President stresses quality of life issues in countryside

President Xi Jinping stressed the significance of rural revitalization during his inspection tour in Henan province, and he called on locals to strive to build cleaner, more beautiful homes.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, inspected poverty alleviation work on the second day of the tour to a tea plantation and a village in Guangshan county on Tuesday.

On Monday, Xi inspected Tianpudawan village in Xinxian county, where he visited two handicraft shops and a small inn, and learned about local efforts in promoting rural tourism and advancing rural revitalization. He also bought several handicrafts exhibiting local characteristics.

"Rural revitalization is not always about demolition and reconstruction," Xi said. "It is about upgrading the facilities of traditional villages with distinctive features to make them more modern and convenient to use, so that hot showers are available and the countryside is clean and beautiful."

Xi has paid great attention to rural work in Henan, one of the nation's major agricultural provinces, with a cultivation area accounting for a fourth of the nation's total.

When he inspected Henan in May 2014, he emphasized the important role that the province plays in ensuring the nation's food security.

Also on Monday, Xi placed a flower basket at the base of a monument to revolutionary martyrs in Xinxian and met representatives of Red Army veterans' descendants as well as relatives of the martyrs.

On Tuesday, Xi visited Zhengzhou Coal Mining Machinery Group Co, the Yellow River Museum and the Yellow River National Geopark in Zhengzhou, capital of Henan. He learned about the upgrading of the local manufacturing sector and local enterprises' technological innovation as well as ecological conservation efforts for the Yellow River.

This year marks the 70th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China. Xi said all Party members and leading officials should constantly receive education on revolutionary traditions to consolidate and enhance their ideals and convictions.

He also stressed, as an act of homage to the revolutionary martyrs, unswervingly forging ahead on the road of socialism with Chinese characteristics and striving to realize the "Two Centenary Goals". The goals are to complete building a moderately prosperous society in all respects by 2021, and to have a modern socialist China that is prosperous, strong, democratic, culturally advanced and harmonious by 2049.

Xinhua contributed to this story.