China Headlines: Xi's war on poverty (1)

As the president of the most populous nation on the planet, poverty has never been an issue Xi Jinping could take lightly.

In his four years leading China, Xi, 63, has visited more than 30 impoverished villages and townships, sharing his rich experience in poverty-eradication work and putting himself on the front lines of the war on poverty.

Looking back, it has been clear that Xi's deep understanding of and focus on the poor has developed throughout his political career, as he rose from being a young man working at a remote village in the northwestern province of Shaanxi, to China's top job.

He has often spoken of his first-hand experience living in poverty, and shared his ideas and insights on how to deal with it. For example, he said that relocation was an important approach in fighting poverty and highlighted the role of ecological compensation, which would help improve the environment and boost incomes.

Last month during an inspection tour in northern Hebei Province, the president said fighting poverty was the fundamental task for building a moderately prosperous society.

China has set 2020 as the target year to finish building a moderately prosperous, or "Xiaokang" society. A key goal of the targets is to eradicate poverty in China.

Xi has said that "no one should be left behind on the road towards Xiaokang."

FIRST TASTE OF POVERTY

Xi's first taste of poverty came in Liangjiahe Village in Yan'an, Shaanxi, about 48 years ago.

He was not even 16 years of age when he was sent to Liangjiahe in early 1969, as a result of Chairman Mao Zedong's campaign for urban youth to experience rural labor.

"Experiencing such an abrupt turn from Beijing to a place so destitute, I was struck deeply," Xi said, recalling the whole village turning dark at night as the only lights available were a few kerosene lamps by a ditch.

In less than three years, Xi became a completely competent rural laborer.

"I found myself easily traveling several miles of mountain road while carrying a shoulder pole weighing over 50-kilograms," he said.

However, a day of hard work barely earned him enough for a pack of the cheapest cigarettes, which cost nine cents in the 1970s.

A year's harvest could only sustain farmers for a couple of months, and they often found themselves running out of food as early as April or May. Xi and his contemporaries sent to work in the countryside were almost reduced to begging.

From 1988 to 1990, Xi worked as chief the Communist Party of China (CPC) of Ningde Prefecture in southeastern Fujian Province. Ningde used to be one of 18 contiguous poverty-stricken areas in China.

"During my one-year-and-11-month stay in Ningde, I went to almost all the townships, including three of the four townships without access to a paved road, " Xi said.

Xi recalled his tour to Xiadang Township vividly: "The township CPC Committee was built on a renovated cow enclosure, and a big crowd of us had to hold our meetings on a bridge."

Due to poor access, few higher-level officials went to Xiadang.

"I was the first prefectural CPC committee secretary who had ever been there," Xi said.

In 1997, Xi, then deputy secretary of the CPC Fujian Provincial Committee, visited Xihaigu, a region in the south of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, historically, even internationally, known for its harsh environment.

Declared "uninhabitable" for humans, by visiting experts from the United Nations in 1982, Xihaigu was left out of China's headlong rush to riches in the country's economic reform.

"The families I visited did not have enough to eat, and the drinking water -- salty to taste -- was fetched from afar," Xi said. The villagers did not even have the luxury of showering.

"It was my first visit to Xihaigu and the view of people's life there shocked me," Xi said. "After so many years of reform and opening-up, that there was still a place in such poor and difficult conditions left me stunned." (mo