High-tech leap to better serve the people

"To meet the people's desire for a happy life is our mission," said the report General Secretary Xi Jinping presented to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China on Wednesday. In fact, his report mentioned the phrase "a better life" 14 times.

Xi also said the leadership will expedite the process of developing China into an innovative country, and strengthen basic scientific and technological research and development so as to make breakthroughs in key technologies. China's remarkable technological innovations and the great improvement in people's living standards over the past five years show that Xi's statement is of historic importance.

In more sense than one, technological innovations in China have helped improve people's lives and livelihoods. For example, a hybrid rice strain has achieved a world record annual yield of 17.2 metric tons per hectare in North China's Hebei province. The new hybrid strain, called Xiangliangyou 900, is the result of the painstaking work by a team led by 87-year-old Yuan Longping who also developed the world's first hybrid strain in the 1970s, which increased rice yield many-fold and, to a great extent, helped solve China's food shortage problem.