Xi leads efforts toward building Healthy China

Comprehensive lifecycle health

Xi has also expressed deep concern over the growing prevalence of myopia among students, particularly at younger ages.

The trend, he has said, seriously affects children's health and poses a major issue for the future of the country, and it must be given high priority and not allowed to continue unchecked.

With strengthened efforts to prevent and control myopia among children and adolescents, China's overall student myopia rate declined for five consecutive years from 2021 to 2025, reaching 49.9 percent in 2025, down 3.7 percentage points from 2018.

From enabling older people to enjoy their later years to preventing childhood obesity and myopia, Xi has stressed the importance of safeguarding health across all population groups and throughout the entire lifecycle.

A range of health indicators point to improvements in the country's overall health status.

In 2025, China's average life expectancy rose to 79.25 years, while its major health indicators remained at the leading position among upper-middle-income countries and countries with a population exceeding 100 million. The premature mortality rate from major chronic diseases fell to 13.8 percent, and major infectious diseases and endemic diseases were brought under effective control.

China aims to establish a health system by 2035 that is compatible with a society that has basically achieved modernization.

Xi has emphasized the translation of scientific and technological innovations into practical applications, called for advancing the digital and intelligent development of healthcare nationwide, and encouraged regions with suitable conditions to explore the application of artificial intelligence.

This year, the government work report included biomedicine as an emerging pillar industry for the first time.

In the first half of 2026 alone, China approved 38 innovative drugs for market entry.

China is developing a growing range of homegrown drugs, medical equipment, vaccines, medical consumables and approaches to diagnosis and treatment.

Traditional Chinese medicine is a distinctive component of China's healthcare system. Xi has issued important instructions on multiple occasions, calling for the sector's industrial development and modernization, as well as wider international reach.

China has also continued to deepen health cooperation with countries around the world by promoting the use of artemisinin to benefit patients worldwide, regularly deploying medical teams abroad, establishing overseas traditional Chinese medicine centers, and joining efforts to combat Ebola. Through these efforts, it has worked with other countries to address cross-border public health risks.

Yet as China's economy and society evolve and its demographic landscape changes, people's healthcare needs are becoming increasingly multi-layered and diverse.

"At present and for a period to come, China's health and healthcare work needs to adapt to changing circumstances and refine certain specific policies and measures. However, the path of health and healthcare development with Chinese characteristics must not waver," Xi said.