China in 2024: Putting people at the center

Editor's note: CGTN presents "China in 2024," a special series that takes an in-depth look at the country's progress in improving livelihoods, high-quality development, deepening reform and further opening up, sci-tech innovation, cultural development and ecological conservation, as well as its diplomatic achievements.

China forged ahead on the path to modernization on all fronts in 2024. But what makes Chinese-style modernization different from models in developed countries?

For Chinese President Xi Jinping, the fundamental answer is simple – putting people first, not capital.

"As far as Chinese modernization is concerned, the people's well-being matters the most,” President Xi said while inspecting Chongqing Municipality in April.

President Xi has often stressed that every issue that affects the people, big or small, deserves the utmost care and attention.

During his inspection tours around China this year, he visited ordinary people to learn about their lives, from their incomes and housing situation to healthcare, children's education and elderly care services.

"The Communist Party of China is dedicated to serving the people, and the well-being of the people of all ethnic groups and every household is my concern," Xi said while visiting a multi-ethnic residential community in Yinchuan, northwest China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region in June.

According to China's Ministry of Finance, 70 percent of government expenditure in 2024 has gone toward ensuring the people's well-being.

The country has raised its expenditure in the national general public budget to about 28.55 trillion yuan ($3.91 trillion) this year, up 4 percent from the previous year, with projected budgets for education, social insurance and employment each surpassing 4 trillion yuan in 2024.

Grain security and rural revitalization have also been high on Xi's agenda in 2024.

The Chinese president has frequently visited the countryside during his inspection tours, engaging with workers in fields, greenhouses and orchards and asking in-depth questions about various aspects of rural and agricultural life, from crop production to incomes.

When visiting a village in Hunan Province in March, Xi inspected preparations for spring farming. He emphasized that, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, China must secure its own grain supply.

Xi also highlighted the importance of boosting both grain production and quality, while ensuring that farmers can prosper through crop cultivation.

The latest National Bureau of Statistics of China data showed that in 2024 the country's total grain output exceeded 706 million tonnes, an increase of 1.6 percent over the previous year, hitting a new record high.

This year's bumper harvest was accompanied by a rise in grain planting areas in the country, which stood at over 119 million hectares, up 0.3 percent year on year. Additionally, grain output per unit area increased by 1.3 percent, the data showed.

In another positive development, China's food security law, aimed at ensuring the supply of grain and related products, took effect in June.

In February 2021, President Xi announced that absolute poverty had been eliminated in China. The country's focus on rural work has since shifted to rural revitalization.

To advance Chinese modernization, efforts must be made to accelerate rural revitalization, Xi said during his inspection tour of central China's Hubei Province in November, 2024.

China has identified 160 major counties for national rural revitalization assistance and allocated over 177 billion yuan in subsidies to support their development in 2024.

In the first three quarters of this year, the per capita disposable income of rural residents reached 16,740 yuan, a real-term annual increase of 6.3 percent.

Meanwhile, the central government allocated development funds of 7.4 billion yuan to improve production and living conditions in ethnic minority villages and to protect and develop ethnic minority villages.

The country launched monitoring and support mechanisms to prevent once poor populations from falling back into poverty. By the end of September, around 60 percent of these people no longer faced such risks and others had received assistance and support.

Work-relief programs to boost employment have also been implemented this year. In the first three quarters, these programs created a total of 2.45 million jobs for low-income workers, a year-on-year increase of 30.2 percent, and distributed 31 billion yuan in wages, up 22.7 percent from a year earlier, according to the National Development and Reform Commission.

As of the end of October, the total scale of employment for poverty-stricken people in China had reached 33.079 million, exceeding the annual target by 2.888 million, providing strong support for consolidating and building on the achievements of poverty alleviation.

(The podcast is presented by Li Dongning)