Last month, Mr. Xi visited some of the country’s biggest news outlets and delivered a message about the party’s dominance over the media. His words were reinforced days later when three editors were apparently punished at a newspaper that juxtaposed a headline outlining Mr. Xi’s message to the media with another about a funeral, possibly as a lament over the demise of aggressive news outlets in China.

The story about Mr. Xi’s crying was first carried by a public WeChat account dedicated to reporting on the president. According to state media reports, the WeChat account is run by a group of journalists from the overseas edition of People’s Daily, the party’s flagship newspaper. The article was picked up by the website of CCTV, the state broadcaster. Then it was widely republished by other Chinese news outlets including Xinhua, the state news agency, an indication that it has high-level approval from the propaganda authorities.

The piece includes an interview with Mr. Xi in 2004, when he was party secretary of Zhejiang Province, in which he lists two of the times he has cried. Once was after the death of an elder sister. He doesn’t detail the circumstances, but she is believed to have killed herself because of persecution by Red Guards during the Cultural Revolution.

The other incident Mr. Xi relates was in 1975, during his time in rural Shaanxi Province. He had been sent there in 1969 as part of the “send down” movement, in which urban youth were ordered to go to the countryside to learn from farmers. Many presumably cried when they arrived. Mr. Xi himself has spoken of the difficulties he experienced adjusting to hard farm labor and incessant flea bites.

But the tears Mr. Xi describes were not attributed to hardship. Rather, he says they were the result of his sadness at leaving the people who had taken him in and welcomed him. At that time Mr. Xi’s father, Xi Zhongxun, had been purged of his leadership positions and his family was under attack.