Ding Xiexiang， male， Han national- ity， is a native of Nantong City， Jiangsu Province. He was born in 1962， graduated from Northeast Heavy Machinery Institute （Yanshan University） with a Bachelor Degree and entered the work force in 1982， and joined the CPC in 1984.

From 2012 to 2013， he was Secretary of Politics and Law Committee of CPC Shanghai Municipal Committee. He is an alternate member of the 18th CPC Central Committee. In 2013 he became Deputy Director， General Office for CPC Central Committee.

Mr. Ding serves as a secretary to Mr. Xi， after a career as a Communist Party cadre in Shanghai， where Mr. Xi spent eight months as party chief in 2007 after a political purge there. Mr. Ding moved to Beijing in 2013 after being appointed deputy director of the General Office of the partys Central Committee. The director of the General Office is Li Zhanshu， an old friend of Mr. Xis from Hebei Province who essentially serves as Mr. Xis chief of staff. The General Office has the task of coordinating administrative affairs for senior party officials.

Mr. Ding was the head of the Shanghai party committees General Office in 2007 when Mr. Xi arrived， and he was soon promoted to the post of secretary general of the municipal party committee.

Mr. Ding has a technical background typical of many officials of his generation. He graduated from Northeast Heavy Machinery Institute and worked at the Shanghai Research Institute of Materials from 1982 to 1999， before beginning his rapid rise through the party ranks. His first cadre position was as a deputy director on the science and technology work committee of the Shanghai municipal party committee.

Under Mr. Xi， the General Office has been expanding its duties and moving into the realm of policy. Mr. Xi placed the executive office of the secretive National Security Commission， which he created to defend the party against domestic and foreign threats， inside the General Office.endprint