On October 22, 2007, after the First Plenary Session of the 17th CCP Central Committee, Xi Jinping and Li Keqiang were both elected to the Politburo Standing Committee. Xi Jinping ranked sixth but stood in front, and the outside world saw him as the successor to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao.
At the 17th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Xi Jinping, with a narrow advantage, entered the Politburo Standing Committee along with Li Keqiang, becoming Hu Jintao's successor, while Bo Xilai only made it to the Politburo.
On October 16, 2007, the inspection squad of the Zhabei Branch went to Beijing to visit Yang Jia and his mother, Wang Jingmei. Yang Jia demanded that the police pay 10,000 yuan in compensation. The inspection squad did not agree, nor did it discipline any police officer.
After dawn on October 6, 2007, Yang Jia left the police station and took a train back to Beijing. From that day on, he repeatedly filed complaints through petition letters and emails with the Shanghai Public Security Bureau and the inspection department of the Zhabei Branch, demanding the dismissal of the officers involved, compensation for emotional distress, and reimbursement of telephone charges. After investigation, the inspection detachment of the Zhabei Branch concluded that the officers' law enforcement was not improper, and the complaint received no apology whatsoever.
On the evening of October 5, 2007, Yang Jie was sightseeing in Shanghai. Riding a rented bicycle past the intersection of Zhijiang West Road and Pushan Road in Zhabei District, he was stopped by officers from the Zhijiang West Road police station and taken into the station for questioning until the early hours of October 6. He said he was insulted and beaten inside the station, which was the starting point of his nonstop complaints over the following year.
YouTube was blocked across mainland China for the first time, and access was restored a few days later.
In 2007, Xi Jinping succeeded Zeng Qinghong as the head of the Central Leading Group on Hong Kong and Macau Affairs, serving in this position for five years until he ascended to the top leadership in 2012.
In June 2007, about 400 senior cadres held a closed-door democratic recommendation vote ahead of the 17th CCP National Congress. Reports said Xi Jinping ranked first in votes and Li Keqiang second; the results were never officially released.
On June 4, 2007, the Chengdu Evening News published a classified advertisement paying tribute to the strong mothers of the June Fourth victims, after which three editors were fired.
Jiang faction Politburo Standing Committee member Huang Ju died of cancer, dealing a heavy blow to the Jiang faction's strength.
In June 2007, Hu Jintao pushed forward a system of democratic recommendations, in which more than 400 Central Committee members and alternate members voted to select Politburo candidates from among more than 200 ministerial-level officials under the age of 63. Large numbers of Jiang Zemin faction members voted in blocs, resulting in Li Keqiang's elimination and Xi Jinping's victory, and Hu Jintao's succession plan fell through.
On May 10, 2007, a jury at the U.S. Federal Court in Santa Ana, California, found Chinese-American engineer Chi Mak guilty of conspiring to export U.S. defense technology to China and other charges, and in March 2008 he was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.
On March 24, 2007, Xi Jinping was transferred from Secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Party Committee to Secretary of the Shanghai Municipal Party Committee, succeeding acting municipal Party Committee Secretary Han Zheng after the Chen Liangyu case.
The then-Secretary of the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee, Li Keqiang, told the US Ambassador that Liaoning's GDP figures were man-made and for reference only, and that he only looked at electricity consumption, railway cargo volume, and bank loans.
On January 23, 2007, the 38th collective study session of the CCP Politburo, themed on the building and management of online culture, Hu Jintao stressed strengthening the building and management of online culture.
McConnell was elected Senate Republican leader and held the position long-term.
According to reports, Zhu Yunlai's compensation at CICC in 2007 may have been as high as about $17 million (about $10 million in 2006), which was an outside estimate and not officially announced by CICC.
Ren Zhiqiang ran for the supervisor of Alxa SEE for the third time. With his image as a "public enemy" and his persistent attitude of speaking the truth, he impressed the audience and was elected chairman of the second council with a high number of votes.
After Xi Jinping took charge in Shanghai in 2007, Fang Xinghai was promoted to Deputy Secretary of the Shanghai Financial Work Party Committee.
Xi Jinping became Shanghai Party Secretary in 2007. After about seven months in the post, he moved to Beijing, becoming a key figure groomed in the Chinese Communist Party's top-level personnel arrangements.
Jing Tian was admitted to Beijing Film Academy. Sun Yuchen saw Jing Tian's advertisement for QQ on Xiaonei and tried to add her as a friend, but the request was not accepted. Sun Yuchen mentioned in his article that as early as 2007, someone had already been "burning money" for Jing Tian.
In 2007, demographer Yi Fuxian published Big Country, Empty Nest, arguing that China's population data was falsified and that family planning should be abolished; he was subsequently banned and went into exile overseas.
In a 2007 case in Nanjing in which a person helped an elderly person who had fallen to the ground, the judge ordered the helper to pay compensation on the grounds that "if you didn't bump into him, why did you go and help him," and the ruling sparked nationwide discussion about extortion targeting those who act courageously to help others.