Xi Story: Turning bitter water sweet

BEIJING -- It was on a spring day 29 years ago that a farmer in Xihaigu, one of China's driest and poorest regions in the northwest, was making anxious yet sincere preparations to host guests from afar.

For decades, Ding Guizhi's family, like others in the region, had relied on bitter rainwater collected and stored in cellars as their main source of drinking water. Worrying the visitors might not be accustomed to its unpleasant taste, she quietly added a spoonful of sugar into their tea, a small gesture she hoped would make her humble home more welcoming.

At the time, Ding was unaware that one of her guests was Xi Jinping, then deputy Party chief of Fujian province in east China and head of Fujian's leading group for paired assistance to Ningxia Hui autonomous region in the northwest.

The visit would later become a memorable anecdote from Xi's inaugural trip to Ningxia in that role. Over several days, he traveled extensively across the region to meet impoverished families face to face and grasp the realities of their living conditions.

The dire situation in local homes, with bare walls and bitter water, left Xi profoundly shaken, even though he had firsthand experience of rural poverty from his early years in the neighboring Shaanxi province.

"I was deeply shocked that, after so many years of China's reform and opening-up, there were still places so poor and so hard to live in," he later recalled.

A HUMBLE START

The visit prompted Xi to personally advance the paired assistance initiative between Fujian and Ningxia, as part of the country's east-west poverty alleviation collaboration program launched in 1996.

At the time, the economic gap between the two regions was stark: Fujian's GDP stood at 260 billion yuan (approximately 38.24 billion U.S. dollars), while Ningxia's was merely 20.29 billion yuan, roughly one-thirteenth that of its eastern partner.

Xihaigu, the main front line of Fujian's assistance to Ningxia, was labeled the "most unfit place for human settlement" by the United Nations in the 1970s due to drought and a fragile ecological environment.

Describing the cave home of a local family he had visited, Xi said: "There was no furniture, no bedding. Their sole 'asset' was a handful of black moss hanging overhead, which they sold for salt and other daily essentials."

Shortly after the trip, Xi facilitated the launch of a project to build wells and cellars for the locals, and a relocation program that moved some of the extremely poor from the deep mountains to irrigation areas along the Yellow River.

He also proposed building Minning village, with Minning literally meaning Fujian and Ningxia, as a resettlement site for Xihaigu residents, aspiring to turn it into a model of regional collaboration.

Back then, the village was little more than a stretch of Gobi desert battered by constant sandstorms. Without blackboards, students there wrote on the ground with sticks. The first settlers had to dig caves for shelter.

However, in his congratulatory letter on the village's foundation-laying ceremony, Xi envisioned great potential, saying: "Minning will become a golden shore in the future."

Thirty years on, this previously barren land has developed into a thriving town where 66,000 people live in modern villages with access to considerable infrastructure including a piped, safe water system. Notably, per capita annual income among relocated residents there has surpassed 20,000 yuan.

Specialty industries including wine, juncao — a grass used to grow edible mushrooms — beef cattle and mutton have flourished, earning Minning the title of a landmark case in China's poverty alleviation efforts.

In 2021, when China declared victory in its fight against absolute poverty in rural areas, Minning town was awarded a national prize in recognition of its sustained and exemplary anti-poverty efforts. Xi encouraged the locals to "remain consistent and achieve even more."

SUSTAINABLE GROWTH

Shortly after assuming office as general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee, Xi launched a nationwide campaign to eradicate extreme poverty. In eight years, China lifted nearly 100 million rural residents above the national poverty line. Then, he pivoted to a broader vision — pursuing common prosperity for all.

In poverty alleviation, Xi has consistently emphasized developing industries suited to local conditions.

During his tenure in Fujian, Xi invited Lin Zhanxi, the inventor of juncao, to introduce the drought-resistant crop to Xihaigu.

Today, juncao is thriving in this arid region, improving local livelihoods and fostering sustainable development.

Over the years, Fujian and Ningxia have advanced numerous joint initiatives, including growing fruit, channeling computing power demand from the east to the west, and cooperating across provinces on producing premium wines for the market.

In a recent example, sportswear manufacturer ERKE launched a production center in Minning town, among the thousands of Fujian businesses expanding their footprint in Ningxia. Once fully operational, the plant will provide 550 jobs to locals.

Li Yongjie, the plant manager, said that with regular training, workers can master new skills and avoid uprooting themselves to seek jobs far away.

In 2025, Ningxia's per capita GDP reached 78,000 yuan, nearly 19 times higher than in 1996, underlining a compelling story of success.

In 2016, Xi chaired a symposium on east-west collaboration in poverty alleviation, when he affirmed this as a long-term commitment.

Four years later, on the eve of the country's final victory over absolute poverty, he visited Ningxia again and urged sustaining poverty alleviation efforts to the very end.

At a conference held in Ningxia last month, Xi further instructed advancing regularized east-west cooperation, drawing on the experiences of the Fujian-Ningxia model and other successful practices.

In Xihaigu, a better life only began with solving the chronic water shortage, from hand-dug wells to cellars storing rainwater and eventually taps.

Ding Guizhi, the woman who hosted Xi 29 years ago, still recalls the old days when she had to hurriedly grab all kinds of containers available to collect rainwater. She now raises 15 heads of cattle, earning an annual income of more than 60,000 yuan. The family's improved livelihood has also helped support the education of the younger generation, with seven grandchildren of hers having attended university.

Now, sipping tea brewed with boiled tap water, she said: "The water tastes sweeter than ever!"