Xi stresses importance of education on school visit
Print Edition
CHINESE President Xi Jinping wants to end poverty in old revolutionary base areas and improve local people’s standard of living.
Xi made the remarks during a tour of northwest China’s Shaanxi Province which ended yesterday.
“A well-off society is be incomplete if people in old revolutionary base areas cannot shake off poverty,” said Xi during a meeting with Party chiefs of 24 counties and cities from Shaanxi and Gansu provinces and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.
Xi expects financial support and preferential policies to bring prosperity to local people. He encouraged the regions to make the best of what they had and develop new industries, allowing local enterprises and brands to flourish, but with a ban on pollution and heavy exploitation of resources.
Xi also met villagers from Liangjiahe, where he worked as a rural laborer during the “cultural revolution (1966-76).” At the meeting he said revolutionary bases were the roots of the Party and the army and they should not be forgotten, as wisdom and power is obtained from history.
“Without the development of old revolutionary bases, we will not be able to achieve a moderately prosperous society,” said Xi, who urged Party committees and governments to focus on the development of those areas, so local people could reap benefits of China’s development.
During his tour, Xi went to Yan’an, Tongchuan, and Xi’an to inspect villages, schools, communities, research institutions and revolutionary memorial sites, and extend Spring Festival greetings to the public.
Calling the “Yan’an spirit” of veteran revolutionaries the “spiritual treasure” of the Party, Xi said strength should be drawn from it to ensure strict Party discipline and a close Party-people relationship.
Xi visited the Fuzhou Hope Primary School at Yangjialing, Yan’an, which was built with donations from Fuzhou City, capital of southeast China’s Fujian Province, in 1995 when Xi was Party chief.
He said education was very important as it was the key to development and more attention should be given to primary education.
Xi stressed that “core technology cannot be acquired by begging alms.” Instead, one’s own effort is needed, he said when inspecting Xi’an Institute of Optics and Precision Mechanics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.
The president encouraged those working in the technology sector to be innovative, confident and responsible.
When visiting Xi’an Museum, Xi said a museum was a school and the relics should be treated with care, as they were the country’s cultural history.
He also climbed up the ancient wall in the city to check up on preservation work.
At the entrance to Liangjiahe Village in Shaanxi, the man villagers had been waiting for finally arrived. They were excited and called him by his first name: Jinping.
Forty-seven years ago, a teenage Xi came to Liangjiahe as part of a campaign launched by Chairman Mao Zedong that asked urban youth to experience rural labor life.
During his seven years in the village, Xi lived in a cave dwelling with villagers, slept on a kang, a traditional Chinese bed made of bricks and clay, endured flea bites, carried manure, built dams and repaired roads.
It was also in the village that Xi joined the Communist Party of China.
“Ying’er, you’ve grown old,” said Xi, who immediately recognized villager Wang Xianjun and called him by his nickname.
The two reminisced about building mud dams together to hold water for irrigating the dry land.
In front of them was the cropland Xi, who was village Party chief at the time, helped to cultivate alongside locals with their dam-building efforts. It is still growing crops.
Villagers waiting for Xi filled the courtyard of the village Party branch and Xi recognized the faces of more comrades.
“It’s really exciting to be back and see everyone. In January 1969, I took the first step of my life to come to Liangjiahe and stayed a whole seven years. When I left, I left my heart here,” Xi said.
After Xi first came to the village, several families took turns taking him in. In 1970, six cave dwellings were built especially for young people from the cities, and Xi lived there until he left.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
