As part of his official visit to China, US President Donald Trump walked alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping on Wednesday (May 13) to greet a row of top Chinese officials in Beijing. The first man to shake Trump’s hand was Cai Qi, 70, described in several recent Western media reports as Xi’s “right-hand man” and the country’s “second-most powerful man” after Xi himself.For a country which offers little information about how its all-powerful government works, and whose actions can often directly affect the rest of the world, information about its power players can offer a window into its workings.And, if being present in the right rooms can be counted as a basic proof of power, Cai makes the cut. He held a meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his visit to Tianjin last year for the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit, and he was in attendance at the last Xi-Trump meeting in South Korea in 2025.What struck me in this video was that Cai Qi is really the No 2 in the CCP now. He is the first one to shake hands with Trump other than Xi Jinping. pic.twitter.com/wINHgrNeiG— Inconvenient Truths — Jennifer Zeng Reports (@jenniferzeng97) May 14, 2026Chief of Staff, old links to XiShengyu Wang, a US-based research assistant at the Asia Society Policy Institute’s Center for China Analysis, told The Indian Express that Cai’s current role is “considered one of the most sensitive positions in the Chinese political system and is traditionally reserved for someone who enjoys the leader’s deepest trust.”Since March 2023, Cai has been the director of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) General Office, described as Chief of Staff to Xi. He manages “Xi’s daily schedule, internal communications, document circulation, security coordination, travel arrangements, and the organization of major meetings and political events,” Wang said.Their ties go further back. Cai hails from the southeastern coastal province of Fujian, which is the Chinese region nearest to Taiwan. From 1985, Xi spent 17 years posted in Fujian and worked with Cai during his tenure. He has since promoted many officials he knew from that period, and this is informally known as the “Fujian” clique or gang. US President Donald Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping, and Cai Qi (seen near Trump’s shoulder in the photo) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, Thursday. (Kenny Holston/Pool Photo via AP)For long, such factions have influenced the workings of Chinese politics, with groups internally contesting against one another. Cai also worked with Xi in the neighbouring Zhejiang province.Rapid riseStory continues below this adCai was on the public’s radar, to an extent, even before he was appointed the mayor of Beijing in 2016. A report in China Daily, the English newspaper of the CCP, spoke about Cai being “an internet celebrity on social media, in a way, with tens of millions of followers” on Tencent Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter).The report framed this as a part of transparency efforts, quoting Cai: “Weibo is a direct way to the grassroots which can help us to know what people want and think… by solving their problems and sincerely talking to them.”Wang said that Cai Qi’s rise was “closely tied” to Xi, with the clearest turning point in 2014 (Xi became the general secretary of the CCP in 2012). Under China’s retirement rules, officials who do not reach ministerial rank by a certain age are generally expected to retire. As Cai neared this stage, he was appointed executive deputy director of the Office of the Central National Security Commission, with full ministerial rank.The promotion, Wang said, brought him into “Beijing’s core political and security apparatus… This strongly suggests that Xi already viewed Cai as a trusted ally and intended to elevate him further. Cai was then rapidly promoted to become Beijing party secretary in 2017… In that role, he implemented Xi’s priorities in the capital, including campaigns aimed at restructuring entrenched local interests and tightening political discipline.”Story continues below this adThis trajectory also reflected “Cai’s reputation as an effective political operator capable of carrying out Xi’s agenda,” he added. Cai became a part of the top political body, the seven-member Standing Committee of the CCP Political Bureau, in 2022.Also in Explained | As China purges top military general Zhang Youxia, the key theories around the extraordinary moveIn a system as opaque as China’s, Wang said that analysts generally assess the influence of political loyalists through a combination of “organisational analysis, institutional roles, elite career trajectories, and mapping of patron-client networks (informal relationships for mutual benefit) using open-source information.”Based on this “Pekingology”, he said, “Cai Qi is widely viewed as one of Xi’s closest loyalists because of several factors: his unusually rapid promotions, his long-standing working relationship with Xi dating back to Zhejiang and potentially Fujian, and the highly sensitive positions he has been entrusted with over time, particularly those involving political security and internal party management.”Caution amid purgesDespite Cai’s rise, Wang said he would be “cautious” about identifying any single figure as Xi’s definitive “No. 2.” Power within the Politburo is “fluid and shaped by Xi’s own evolving political calculations. Different members oversee different portfolios, but their actual influence depends heavily on Xi’s level of trust in them at a given moment. Xi is also widely regarded as highly micromanaging,” he said.Story continues below this adThe assessment matters at a time when several leaders of the so-called Fujian gang, and others, have been removed from power as part of a wider “anti-corruption” campaign under Xi. Prominent members include former admiral Miao Hua and He Weidong, a former Vice Chairman of the apex military decision-making body, the Central Military Commission. Xi’s loyalists have also not been spared, fuelling speculations about the motives for such moves.Wang said, “Chinese political history offers many examples of once-trusted aides falling from favour. Mao Zedong, for instance, eventually purged two of his own chiefs of staff, Ye Zilong and Yang Shangkun, after concluding that they could no longer be trusted and might be leaking information about his decision-making to other party elites.”Seen alongside the recent purges, claims of a “No. 2” leader deserve scrutiny. Chinese columnist Dang Yuwen recently wrote in Foreign Policy, “Xi has deliberately eliminated any complete second-in-command in the real sense. Everyone is assigned a piece of power, but no one is allowed to form a center of power of their own.”Cai’s prominence comes not from him becoming a second power center, but “because in a system without a true second-in-command, the person closest to the leader is the easiest to mistake for one,” he argued.