What they say

Editor's Note: Ahead of the July 1 centenary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Committee invited five Party officials who work in villages to share their stories of leading and helping people out of poverty at a media briefing in Beijing on Friday.

Shaking off poverty has long been a dream to us Chinese, and it's been my great honor to witness the success. I'd never lived in the countryside before I took the job of the village's Party secretary in 2012. I still keep my mother's words in mind. She told me: "Once you've made the choice, you should do something beneficial for the villagers in good faith. Never dawdle through the days or the villagers will blame you when you leave the post." The villagers may have had mistaken misgivings about my ability at the very beginning, but they've gradually accepted me. I'm very pleased that the village has developed in quite a healthy way all these years.

Liu Shuangyan, 44, Party secretary of Zhuji village, Bozhou, Anhui province

We villagers used to live a very poor life without a road connecting us to the outside world. But we are tenacious, and vowed to build a way to the outside world and prosperity. I still remember at the very beginning, when we started to build the road (around 1997), we only had 4,000 yuan, with another 20,000 yuan I borrowed from the bank. Sadly, two young villagers lost their lives during work on the road in the next two years. Thankfully, we pulled through the hard times and built an 8-kilometer road along the precipice over the course of seven years. The villagers emerged from poverty in 2015 and we now live quite a good life by producing oranges, watermelons and peaches.

Mao Xianglin, 62, Party secretary of Xiazhuang village, Wushan county, Chongqing

The village we live in is a place the Red Army passed through during the Long March, leaving us with a spirit of perseverance and unity. The villagers, about 80 percent of whom are members of the Tibetan ethnic group, used to grow potatoes and wheat and lived a very hard life. But I started to encourage them to grow roses when I was elected as the village's Party secretary in 2010.We had roses all over the mountainside but used to ignore them. Now we have the nation's biggest base producing plateau roses, with 20,000 workers growing roses. We used to have to entreat the villagers to grow roses but they are highly motivated now as cultivating roses has brought them a good life. We now produce more than 20 rose products and have developed the village into an attraction featuring beautiful roses. I'm confident we can make our roses the best in the industry in the future.

Chen Wanghui, 47, Party secretary of Maoshui village, Aba Tibetan and Qiang autonomous prefecture, Sichuan province

I still remember that when I first went to Haiga village (around 2010), there was no one there who knew how to use a computer and the roads were dirt paths. I then tried to persuade the villagers to build new roads to improve the traffic but failed at the beginning. We didn't have enough money to hire professional construction teams, so we did it by ourselves. We finally received understanding and help from the villagers. Now we have also developed agricultural products and rural homestays to secure better lives for the villagers. Though we young Party members didn't go through tough periods of war like our predecessors, we've joined the fight against the novel coronavirus and poverty, proving that we young people can also shoulder social responsibility.

Yang Bo, 39, Party secretary of Haiga village, Liupanshui, Guizhou province

My colleagues and I encountered great difficulties persuading the villagers to relocate their homes. They didn't want to make a new start even though they lived poor lives at the time. I then gave them promises and 10,000 yuan, vowing that if they didn't live better lives after relocating their homes, I would repay all the money they spent. Thankfully, the villagers now have improved their lives by developing a cattle and sheep breeding industry at their new homes, and some have even bought cars. Many of my friends said I was silly, but I'm very proud that my efforts were not in vain and I'm very happy to see the villagers now have better lives.

Hu Zhongshan, Party secretary of Huanghuatan cooperative in Gulang county, Gansu province