Guo Jinlong (simplified Chinese: 郭金龙; traditional Chinese: 郭金龍; pinyin: Guō Jīnlóng; born July 1947 in Nanjing, Jiangsu) is a politician of the People's Republic of China and Mayor of Beijing.

He graduated from Nanjing University Department of Physics in 1969 and joined the Communist Party of China in 1979, and was sent to work in Sichuan.

In 1993 Guo headed to Lhasa to serve as the Vice-Secretary of the CPC Tibet Autonomous Regional Committee, and was promoted to become the Secretary from 2000 to 2004. He was pivotal in the Qingzang Railway project.

He left Tibet to serve as the Secretary of the CPC Anhui Committee in 2004, and Chairman of the Standing Committee of Anhui People's Congress from 2005. In the first year in Anhui Guo and his family conducted work from a hotel.

Guo was the alternate member of 15th CPC Central Committee and member of 16th and 17th CPC Central Committee. After the departure of Wang Qishan from his post as Mayor of Beijing, Guo headed north from Anhui to take over the position as Acting mayor on November 30, 2007. He served as Executive President of the Beijing Organizing Committee for the 2008 Summer Olympics.

Hu Jintao (Pinyin: Hú Jǐntāo, pronounced [xǔ tɕìntʰɑ́ʊ]; born 21 December 1942) is the current Paramount leader of the People's Republic of China. He has held the titles of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2002, President of the People's Republic of China since 2003, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2004, succeeding Jiang Zemin as the chief of the fourth generation of leadership of the Communist Party of China.

Hu has been involved in the Communist party bureaucracy for most of his adult life, notably as Party secretary for Guizhou province and the Tibet Autonomous Region, and then later first Secretary of the CPC Secretariat and Vice-President under former leader Jiang Zemin. Hu is the first leader of the Communist Party without any significant revolutionary credentials. As such, his rise to the presidency represented China's transition of leadership from establishment communists to younger, more pragmatic technocrats.

During his term in office, Hu has reintroduced state control in some sectors of the economy that were relaxed by the previous administration, and has been conservative with political reforms. Along with his colleague, Premier Wen Jiabao, Hu presided over nearly a decade of consistent economic growth and development that cemented China as a major world power. He sought to improve socio-economic equality domestically through the Scientific Development Concept, which aimed to build a "Harmonious Society" that was prosperous and free of social conflict. Meanwhile, Hu kept a tight lid on China politically, cracking down on social disturbances, ethnic minority protests, and dissident figures. In foreign policy, Hu advocated for "China's peaceful development", pursuing soft power in international relations and a business-oriented approach to diplomacy. Through Hu's tenure, China's influence in Africa, Latin America, and other developing countries has increased.

Esperanza Aguirre y Gil de Biedma, Countess of Murillo, Grandee of Spain, DBE (born 3 January 1952) is a Spanish politician and the current President of Madrid. She is President of Madrid's People's Party and the first female politician to have held the office of President of the Senate and Minister of Education and Culture in Spanish democratic history.

Aguirre is a former member of Unión Liberal, Partido Liberal and Popular Alliance, which changed its name to Partido Popular (People's Party) in 1989. Since her early years she has been a member of the Club Liberal of Madrid, which was presided over by an economics professor at the Complutense University, Pedro Schwartz.^{[citation needed]} Schwartz reportedly played an important role in the beginnings of Aguirre's political career: in 1983, he was the one to convince her, by then a civil servant, to stand in the Madrid local elections of that year for Schwartz's Liberal Union and become a councilwoman.

Aguirre was born in Madrid into a family Spanish nobility, being the eldest daughter of José Luis Aguirre Borrell, a lawyer, and Piedad Gil de Biedma y Vega de Seoane, daughter of José Gil de Biedma, 3rd Count of Sepúlveda. She is a niece of the late Catalan poet, Jaime Gil de Biedma. She studied in the "La Asunción" School and in the British Council School of Madrid and earned a degree in Law in Complutense University (Madrid) in 1974. She is fluent in English and French.

Bo Xilai (born 3 July 1949) is a Chinese politician. He came to prominence through his tenures as the mayor of the coastal economic hub of Dalian and then governor of Liaoning province. From 2004 to November 2007, he served as Minister of Commerce. Between 2007 and 2012 he served as a member of the Politburo and head of the Communist Party's Chongqing branch.

The son of Bo Yibo, one of the Eight Elders of the Communist Party of China, Bo Xilai is identified as one of the "princelings" of Chinese politics. He cultivated a casual and charismatic image in the media that marked a departure from the normally staid nature of Chinese politics.

In Chongqing, Bo became known for heavy-handed populism. He initiated a campaign against organized crime, increased spending on welfare programs, maintained consistent double-digit percentage GDP growth, and campaigned to revive Cultural Revolution-era "red culture." Bo's promotion of egalitarian values and the achievements of his "Chongqing model" made him the champion of the Chinese New Left, composed of both Maoists and social democrats disillusioned with the country's market-based economic reforms and increasing economic inequality. However, the perceived lawlessness of Bo's anti-corruption campaigns, coupled with concerns about his outsized personality, made him a controversial figure.