Rui'an

— Mr. Li, 63, spent his entire career until last autumn working his way up through a series of municipal and provincial administrations on China’s prosperous eastern seaboard, along the way cultivating his relationship with Mr. Xi. He began his career in an irrigation station, then a tool factory in Rui’an, a county on the outskirts of Wenzhou, one of the most entrepreneurial cities in China. He worked his way up to the post of Communist Party leader of Wenzhou, a position he held for three years until 2004.