Aerial photo taken on May 11, 2020 shows residential houses built for farmers in Lyuliang Township of Jinhu County, east China's Jiangsu Province. (Xinhua/Li Bo)
BRING BENEFITS TO ALL PEOPLE
Xi made eradicating rural poverty the basic mission and symbolic benchmark of achieving the Xiaokang goal. When he took over the Party's top job, China still had a large number of rural people living under the poverty line.
Xi took charge of directing the national fight against poverty, put forward the "targeted poverty alleviation" strategy, and personally visited all 14 contiguous poor areas across the country. He presided over seven key central-level poverty relief symposiums and made over 50 trips to check problems and progress on the ground.
"Not a single ethnic group, family or individual should be left behind," Xi said.
Efforts have paid off. In February 2021, Xi declared that China had eliminated absolute poverty, lifting all the remaining 98.99 million rural poor out of poverty.
But Xiaokang is not all about income. A good life calls for a good environment. Since 2012, the CPC Central Committee with Xi at the core has given greater priority to ecological advancement, and waged a war on pollution with a scale and ferocity never seen before.
In his domestic inspections, Xi would visit mountains, rivers, lakes, wetlands and grasslands to ensure that all parts of the natural environment are well protected. For example, since 2016, he has visited the upper, middle, and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, convened three symposiums and repeatedly stressed putting ecological restoration before development for regions along the Yangtze.
Eleven provinces and municipalities have since carried out overhauls in the past five years, leading to a comprehensive makeover of the river basin's ecology.
Significant progress has been made in other areas as well. In 2020, 87 percent of all days across 337 major cities saw good air quality readings, while the proportion of surface water with fairly good quality reached 83.4 percent, up from 66 percent five years ago.
Xi also concerned himself with many other factors affecting the lives of the people: rural toilet renovation, urban garbage sorting, food security, affordable medicines, equal public services for urban and rural residents, the right amount of homework and tutoring for students. He devised plans and pushed through reforms to bring more benefits to the people in delivering on the Xiaokang goal.
