[2] Largely due to his patronage relationship with then General Secretary Jiang Zemin, Jia was promoted to the Politburo in 1997, and remained a mainstay figure in China's political elite for the next fifteen years.

[4] Jia Qinglin was born in 13 March 1940 in rural Jiaohe County (now Botou), Hebei, to an ordinary family of farmers.

[5] During the Cultural Revolution, Jia joined his educated contemporaries to perform manual labor at the May 7 Cadre School at the First Machine Building Ministry in Fengxin County, Jiangxi Province.

Jia was transferred to Beijing in 1996 to serve as mayor, and in 1997 was promoted to the position of party secretary, helping Jiang consolidate the city's political landscape after Chen Xitong was ousted on corruption charges.

He also came onto the national and international spotlight during the 50th Anniversary celebrations of the People's Republic of China as the event's master of ceremonies, reading prepared lines atop the Tiananmen Gate to millions of onlookers and television audiences.

[2] Because of his high local position and his ties to Jiang, in November 2002, Jia was named to the 16th Politburo Standing Committee (PSC) of the Chinese Communist Party.

Prior to the congress, it was speculated that Jia may be thrown out of the running due to his tainted record as the party chief of Fujian during the Yuanhua scandal.

[9] The financial dealings of Jia's granddaughter Jasmine Li (李紫丹) and son-in-law Li Pak-tam were reported on by media during the Panama Papers scandal;[10] Jasmine had been featured on Chinese tabloids for appearing at a Hotel de Crillon debutante ball in Paris in 2009 wearing a Carolina Herrera designer gown.