Ma Xingrui was born on 6 October 1959 in Shuangyashan, Heilongjiang province, to a family of mine workers in China's industrial northeast.

[2][3] In May 1996, Ma was appointed vice dean of China Academy of Space Technology (CAST), and became the leader and chief engineer of the Shijian 5 satellite project.

[7] In October 2016, he announced Shenzhen would surrender the Lok Ma Chau Loop to Hong Kong with the intention to co-develop it with the city.

[15] In December 2021, Ma was appointed as the Chinese Communist Party Committee Secretary of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

[18] In January 2022, during the local two sessions meeting in Xinjiang, Ma called for upholding ethnic unity and guiding "religions to adapt to China’s socialist society".

[19] Since his accession to the post, Xinjiang has seen relative normalization in some aspects, such as turnstiles between residential areas being removed and two-day breaks in weekends for public officials being restored.

[21] In March 2023, Ma visited Astana, Kazakhstan and met with president Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and prime minister Älihan Smaiylov, discussing boosting trade; his predecessor Chen Quanguo did not undertake any trips overseas during his tenure in Xinjiang.

[25] In July 2024, after Xinjiang completed a military-police joint exercise, Ma called for eliminating "all terrorist threats at the initial stage, and push forward with normalizing counterterrorism work".

[26] In August 2024, Ma met with Temasek executives from Singapore in Ürümqi to boost foreign investment in Xinjiang, particularly in the energy sector.

[27][28] In an interview by Voice of America, Abduweli Ayup, a Norway-based Uyghur activist, accused Ma for the expansion of forced labor.