On Chinese President Xi Jinping's bookshelves, photos of him and his wife, Peng Liyuan, find a prominent place, highlighting the softer side of the Chinese president.

Since their marriage in 1987, although Xi and Peng were separated by their work duties much of the time, they shared a mutual understanding and concern for each other.

"I have a very happy family. My wife and I both have our own careers, but we work together to build the family," Xi once said.

Having made multiple appearances on the international stage with hands held together or wearing matching outfits, Xi and Peng are seen as an exemplary couple by many around the world.

Warmth of a Chinese family

"Don't sever genuine connections due to distance, lose sight of true feelings amid a hectic life, or overlook your core emotions amidst the hustle and bustle," Xi reminded the public when addressing a Spring Festival gathering in 2017.

Back in 2004, when Xi was the secretary of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China, he told Yan'an Television that he would call his wife every day as they were not able to spend much time together.

Peng was invited several times to participate in the Spring Festival Gala, an event to celebrate China's most important traditional festival, when family members are expected to reunite and sit down for dinner.

As long as Xi was not on duty, he would make dumplings and wait for his wife to come back home for the late reunion dinner.

Nation as a family

Family in Chinese culture is considered the basic unit of society and plays a crucial role in bonding an individual with the nation. As an old saying goes, "States are the foundations of the world, and families are the foundation of a country."

Xi once pointed out that a prosperous and strong nation and national rejuvenation are embodied by the happiness of families and the improvement of hundreds of millions of people's lives. A nation can do well only when families do well.

From a junior local official to China's top leader, letting tens of millions of families have a good life has always been Xi's aspiration and goal.

Chief among his priorities over the years has been lifting more than 700 million people, or tens of millions of families, out of poverty on schedule.

In 2012, about one month after taking office as the general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Xi braved the winter cold to visit underdeveloped villagers in Hebei Province. Sitting down with them, Xi asked about their income and if they had sufficient food and enough quilts and coal to stay warm through the winter.

At the time, there were around 100 million rural Chinese living below the poverty line, earning an annual income of 2,300 yuan (about $366).

In less than a year, Xi put forward the "targeted poverty alleviation" strategy, and over the span of about eight years, he sent 255,000 work teams and 3 million cadres to villages, providing one-on-one assistance to impoverished farmers.

Xi himself conducted over 50 inspections and research studies on poverty alleviation, which included visits to all 14 regions with high concentrations of extreme poverty.

"We are a family, and we are all brothers and sisters," Xi told the villagers in Shaliuhe Township during his inspection tour of northwest China's Qinghai Province.

On February 25, 2021, Xi announced that absolute poverty had been eliminated in China.