Liu Yandong - the official sent to Hong Kong on a charm offensive - has risen steadily through the party ranks since the perilous days of the Cultural Revolution, when she was criticised for being a successful student.
There is more to Ms Liu - the party's top PR person and a woman dubbed the party's beauty - than sporting different outfits for various public functions and her ready smile.
Ms Liu, 59, from Nantong city in Jiangsu province , joined the party in 1964.
In the same year, the 19-year-old enrolled in Tsinghua University's engineering chemistry department as both a student and political assistant for six years until 1970.
In her second year at Tsinghua, at the height of the Cultural Revolution, she was criticised because of her good grades.
But the young Ms Liu resisted any sign of weakness. Instead she put up a large poster criticising Lin Biao , Mao Zedong's right-hand man.