Xi's visits to base ahead of Spring Festival reflect 'people first' philosophy

Chinese President Xi Jinping, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, inquires about the supply of goods during the holiday season and the measures in place to meet the daily needs of residents during his visit to a food market in Shenyang, capital of Northeast China's Liaoning Province, January 23, 2025. Xi inspected Shenyang on Thursday. (Photo: Xinhua)

As the Year of the Snake approaches, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee, inspected Shenyang, capital of northeast China's Liaoning Province, on Thursday. Xi visited the city shortly before the Spring Festival, the most important holiday for the Chinese people, which this year falls on January 29.

Xi visited a food market and a residential community in Shenyang, where he learned about the supply of goods during the holiday season and the measures in place to meet residents' daily needs and optimize public services, as well as details on the progress made to improve the lives of the population. .

Xi also went to Zhujiagou village under the administration of Suizhong County, Huludao city in Liaoning province, on Wednesday to visit people affected by the floods, Xinhua news agency reported.

Since ascending to the Party's top post in November 2012, Xi has made it a tradition to spend time with members of the public before the Spring Festival, especially those from disadvantaged groups, to extend greetings to them. party. The tradition began in 2013, when Xi visited villages in a harsh natural environment in northwest China's Gansu province to ask villagers if they had enough food, sufficient living allowances and access to medical and educational resources.

Poor farmers, frontline workers, elderly people living alone, orphans and disabled children – countless grassroots workers and ordinary citizens have always been the people Xi cares about most.

“Ensuring a better life for our people is the aspiration and original goal of Chinese communists,” Xi, who is also Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, once said during his trip to Sichuan in 2018. remained an steadfast principle in Xi's pre-festival inspections and vividly embodies the “people first” governance philosophy.

Caring for people

In 2015, Xi met old acquaintances from Liangjiahe village in northwest China's Shaanxi province, where he spent seven years as a teenager and young adult. “I will never forget the villagers here and the people of the former revolutionary base,” Xi said.

In 2018, after venturing deep into the mountains of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan province, Xi declared: “No ethnic group or family should be left behind in building a middle-class society.” prosperous in every way. »

In 2024, Xi visited primary school officials and residents of Tianjin ahead of the Spring Festival. He also spoke with traders and employees of a former cultural street during his inspection tour in the municipality.

“I particularly care about local officials and the people as we celebrate the Lunar New Year,” Xi once said.

Over the years, he interacted with people including frontline workers, as well as elderly people and children in social care homes, leaving many heartwarming moments.

Over the years, Xi has extended sincere wishes for a better life and a brighter future to the Chinese people during every pre-festival visit.

With these wishes, the entire Party and the Chinese people united to forge ahead to build China into a strong country and realize national rejuvenation.

Rural revitalization

From ancient revolutionary bases to remote mountainous areas, these places mark China's journey from the anti-poverty campaign to the pursuit of rural revitalization.

In January 2017, Xi visited the snow-covered grasslands of northern China. Zhangbei, in north China's Hebei province, just 200 kilometers north of Beijing, was classified as a deprived county in 2013, with an eighth of its population still living on less than a dollar a day in October 2016.

Ye Runbing, Party Secretary of Desheng Village in Zhangbei County, still vividly remembers President Xi's visit there in 2017. Xi stressed the importance of ensuring that every poor family has a program to increase their income and that every poor person has a way to free themselves from poverty. .

Ye told the Global Times that he felt greatly inspired.

Eight years later, Zhangbei is completely different. The village has integrated land resources, natural resources and market resources.

Potatoes are a specialty of Desheng village. But the smallholder model of the past could not guarantee stable yields. In recent years, Desheng Village has actively developed a collective economy, investing in greenhouses for breeding potato seeds, developing this industry, and helping villagers increase their income.

Adhering to the concept of sustainable development, Desheng Village takes advantage of the high latitude and long sunshine hours of the Zhangbei grassland, developing a photovoltaic industry capable of providing long-term stable income and exploring a profitable tourism industry homestay.

The New Year is important to make Desheng a beautiful and prosperous village. Ye hopes to attract more agricultural technology and tourism management professionals to his hometown, hoping they can settle down and further promote its overall revitalization.

Heritage and innovation

During his previous visits, Xi brought festive gifts, joined local people in preparing festive dishes and practiced Spring Festival customs.

In 2020, Xi visited the home of farmer Li Fashun in Simola Wa village, Yunnan province, where he learned about the family's daily life and was invited to join the family for prepare rice cakes. He also beat a wooden Wa ethnic drum three times, a local ritual activity meant to bless the coming year.

During his inspection trip to southwest China's Guizhou Province in 2021, Xi visited Huawu Village, which has successfully eliminated poverty through agricultural plantations and livestock as well as tourism. He was invited to the home of Zhao Yuxue, a Miao villager, and prepared a traditional “Huangba” festival meal with Zhao's family. He also visited a Miao embroidery workshop, calling for efforts to promote ethnic and traditional cultures.

In 2022, Xi visited Shanxi province before the Spring Festival. Visiting Pingyao, one of China's best-preserved ancient walled cities and a UNESCO World Heritage Site, Xi called for more efforts to conserve the country's cultural heritage and protect “the precious treasure that left to us by our ancestors.

Wang Huiming, who runs a lacquerware store in the ancient city, said President Xi demanded that cultural treasures such as traditional lacquerware skills be better protected.

“We should promote traditional cultural industries with distinctive Chinese characteristics to the rest of the world,” Xi said, as reported by Xinhua.

Wang, an inheritor of intangible cultural heritage, was delighted that Chunjie, or Spring Festival, was inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. “This demonstrates that the richness of Chinese culture is recognized and that what I do has meaning.”

Ready to welcome tourists to Pingyao during the holiday, Wang's wish for the Year of the Snake is to increase sales by 20 percent, make more innovative products and have more trainees interested in this cultural heritage.

Aspiration for a better life

Delivery man Qi Nannan clearly remembers February 1, 2019, the day President Xi visited an express delivery center in Shitou Hutong in central Beijing's Qianmen district as he and his colleague were sorting piles of packages.

Xi stressed that priority should be given to solving employment problems and creating more jobs. He praised the hard work of delivery workers, saying they were “busy as bees” to bring comfort to people’s lives.

“It was such a surprise. It was also a moment when I felt important and proud,” Qi told the Global Times.

Like every Spring Festival over the past nine years since he became a deliveryman, Qi and his colleagues are busy delivering packages as quickly as possible. These are mainly gifts and essentials for the festival.

From cheap snacks and souvenirs in the past to quality fresh delicacies and gifts sometimes from abroad, Qi witnesses the rise of China's logistics and e-commerce market, as well as the improvement of standard of living of the population.

Qi hopes that in the Year of the Snake, his daughter can enter an ideal university, and he will continue to be a hardworking “bee” to convey happiness to ordinary people.

“Of all the tasks before us, the most important is to ensure a happy life for our people,” Xi said in his 2025 New Year speech.

“Every family hopes that their children can have a good education, their elders can have good services for the elderly, and their young people can have more and better opportunities. These simple wishes are our people's aspirations for a life We must work together to gradually improve We must bring more smiles to our people and more warmth in their hearts,” Xi said.