Hu Jintao, Zhu Rongji on the list as China’s top leaders send 130 Lunar New Year wishes

President Xi Jinping and other top leaders visited or deputed others to visit 130 ex-officials ahead of annual holiday, Xinhua reports

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President Xi Jinping raises his glass next to former premier Wen Jiabao during a National Day reception in Beijing last September 30. Wen is among retired seniors who received greetings from the top leadership in recent days. Photo: Reuters

Published: 10:25pm, 26 Jan 2025Updated: 2:59pm, 27 Jan 2025

China’s top leaders have extended greetings to more than 100 retired Communist Party senior cadres and state leaders ahead of the Lunar New Year.

President Xi Jinping and other state leaders either visited or deputed others to visit a total of 130 former officials in recent days, according to state news agency Xinhua.

Those honoured in this way included Hu Jintao, president of China from 2003 to 2013, and ex-premier Zhu Rongji, who spearheaded groundbreaking economic policy in the 1990s.

Li Ruihuan, former chairman of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, China’s top political advisory body, and former premier Wen Jiabao, who served alongside Hu, were also on the list published by Xinhua.

So was Tung Chee-hwa, Hong Kong’s first postcolonial chief executive, who served for eight years after Hong Kong’s return to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

Visiting retired officials is a long-standing Lunar New Year’s tradition for the Communist Party.

According to Xinhua, the retired officials praised the party’s work and said the party Central Committee had united all to “calmly respond to challenges … [and] successfully accomplished the main objectives of economic and social development for the year”.