As part of his official visit to China, US President Donald Trump walked alongside Chinese President Xi Jinping on Thursday (May 14) 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.…