Xi passes on greetings for the new year

President's visit to less developed region shows Party's resolve to fight poverty

President Xi Jinping continued his visit in Shaanxi province over the weekend, heading to the city where his father set up a base for guerrilla forces more than 80 years ago and greeting people in Xi'an ahead of Chinese New Year, which falls on Thursday.

After Xi returned to Liangjiahe village in Yan'an, Shaanxi province, on Friday - where he spent seven years during the "cultural revolution" (1966-76) - he went to Tongchuan on Saturday to pay tribute to people who died in wars defending the base that was set up by his father Xi Zhongxun in 1933 to fight against the Nationalist Party.

On Sunday, Xi visited a community in Xi'an where many employees of State-owned enterprises live and exchanged New Year's greetings with them. He also climbed the city wall in Xi'an, which is the best preserved city wall in China.

"Spring Festival is the most important festival in China, and the tradition is for top leaders to greet the people ahead of the festival," said Zhu Lijia, a professor in public administration at the Chinese Academy of Governance.

In January 2014, ahead of the Spring Festival, Xi visited people from various walks of life, including farmers and herdsmen, in the Inner Mongolia autonomous region.

Wu Hui, a professor at the Party School of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, said Shaanxi, where Xi greeted people, and Guizhou province, which Premier Li Keqiang visited on Friday, are relatively backward areas in China.

"It may suggest the top leadership is putting great importance on poverty relief in these areas," he said. "Helping these areas get rid of poverty is very important for China to achieve its target of building itself into a prosperous society."

On Saturday, during a visit to the conference hall where the Communist Party of China held its seventh national conference in Yan'an 70 years ago, he said that conference laid the cornerstone for the Party's success in the wars against the Japanese invaders and the Nationalist Party, and the birth of New China in 1949.

He said the reason that the Party has been able to overcome all difficulties and challenges is because it combines Marxism with China's reality, an approach established at that seventh conference.

Xinhua contributed to this story.

wangxiaodong@chinadaily.com.cn