China's No. 2 is coming to India. Who is Xi Jinping's powerful aide Cai Qi?
When Chinese President Xi Jinping lands in India for the BRICS Summit, he will be accompanied by a tall, silver-haired official. He is Cai Qi, widely seen as China's second-most powerful leader and Xi's right-hand man, who has had an unusually meteoric rise through the Communist Party ranks. His presence alongside Xi underscores the importance China is attaching to the visit as it seeks to reset ties with India following deadly border clashes.
In a statement on Saturday, China said Xi's entourage includes Cai Qi, a member of the standing committee of the political bureau of the Communist Party, and Foreign Minister Wang Yi. This will be Xi's first visit to India in nearly seven years. However, the presence of Cai Qi, a secretive figure known to work in the shadows, has generated considerable interest.
Off late, Cai Qi has been more visible. He held a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Tianjin last year for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, and was spotted at the Xi-Trump meeting in South Korea in 2025. When Trump visited China earlier this year, the first man to shake the US President's hand was Cai Qi. These may be small gestures, but the optics reveal Cai's standing in Xi's eyes.
It is no secret that China offers little insight into how its powerful government works. The sudden spotlight on Cai Qi offers a window into China's power players and how Beijing plans to chart its future course.
Cai Qi first gained media attention after his rocket-style promotion. In 2017, Cai was directly elevated to the ruling Politburo (the party's second-highest decision-making body). It came months after he was appointed to the post of Communist Party chief of Beijing - the capital's most senior official.
That elevation itself came after he served just a few months as the mayor of Beijing. Such a transition normally takes at least five years. Basically, he did not have to grind through the lower rung of the Central Committee.
In 2022, he became part of the party's seven-man Politburo Standing Committee - China's pinnacle of political power.
Earlier this year, the 70-year-old was appointed as the chief of the Communist Party's central ideology school - the elite academy that trains new officials and shapes party ideology. Besides, he also heads the party's General Office, making him Xi's de facto chief of staff.
The posts mark a rare concentration of power under one official. It essentially cements Cai's position as one of Xi's closest and most trusted lieutenants.
So, how did Cai Qi become Xi's right-hand man? To understand this, we have to go back to their beginnings. Both, in fact, share a similar background.
Both Cai and Xi started as worker-peasant-soldier students during the Cultural Revolution.
Then, they worked together for more than two decades, both serving in the coastal provinces of Fujian and Zhejiang. It is where their friendship bloomed.
However, the meteoric rise of Cai has also raised eyebrows, particularly because he was once known for his outspoken views and support for transparent governance. In fact, he once reportedly complained about Facebook being blocked in China, according to a report in The Guardian.
"Cai is very calculating, obviously very strategic and a high-level operator," Kerry Brown, the director of the Lau China Institute at London's King's College, told The Guardian.
With the powerful Chinese official now making his first visit to India amid thawing relations, Beijing has signalled that it is ready to leave the wrangling aside and deepen ties with Delhi.- EndsPublished By: Abhishek DePublished On: Sep 12, 2026 11:12 IST
