Factfile on Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao was born in 1949 in Anhui province.
Studied Hydro-electric engineering at Qingua University.
His father was tortured and died in Jiangyan prison during the Cultural Revolution in China.
He joined the Party in 1964.
In 1988 he was appointed as secretary to the Party Committee for Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR).
Upon his arrival in Tibet he made a speech tin which he considered himself a member of the Tibetan people and he pledged to work for their benefit.
During a peaceful demonstration by Tibetan Hu Jintao sent in armed security forces to break up the protest. Over 130 protestors were shot and killed.
After this Hu Jintao declared Martial Law, numbers of arrests grew rapidly, and those imprisoned were tortured by PLA troops.
Hu, it has been suggested, also played a part in the suspicious death of the Panchen Lama who died a few days after disagreeing with Hu in a meeting.
In 1991 Hu officially lifted Martial Law in Tibet. However significant numbers of PLA troops remain in Lhasa and a recent report by Amnesty International states that ‘the police and security forces still retain extensive powers of arbitrary arrest and detention without trial.’
Hu spent little time in Tibet and governed mostly from Beijing. He claimed ‘ill health’ due to altitude sickness as his reason for this.
In 1992 Hu became a member of the 14th Standing committee of the Politburo and was declared to be the future leader by Den Xiaping.
In 2003 Hu Jintao became the president of China.
In 2004 he took over control of the Central Military Commission, consolidating his power as president.