Xi Story: Respecting the pioneering spirit of the people

BEIJING -- For reformer Xi Jinping, respecting the pioneering spirit of the people is a significant way to address challenges.

The masses' practices are the richest and most vibrant, embodying tremendous wisdom and strength, according to Xi, Chinese president, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

Advancing healthcare reform is a worldwide challenge. Xi was particularly attracted by the practices in Sanming city in East China's Fujian province.

The city of fewer than 3 million residents was once on the brink of a healthcare funding crisis, with over 200 million yuan (about $28 million) of losses in medical insurance funds, due in part to a large population of retirees and entrenched problems in its healthcare system.

The game-changers were a series of moves voluntarily taken by the city, including an overhaul of the local healthcare system in 2012 and follow-up trial reforms targeting an array of thorny problems from drug overpricing to excessive medical treatment.

These bold actions caught the attention of Xi, who affirmed the Sanming reform practices at a high-level reform conference in 2016. At another meeting a year later, Xi said: "Sanming's healthcare reform is moving in the right direction, and the effect has been notable. It should be promoted."

Many innovations in Sanming, such as the centralized bulk drug procurement, have been elevated to national healthcare reform strategies and replicated across China under Xi's watch. In 2019, the State Council's healthcare reform leading group issued a circular to instruct authorities to learn from Sanming's experience in conducting their reforms.

Xi personally visited Sanming in March 2021. "I am very aware of your reform. It shows a pioneering spirit," Xi said after closely studying a bar chart showcasing the reform results in a hospital in Sanming's Shaxian County.

Learning from the people and respecting the people's creativity have long carried great weight in China's reform, a tradition Xi has enthusiastically upheld, both in local governance and after assuming the country's top office.

More than two decades ago, mountainous villages in Wuping county of Fujian province took the initiative to pilot equal distribution of forestland to local farmers.

Their practice was expanded to the whole province under the endorsement of Xi, then governor of Fujian, enabling the region to utilize its rich forest resources to bolster economic development and increase people's incomes.

This reform was considered another revolutionary step for China's rural areas, as important as the previous reform originating from Xiaogang village, East China's Anhui province, where 18 local farmer households initiated the critical rural experiment for the household contract responsibility system in 1978.

Xi paid tribute to the farmers' pioneering spirit during a visit to Xiaogang in 2016, calling their venture "a landmark of China's reform."

Most of China's reforms were credited to the people, rather than armchair strategists, Xi pointed out when telling his colleagues in Fujian to rely on the people's strength in forest tenure reform in the province, citing Xiaogang as an example.

Xi visited Fujian to inspect the progress of local forestry reform in March 2021. In the tour, Xi urged locals to actively explore collective forest tenure innovations to make new breakthroughs.

"Respecting the pioneering spirit of the people is a guiding principle of the CPC in its work," Xi said. "The people are the real heroes."

This principle has become a tenet Xi has adhered to in advancing China's reform and development, be it the tough battle against poverty or the practice of democracy.

He has insisted on seeing "real poverty" during inspection tours, sometimes spending hours on bumpy rides to remote villages, and chatting with locals at their simple dwellings.

Such tours provided firsthand insights into the challenges of poverty alleviation, helping to create effective policies that eventually enabled China to achieve the historical feat of eradicating absolute poverty as scheduled in 2020.

As China's top leader, Xi has managed to be actively involved in democracy at the grassroots level.

In a tour of a "hutong," or traditional alley, in Beijing in February 2019, Xi joined a discussion in a "courtyard meeting hall," a new mechanism for local residents to decide community affairs. He gave his thumbs up to this innovation and said it can make community services more targeted and precise.

Over the past decade or so, Xi has completed more than 100 inspection tours nationwide. He engaged with citizens from all walks of life, from remote villages to bustling urban centers, learning from grassroots explorations and listening to people's concerns and aspirations.

The role of the people in China's future reforms was also highlighted at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee Xi presided over in June 2024, as it discussed further comprehensively deepening reform and advancing Chinese modernization.

It is imperative to adhere to a people-centered approach, respect the principal position and the pioneering spirit of the people, ensure that reform will always respond to what the people call for, and guarantee that reform is for the people and by the people and that its fruits are shared by the people, read a statement released after the meeting.

"Where does the correct path come from? It comes from the people," Xi once said.