[2]: 302  According to academic Lin Mao, Hu genuinely regards himself as a professional journalist whose mission is to shape public opinion to make China stronger.

[2]: 307  Hu has been described by various media of being a political propagandist[3][4][5][6][7] and was an early adopter of China's "wolf warrior" communication strategy of loudly denouncing perceived criticism of the Chinese government and its policies.

[9] From 1978 to 1982, Hu attended the People's Liberation Army College of International Relations in Nanjing, Jiangsu for undergraduate studies.

After graduating with a master's degree in Russian literature from Beijing Foreign Studies University in 1989, Hu began his career as a journalist at the People's Daily.

Hu took part in the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests but later in 2019 called the military action a tragedy caused by student naivety and government inexperience.

[2]: 308 Hu denounced Canada's 2018 arrest of Meng Wanzhou and stated, "I want to tell America that while you cannot beat Huawei in the market, do not use despicable means and play dirty.

"[2]: 327 On 9 May 2020, Hu published an opinion piece urging the Chinese government to build more nuclear weapons, including 100 DF-41 intercontinental ballistic missiles.

[15] Amid the 2020–2021 China–India skirmishes, Indian news site ThePrint called Hu Xijin "the Arnab Goswami of China" and said that both of them are also "mirror opposites" because "neither acknowledges the truth on the ground because it doesn’t suit their journalism".

[17][18] His departure, reportedly due to Beijing "strengthening the paper’s political guidance", was (according to The Diplomat) connected to efforts of toning down overly confrontational wolf warrior rhetoric, following a deterioration of China's international reputation and CCP general secretary Xi Jinping calling for improvements in the country's international communication at a May 2021 CCP Politburo session.

[8] Following his career with the Global Times, Hu remains an active political commentator on Sina Weibo and has occasionally been censored.

[33] In December 2020, South China Morning Post and Apple Daily reported that a former deputy editor at the Global Times submitted a complaint with the CCP's Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, alleging that Hu fathered two children with former colleagues.