Narendra Modi vs Xi Jinping: The ultimate Asian Heavyweight championship

China President Xi Jinping is in India for an official visit, only the third by a Chinese President to the country. He has already praised Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s reformist agenda and drawn favourable comparisons between India and China. Amid all the handshaking and economic cooperation pacts however, Modi and Xi, are sizing each other up. Issues like the Ladakh border incursions and India’s relationship with Japan are thorny issues that are not going away anytime soon. But how do they stack up against each other? Here is a quick look, pugilist style: In the left corner, we have NARENDRA DAMODRDAS MODI weighing in as Prime Minister of India, Member of the BJP Parliamentary Committee, and the most followed Asian political leader on Twitter. And on the right, we have XI JINPING, weighing in as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China, the President of the People’s Republic of China, and the Chairman of the Central Military Commission. THE MEN BEHIND THE TITLES: Xi Jinping: * Married twice. His wife is Chinese folk singer Peng Liyuan, who he married in 1987. * He has a daughter, Xi Mingze, who studied at Harvard University. * Chemical engineer * Xi is described as being “pragmatic, serious, cautious, hard-working, down to earth and low-key”. Loves Hollywood films like Saving Private Ryan and The Godfather movies. * Xi is 180 cm (5'11") in height, approximately 7 cm taller than his predecessor, Hu Jintao. * Having been raised in Beijing, Xi speaks Mandarin Chinese without any regional accents. * Son of Communist Party veteran, who was jailed in 1968 Narendra Modi: * Vegetarian * Known for frugal lifestyle, and being a workaholic and introvert. * Writes poems in Gujarati * Married to Jashodaben, but does not live with her * Second most followed leader in the world with over 6 million followers on Twitter. * First politician to interact with netizens through live chat on the Internet. * Son of a tea vendor, sold tea in trains with his father POLITICAL PEDIGREE: Xi Jinping: * Rose through the ranks politically in China’s coastal provinces. * Governor of Fujian between 1999 and 2002, then Governor and CPC party chief of the neighboring Zhejiang between 2002 and 2007. * Following the dismissal of Chen Liangyu, Xi was transferred to Shanghai as the party secretary for a brief period in 2007. * Promoted to the Politburo Standing Committee and Central Secretariat in October 2007 and was groomed as Hu Jintao’s successor. Narendra Modi: * Joined RSS after the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 * General secretary of the Gujarat Lok Sangharsh Samiti and his primary role was to co-ordinate between activists in the state. * In November 1995, Modi was elected National Secretary of BJP and was transferred to New Delhi where he was assigned responsibility for the party’s activities in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. * Promoted to the post of general secretary (Organisation) of the BJP in May 1998. * Chief Minister of Gujarat from 2001 to 2014 WHAT THEY CONTROL: Xi Jinping: World’s largest military force, with a strength of approximately 2,285,000 personnel, 0.18% of the country’s population Estimated population of 1,366,800,000 world’s second largest economy by nominal GDP and by purchasing power parity after the United States. Narendra Modi: Standing army of 1,129,900 active troops and 960,000 reserve troops Estimated population of 1.27 billion Tenth-largest in the world by nominal GDP and the third-largest by purchasing power parity