Liu Qibao (; born January 1953) is a Chinese politician. He was a member of the 18th Politburo of the Chinese Communist Party, a Secretary of the Secretariat of the Chinese Communist Party, as well as the head of the Propaganda Department of the Central Committee. Previously Liu have served as the party chief of the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region and Sichuan province. He currently serves as one of the vice chairman of 13th Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. Early life and education Liu Qibao was born in a village near the banks of the Yangtze River in Susong County, Anhui Province in 1953, the second of four children. After graduating from high school Liu worked on a farm. Liu joined the Communist Party in December 1971 and next year joined its Communist Youth League (CYL). He attended Anhui Normal University as a "Worker-Peasant-Soldier student" where he was a student of history at the Department of History. Career After graduating in 1974, Liu Qibao was a cadre at the Theoretical Research Office of the Department of Publicity, CPC Anhui Provincial Committee. Following it, he eventually became secretary to Wan Li, then provincial Party Secretary of Anhui. In 1980, Wan Li was transferred to work for the central authorities in Beijing. Liu was sent to work for the CYL Anhui Provincial Committee, where he gained rapid career advancement. He led propaganda and ideology work at the CYL, eventually rising to lead the provincial CYL organization. In February 1984, he became mayor of Suzhou, Anhui, a city with jurisdiction over some four million people, at only 31 years old. In November 1985, he was transferred to the CYL national organization, where he worked alongside future leaders Liu Yandong, Li Keqiang, and Li Yuanchao. Since then he has been identified by some observers as part of the "tuanpai", or "Youth League faction". Liu left the Youth League in 1993 to serve as the deputy chief editor of People's Daily, then he worked under Luo Gan and Wang Zhongyu as deputy Secretary-General of the State Council. Additionally he took on leading roles in the offices for the State Council task force on information technology, and the Central Commission for Spiritual Civilization. Liu served as the Communist Party chief of Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region beginning in 2006 and remained in that office for roughly a year. He was appointed Sichuan's Communist Party Secretary in December