Ke Lingling (born 1951; zh, c=柯玲玲, p=kē líng líng; also known as Ke Xiaoming ()) is the ex-wife of

Xi Jinping Xi Jinping ( ; ; ; born 15 June 1953) is a Chinese politician who has served as the general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), and thus as the paramount leader of China, s ...

, who is now the

General Secretary of the Chinese Communist Party The general secretary of the Chinese Communist Party () is the head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the sole ruling party of the People's Republic of China (PRC). Since 1989, the CCP general secretary has been the paramount leader o ...

and known as the

paramount leader Paramount leader () is an informal term for the most important political figure in the People's Republic of China (PRC). The paramount leader typically controls the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Liberation Army (PLA), often hol ...

. She is from

Puning Puning (; postal: Puning) is a county-level city in the municipal region of Jieyang, in the southeast of Guangdong Province, China. Economy Puning's main industries include: citrus, Plum, clothing, traditional Chinese medicine and so on. The sp ...

Guangdong Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

, and is the daughter of former Chinese diplomat

Ke Hua Ke Hua (; 19 December 1915 – 1 January 2019) was a Chinese diplomat who served as Chinese Ambassador to Guinea from 1960 to 1964, Chinese Ambassador to Ghana from 1972 to 1974, Chinese Ambassador to the Philippines from 1975 to 1978, and Ch ...

Personal life

In 1979, Ke Lingling

married Marriage, also called matrimony or wedlock, is a culturally and often legally recognized union between people called spouses. It establishes rights and obligations between them, as well as between them and their children, and between t ...

Xi Jinping, but their life philosophy differed. Ke wanted to move to the UK, where her father at this time served as

ambassador An ambassador is an official envoy, especially a high-ranking diplomat who represents a state and is usually accredited to another sovereign state or to an international organization as the resident representative of their own government or sov ...

, but Xi refused to accompany her. In 1982 they

divorce Divorce (also known as dissolution of marriage) is the process of terminating a marriage or marital union. Divorce usually entails the canceling or reorganizing of the legal duties and responsibilities of marriage, thus dissolving the ...

d, ending three years of marriage; they had no children. After they divorced, Ke immigrated to the UK.

Notes

References

{{Authority control Chaoshanese people Chinese emigrants to the United Kingdom Xi Jinping family People from Jieyang 21st-century Chinese women 20th-century Chinese women 1951 births Living people