From wooing Tesla to Xi’s right-hand man: Li Qiang’s road to China’s premiership

As Communist party boss in Shanghai, Li Qiang’s signature business coup was persuading Tesla founder Elon Musk to build the US electric-car maker’s first overseas factory in the Chinese megacity.

At the signing with Musk in 2018, the man who would one day become President Xi Jinping’s number two spoke glowingly about creating “favourable” conditions for commerce, while a rainbow on a giant painting behind them created a halo over the rising party star.