President's tours over past five years helped him form ways to improve lives

Since the 18th Communist Party of China National Congress in 2012, Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, has been all over the country on inspection tours.

Five years ago, Xi chose Shenzhen as his first stop outside the capital after being elected the Party's top leader. Shenzhen, in Guangdong province, is China's reform and opening-up frontier.

Shortly after returning from Guangdong, Xi visited impoverished villages in Hebei province to inspect poverty alleviation efforts.

These moves signaled the essence of Xi's governance, which has brought into focus the Chinese Dream of national rejuvenation and reaching the goals set for the centennials of the CPC in 2020 and the People's Republic of China in 2049.

Since 2012, Xi has completed 50 inspection tours across the country, spanning 151 days.

Reform and innovation

Reform and innovation have always been in Xi's thoughts.

In 2016, Xi visited Xiaogang, Anhui province, and walked into the courtyard where, in 1978, 18 farmers signed a secret pact to divide communally owned farmland into family plots, lighting the flame for China's rural land reform. Xi chose that spot to say that reform is the only way out and that the word should repeatedly be injected with new meaning.

During his visits to the Shanghai Pilot Free Trade Zone, Tianjin Binhai New Area, Wuhan Countryside Comprehensive Property Exchange and others, Xi put at the top of his agenda comprehensively deepened reforms.

In Jiangsu, Shandong and Hubei provinces, he stressed the need for bold exploration and advancing reform. He explicitly stated that balance should be properly dealt with in the process, including that between boldness and steadiness, reform and stability.

In 2014, Xi went to Commercial Aircraft Corp of China and boarded a prototype of the C919, China's first domestically developed large passenger aircraft. He encouraged engineers to give themselves progressive goals and strive to get the plane in the air. Only three years later, the C919 completed its maiden flight.

While inspecting research institutes, universities, high-tech companies and new development zones, he has stressed the need for innovation and the importance of commercializing research results.

Poverty relief

Xi has visited a number of impoverished places and households, from the Liupanshan Mountain region in west China to the Dabieshan Mountain region in the middle. He went to all the poorest areas, visiting homes of impoverished workers and villagers in Inner Mongolia, Hunan, Ningxia, among others, to see with his own eyes the life of people in poverty in order to work out solutions for improvement.

Xi said it was heart-wrenching to see people live in such difficulties.

He also presided over a series of symposiums across the country, bringing what he had seen and heard during the inspection trips to discuss with participants.

China has set the baseline task to lift all people out of poverty by 2020 and build an "all-around well-off society", or a moderately prosperous society, in all respects.

Since China started the reform and opening-up drive more than 30 years ago, over 700 million have climbed above the poverty line, accounting for over 70 percent of all global poverty reduction.

Major policy planning

On Feb 23, Xi visited Anxin County, Hebei province, to learn about local population density and geological and hydrological conditions.

Just over a month later, on April 1, the CPC Central Committee and the State Council, China's Cabinet, planned to set up a national-level new area there.

Xi's inspection tours often come with the planning and implementation of major policies, but he also listens to the public's opinions on these policies.

When documents were being compiled for the Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee two years ago, Xi visited the east, middle, west and northeast parts of the country to get a better idea on planning the economic and social development during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-20).

He presided over symposiums in Zhejiang, Guizhou and Jilin provinces to hear from leaders in 18 provinces about development during that five-year plan.

When Xi visited the Guangxi Zhuang autonomous region in April, he talked with grassroots-level delegates to the upcoming 19th CPC National Congress about their advice and expectations for the event.

He stressed that preparations for the congress must take in wisdom from people of all ethnicities in the country.

Xinhua