As the Party chief of Guizhou, he traveled extensively for personal investigations, leaving his footsteps in all the 86 counties and cities of the province. During his four-year stay in Tibet, Hu visited many areas and established extensive contacts with people from different walks of life.
A native of Jixi county in eastern Anhui Province, Hu was born in Taizhou city of neighboring Jiangsu Province in December 1942 and grew up there till he was enrolled at Tsinghua University.
Leaving university in 1968, he gained rich experiences working in western China, spending 14 years in Gansu and eight years in Guizhou and Tibet.
In the early 1980s, Hu headed the Communist Youth League of China, the world's largest youth organization.
In 1992, at the age of 49, he became the youngest member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee.
At the first plenary session of the 16th CPC Central Committee in 2002, he was elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, and was elected president the next March.
In 2004, he became chairman of the CPC Central Military Commission at the fourth plenary session of the 16th CPC Central Committee.
(Xinhua News Agency March 17, 2008)