Visits point way to better future for all

On the cold afternoon of Jan 22, President Xi Jinping traveled for nearly an hour along mountain roads to reach a once flood-stricken village in Northeast China's Liaoning province, to offer support to residents who had been relocated to new homes.

Upon his arrival at Zhujiagou village — where many houses were devastated by floods in August 2024 — Xi was briefed on the reconstruction efforts, inspected the structure and quality of the new houses, and engaged in heartfelt conversations with villagers about their daily lives.

"I never imagined we could restart our lives so soon in such a warm, bright house," Wang Baowei, a local villager, told Xi.

The president reassured villagers of the authorities' continued efforts in rebuilding their lives and urged local officials to make thoughtful, practical arrangements for their livelihoods and production activities.

The next day, Xi continued his trip to Shenyang, the provincial capital. Lu Jun, who lives in the Chang'an residential community, recalled meeting Xi.

"He noticed some hand-knitted flowers we made and said he had worn hand-knitted sweaters before," Lu said. "I told him we used to make sweaters, but now we create artworks, as our lives have improved so much."

Later, as Xi inspected the renovated neighborhood with its upgraded public facilities and services, he stressed that urban renewal should "serve the people's convenience, interests and sense of security".

'Putting people first'

With a key focus on improving people's livelihoods, Xi conducted nine grassroots inspection tours throughout the year. These tours spanned 12 provincial-level regions across China, where he visited places such as historical sites, communities that are home to a number of ethnic groups, and manufacturing hubs, and engaged directly with local residents.

Zhou Shaojie, dean of the Institute for Contemporary China Studies at Tsinghua University, said that such frequent field trips have been a hallmark of Xi's governance style.

"Conducting in-depth investigations and research at the grassroots level helps align top-level decision-making with the realities of local communities," Zhou said. "This enables the country's major policies and guidelines to be better tailored to address the urgent needs and concerns of the people."

A prime example, he noted, is that from 2012 until Xi declared China's complete victory in its fight against poverty in 2021, the president visited all 14 contiguous areas of extreme poverty across the country and more than 20 poor villages, and sat in the homes of impoverished households to learn about their difficulties and listen to their needs. "Such engagements have vividly demonstrated Xi's governance philosophy of always putting the people first," Zhou added.

Less than one week after the conclusion of the annual two sessions in March, during which Xi had exchanged ideas with national lawmakers and political advisers on ways to improve people's livelihoods, he embarked on a fact-finding trip to the Qiandongnan Miao and Dong autonomous prefecture in Guizhou province.

At a Dong ethnic village, he explored its distinctive ethnic culture and sat with villagers around a firepit to discuss all-around rural vitalization.

Lu Donghui, a maker of Dong musical instruments and lead singer of a local band, was present at the gathering that day.

He told Xi that he returned to his hometown in 2017 with the aim of promoting Dong culture through his craft of instrument making.

Initially, the instrument maker found it difficult to get the business off the ground. "Things began to change as tourism flourished in the village," he said.

"After hearing our village's traditional songs, many tourists become interested in buying a Dong pipa to take home. Therefore, the demand for my crafts has grown, and my life keeps getting better," Lu added.

He recalled that President Xi said it is evident that the village has been thriving from villagers' accounts and expressions. Noting that rural tourism is booming, the president called for ethnic regions to preserve their unique cultures and highlight their brilliance through the integration of culture and tourism.

By the end of October, the village had welcomed 1.32 million tourist visits, a year-on-year increase of 46.21 percent, while tourism revenue rose by 53.09 percent to 1.3 billion yuan ($185 million), up 47.24 percent from the same period last year. Many visitors were drawn by the Grand Song of the Dong people, a type of a cappella performance inscribed in 2009 by UNESCO on the list of Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity.

The success of the village conforms to the development path that Xi has proposed for regions with distinctive cultures to uplift people's well-being — one that preserves and showcases their unique traditions through integrated cultural and tourism development.

This focus was highlighted again in May in Henan province, as Xi toured the Longmen Grottoes in the city of Luoyang. He urged local authorities to turn cultural tourism into an industry that brings happiness and tangible benefits to the people.

"Xi's consistent emphasis on this approach encourages different places to innovate in development strategies and implement high-quality development based on their specific conditions," said Zhou from Tsinghua University.

"Given differences in resources, regional conditions and industrial foundations, there is no one-size-fits-all development model for different regions," he said. "Xi's call for building distinctive industries suited to local conditions is, in essence, an impetus to turn local strengths into economic vitality and competitive strengths."

To ensure that such an approach delivers tangible benefits to the people, Zhou stressed that it is essential to uphold the people-centered development philosophy and fully leverage the coordinated role of an effective market and an active government.

This will help steer local specialty industries toward sustainable and equitable growth, thereby contributing to the steady advancement of common prosperity, he added.

President Xi's inspection tours exemplify how his people-centered development philosophy has been implemented at the grassroots level.

He has stressed on multiple occasions that the people's well-being is integral to national modernization, and that all the work of the Party and the government is aimed at making people's lives better and happier, consistently highlighting the intrinsic link between improving people's livelihoods and advancing Chinese modernization.

This focus was reaffirmed when the country's top leadership gathered to shape policy directions for the 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period. During the fourth plenary session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, it was affirmed that "the gains of modernization benefit all people fairly" serves as a principle for guiding future socioeconomic development.

Shortly after the plenum, Xi inspected Guangdong province, a front-runner in China's modernization drive. He explained that the choice of Guangdong for his visit was driven by his concern about its ongoing struggle with significant regional imbalances, despite its status as a pioneer in reform and opening-up.

In Guangdong, wealth and resources are concentrated in the Pearl River Delta region in the south, while the remaining 12 cities — covering nearly 70 percent of its land area — contribute less than 20 percent of its GDP.

Xi's visit began in Meizhou, a city in eastern Guangdong, where development has lagged due partly to geographical constraints. The trip extended his focus on driving coordinated progress across the province, following a tour of western Guangdong in April 2023.

In December 2022, Guangdong initiated a systematic program to vitalize less-developed areas across all its counties, towns and villages.

After his Meizhou visit in November, Xi acknowledged in talks with local officials the program's progress over the past three years, and emphasized the need for continued efforts to promote coordinated regional development and integrated urban-rural growth.

Analysts said that Xi's inspections this year have charted a clear course for improving people's livelihoods — one in which development is grounded in local strengths, measured by the well-being of the people, and steered toward a modernized future in which prosperity is both shared and sustainable.

As Xi has emphasized, "The essence of modernization is the modernization of people."

Zhou noted that achieving modernization for such a large population requires adhering to a people-centered development philosophy.

This approach, Zhou added, entails delivering tangible progress in areas of vital concern to the people — such as employment, education, healthcare, social security and environmental protection.

Liu Shicheng in Beijing?and Liu Boqian in Guiyang?contributed to this story.

Contact the writers at?jihaisheng@chinadaily.com.cn