Xi Story: Xi's four trips to China's "most uninhabitable place"

Xi Jinping presents an award to Minning Township in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, a role model in China's poverty alleviation fight, during a grand gathering to mark the nation's poverty alleviation accomplishments and honor model poverty fighters at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, Feb. 25, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Xueren)

YINCHUAN, Nov. 16 (Xinhua) -- Xi Jinping has made four trips to Xihaigu, once one of the poorest areas in the country, over the past three decades. His trips have helped change the lives of people there.

Xihaigu, an arid land in northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, was labeled the "most unfit place for human settlement" by visiting experts from the United Nations in the 1970s due to drought and fragile ecological environment.

In 1997, Xi visited Xihaigu for the first time.

"I have seen and lived in poor places, but in the 1990s, seeing that there were still poor places like this in China was shocking," he recalled.

At that time, as the deputy secretary of the Fujian provincial committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), Xi was in charge of a "pairing-up" poverty alleviation program between Fujian and Ningxia. He pushed for a relocation project, which would see whole communities from Xihaigu move from their barren, inhospitable ancestral lands to a new area at the foot of the Helan Mountain nourished by the Yellow River. Xi named it "Minning Village," a portmanteau out of the abbreviations of Fujian and Ningxia.

"Minning Village is now a sandy land, but it will be a fertile land in the future," Xi said.

Water shortage, Xi said, was the major cause of poverty in Xihaigu. Over the past 25 years, Fujian has helped Ningxia build around 15,000 wells and cisterns, providing drinking water for 300,000 people.

Aerial photo taken on June 3, 2021 shows the Minning Town of Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Feng Kaihua)

In April 2008, Xi, then member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee and Chinese vice president, returned to Ningxia. During his inspection, he planted trees with Wang Youde, a respected national sand control hero. Xi promised the local people: "I will come back when you live better lives."

In July 2016, Xi, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Chinese president and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made his third visit to Xihaigu, fulfilling his promise. He visited Yuanlong Village of Minning Town, which had been transformed from a village into a bustling community of 60,000 people over the past two decades.

Xi Jinping visits villager of Hui ethnic group Hai Guobao's home in the Yuanlong Migrant Village of Minning Town in Yinchuan, capital of northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, July 19, 2016. (Xinhua/Li Tao)

In June 2020, Xi came to Xihaigu for the fourth time. He visited Hongsibu District of Wuzhong City, which has one of China's largest settlement areas for people relocated from Xihaigu. Xi met Liu Kerui's family, who moved from a mountain village to Hongsibu. Liu handed Xi an old photo, saying "We have gotten rid of poverty!" Xi told Liu: "You will live a better life in the future!"

Xi Jinping talks with Liu Kerui, a villager of the Hui ethnic group, and his family in Hongde Village of Wuzhong, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, June 8, 2020. (Xinhua/Xie Huanchi)

The poverty-alleviation measures promoted by Xi have changed the fate of countless people in Xihaigu. Over the past 40 years, around 1.23 million people from Xihaigu have been relocated to more hospitable areas. On Nov. 16, 2020, Xiji, the last poor county in Xihaigu, was removed from the list of counties in poverty.  ■