China's parliament elects new state leadership

BEIJING, March 14 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, was elected president of the People's Republic of China (PRC) and chairman of the PRC Central Military Commission (CMC) on Thursday.

When Liu Yunshan, executive chairman of the presidium for the first session of the 12th National People's Congress (NPC), announced the election result, Xi stood up and bowed to nearly 3,000 NPC deputies in the Great Hall of the People.

Amid thundering applause, he shook hands with Hu Jintao who had been the head of state since 2003.

Born in 1953 into a revolutionary family from Fuping of northwest China's Shaanxi Province, Xi joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in January 1974.

He graduated from the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Tsinghua University with a major in Marxist theory and ideological and political education.

From the Loess Plateau to the southeast coast then to Beijing, from county official to the central leadership, Xi has had a well-rounded political career.

On Nov. 15, he was elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee at the first plenum of the 18th CPC Central Committee and became the first top Party leader born after October 1949, when the People's Republic of China was founded.

Li Yuanchao, 62-year-old member of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee, was elected vice-president.