How Xi Jinping's early rural years shaped a lasting pledge to improve lives

When Xi Jinping arrived in the remote village of Liangjiahe at the age of 15 as part of a campaign that sent educated youths to the countryside, he entered an unfamiliar world of cave dwellings, farm labor and hardship, experiences that shaped his lifelong commitment to serving the people.

The seven years Xi spent in the small village in northwest China's Shaanxi Province became a defining chapter in his life. He lived alongside farmers, slept on heated brick beds, carried manure, built roads and joined villagers in daily agricultural work. Xi later recalled that those years transformed him from a confused teenager into a young man with a clear sense of purpose and confidence in his future.

Xi joined the Communist Party of China (CPC) in 1974, about five years after he arrived in Liangjiahe. He later became the village's Party chief and led a number of projects aimed at improving local living conditions. Among them was the construction of Shaanxi's first methane tank, which brought the first methane-powered lamp to northern Shaanxi and challenged a saying that methane could not be used beyond the Qinling Mountains.

Reflecting on his years in Liangjiahe, Xi wrote that the northern Shaanxi plateau had become his roots because it had instilled in him an enduring conviction to do practical things for the people. He said he will always be a son of the yellow earth no matter where he goes.

That connection endured long after Xi left the village. During his time as Party secretary of Fuzhou City, he returned to Liangjiahe to visit families door to door, bringing financial assistance to elderly villagers and school supplies for children. Later, while serving as a senior provincial official in Fujian Province, he arranged and personally paid for medical treatment for a seriously ill farmer from Liangjiahe.

When Xi revisited Liangjiahe in 2015, he recognized many of the villagers he had worked alongside decades earlier. Greeting them by name, he reminisced about their shared experiences and said that although he had left the village, he had left his heart there.

Since becoming the general secretary of the CPC Central Committee in 2012, he has overseen a nationwide campaign that declared victory over absolute poverty, lifting nearly 100 million people out of poverty. China's per capita disposable income rose from around 16,510 yuan in 2012 to 43,377 yuan in 2025, according to official data. Improving people's livelihoods has remained central to the Party's governance philosophy. 

Those achievements reflect the governance philosophy that Xi originated during his early years in Liangjiahe – the original aspiration and founding mission of Chinese Communists is to seek happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation.

The approach has also informed China's engagement with the wider world. China has expanded exchanges with political parties from different countries and promoted a path of peaceful development aimed at strengthening mutual trust and safeguarding regional and global stability.

China has also advanced initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative and the Global Development Initiative, presenting them as platforms for shared growth and improved global governance. The initiatives are rooted in the vision of building a community with a shared future for humanity and are intended to provide Chinese solutions to common development challenges.

The country's experience in poverty reduction has become part of that message. Having achieved the poverty reduction goals of the UN's 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development a decade ahead of schedule, China has stepped up cooperation with developing countries and shared its development experience through bilateral programs and party-to-party exchanges.