Visits highlight Xi's close ties with the people

China's ethnic minority groups are another focus of Xi's festive trips.

The president sat down with herdsmen from the Mongolian ethnic group in a traditional yurt during a trip to Inner Mongolia in 2014. He also sat by the fireplace with villagers from the Yi ethnic group as he toured Sichuan province in 2018, and he made some traditional food of the Wa ethnic group in Yunnan days before the Spring Festival in 2020.

During the trips, he vowed that the nation would leave no one and no ethnic group behind in its poverty alleviation drive — a campaign that eventually lifted all of China's impoverished population, including 31.21 million poor people living in ethnic minority regions, out of absolute poverty by the end of 2020.

Greater ethnic unity and stronger efforts to pass down the cultural heritage of ethnic groups are also among the key messages conveyed by the president during his inspection tours.

Xi's tours have advocated greater ethnic unity and pushed forward the development of regions predominantly inhabited by ethnic minority groups, said Han. "Ensuring ethnic unity is key part of efforts to safeguard the nation's fundamental interests. Trips by the president to ethnic minority regions help the nation develop better ethnic policies and expedite the growth of the regions."

Xi's visit to Huawu, a village of the Miao ethnic group in Qianxi, Guizhou province, ahead of the Lunar New Year in 2021 has profoundly reshaped the lives of Yang Wenli and her fellow villagers.

Yang said the village was only connected to the outside world by road in 2008. Before that, no vehicle had ever arrived in the village.

During Xi's visit to Huawu, Yang briefed the president on the traditional folk art in her workshop, including the traditional clothing of the ethnic group and her products."The president said the splendor of the art was produced stitch by stitch. He tried to give us greater confidence in our own culture and what we were doing," Yang said.

Xi told Yang and her fellow workers that ethnic folk arts can win global popularity, and greater efforts must be made to carry forward and develop traditional folk culture.

"It was the most fortunate and the happiest moment of my life," Yang said while recalling the visit.

Xi's visit has given greater publicity to Miao embroidery and the products from Yang's workshop, which now employs 22 villagers.

Yang and her employees have now taken to livestreaming platforms to promote their Miao embroidery, and the workshop can generate an average sales volume of 80,000 yuan ($11,900) for each online event.

"I never realized there was so much value in what I was doing before I met the president. In the future, I want to take our handmade products to the global market," she said.