete a degree in Chinese at a Hexi District adult-education college (天津市河西区职工大学) in 1980. Later he rose to the positions of Party Secretary and governor of Hexi District, and then Vice Mayor of Tianjin. Between 1999 and 2003 he studied political economics at Peking University.

In November 2003, Xia was transferred to Zhejiang to become a Deputy Party Secretary of the province. Xia served under then-Zhejiang Party Secretary Xi Jinping. In August 2011, he became the acting governor of Zhejiang, succeeding Lü Zushan, and was officially elected as Governor in January 2012. On 18 December 2012, he was promoted to Communist Party Secretary of Zhejiang, the top political office of the province.

In 2014, The New York Times and Chinese-language media reported that Xia allegedly issued orders to remove crosses from the Sanjiang Church in the Wenzhou area. Wenzhou is considered a centre of Christianity in China. Under Xia, Zhejiang hosted the 2016 G20 Summit in Hangzhou. He also attempted to repatriate Zhejiang businesspeople from abroad. Due to his tenure under Xi Jinping as Zhejiang governor, it was long speculated that Xia would enter the higher echelons of power. In April 2017 he became a member of the National People's Congress Environment Protection and Resources Conservation Committee.

Xia Baolong was an alternate member of the 15th, 16th, and 17th Central Committees, and is a member of the 18th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.