Foreign news

The Key Xi Jinping Learned From His Father

Published

3 years ago

May 25, 2022

“There are many noble characters I wish to inherit from my father,” Xi Jinping, then governor of east China’s Fujian Province, said in a letter of felicitation to his father Xi Zhongxun on his birthday in 2001.

Xi Zhongxun was among the first generation of the Communist Party of China (CPC) central leaders. Xi Jinping often recalls the wisdom imparted to him by the elder Xi.

The term “the people” is at the heart of all the treasures Xi Jinping got from his father.

THE MAN OF THE PEOPLE

“My grandfather was a farmer, my father joined the revolution as a farmer, and I myself worked as a farmer for seven years,” Xi Jinping once said.

During the period of the agrarian revolution, Xi Zhongxun, less than 20 years old, devoted himself to the establishment of Shaanxi-Gansu revolutionary border area. He used to say that “without the support of the masses, there would be nothing for us.”

Xi Jinping visited Liangjiahe, a small village in northwest China’s Shaanxi Province, in mid-February to celebrate the Spring Festival in 2015. It was a homecoming for the urban-born Chinese president.

Fifty-three years back, Xi, just shy of turning 16, was sent to live in Liangjiahe as an “educated youth.”

He would spend the next seven of his most formative years living in that rural hamlet. That area, part of the Loess Plateau, was where the communist revolutionaries, including his father, rose to found New China.

“At that time, I did all kinds of work – reclaiming wasteland, farming, hoeing, herding, hauling coal, mounding and carrying manure,” Xi recalled.

“As a servant of the people, I have my roots deep in the northern Shaanxi plateau because it cultivated my unchanging mission: to do practical things for the people,” Xi wrote in an autobiographical work. “Wherever I go, I will always be a son of the loess lands,” he wrote.

The man for the people

Xi Zhongxun once told his boy: “No matter what your job title is, serve the people diligently, consider the interests of the people with all your heart, maintain close ties with the people, and always stay approachable to the people.”

From his early years, Xi Jinping seemed uninterested in the trappings of offices. He would travel for days, sometimes into the mountains, to talk with people at the grassroots, learn about their difficulties, and help solve their problems.

In the 1980s, when many of his contemporaries were going into business or leaving to study abroad, Xi gave up his comfortable office job in Beijing and chose to work as the deputy Party chief of a small county in north China’s Hebei Province. Later, he became the Party chief of Ningde Prefecture, one of the poorest regions in east China’s Fujian Province at the time.

While in Ningde, Xi visited almost all its townships, including three of the four without access to paved roads. Xiadang, a township nestled deep in the mountainous area of Shouning County, was one of them. Back then, the average annual per capita net income of farmers in Xiadang was less than 200 yuan (about $40). It was one of the poorest townships in Fujian.

In November 2013, during an inspection tour to the central province of Hunan, Xi visited Shibadong, an ethnic Miao village labeled “poor” at the time.

“What should I call you?” asked villager Shi Basan as she welcomed Xi into her home. “I am a servant of the people,” Xi introduced himself.

During his about five decades in politics, Xi rose from a grassroots Party chief to the leader of the CPC, from an ordinary citizen to the country’s president, from an average military officer to the Central Military Commission chairman, all the while remaining committed to a better life for Chinese citizens.

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Foreign news

French Envoy Seeks Collaboration With NAN To Boost Seamless Relationship

Published

1 month ago

February 5, 2025

The Gleamer

The new French envoy to Nigeria, Marc Fonbaustier, on Wednesday called for collaboration with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) toward strengthening the mutually beneficial relationship between the two countries.

Fonbaustier, who is the French ambassador to Nigeria and the ECOWAS, made the call when he paid a courtesy visit to Malam Ali Muhammad Ali, NAN’s Managing Director, in Abuja.
The ambassador said that his purpose of visiting was to pay tribute to the MD, and to seek collaboration in three areas with a view to promoting stronger, seamless and fruitful partnership between both countries.

He added that Nigeria and its people were hospitable, especially to the foreigners and ambassadors alike.

He added that Nigeria was a country with so much energy, strength, stamina and so many talents.

In Nigeria, with the population of this size, it is inevitable that the elites of the country are very outstanding, “and there may be a Franco/Nigeria moments now”, he jokes.

According to him, France and Nigeria can collaborate more and learn from each other.
“I could feel it particularly during the state visit of President Bola Tinubu which took place in November 2024.

“I was there and I could see the intensity, the strength and the scope of the partnership, and I am here to scale up that partnership in all sectors.

“I am coming here for three reasons, first, to pay a tribute to the NAN MD and his team for the quality of this agency. We can testify that the contents that you publish are very factual, and also very well set up and structured.

“You do fact checking and you really do try to provide the community with quality information. I think, as a French ambassador, I can recognise that as part of a living democracy,” he said.

The French ambassador said the second reason for the visit was to intimate the NAN MD of France’s eagerness to go on partnership with NAN saying he hoped for assurance of a seamless, fluid and easy relationship.

He said that his third reason stemmed from his observation that NAN recently signed some partnership framework agreements with Egypt and China, saying “it may be time to think of balancing this partnership with others”.

“Especially with French, and to talk with Agence France-Presse (AFP) to see if there’s ground for a closer relationship between NAN and AFP.

“Which is also a recognised agency like yours, and I bet you the sky will be the limit to the collaboration, ’’he said.

Responding, the NAN MD informed the envoy that the agency was African’s biggest news content provider on account of its size.

Ali gave the envoy a little details of the agency’s operation and its outreach, saying “as our continent’s biggest news content provider, we have offices nationwide and in selected African countries.

“We have offices in countries such as South Africa, Cote d’ivoire, Addis Ababa, and then we have offices also beyond the shores of Africa. We have in New York and we are the only resident wire service in the United Nations.

“At a time in the past, the agency had 11 foreign offices, including Moscow, and presently, we are trying to re-open some of our shut offices, especially in London.
“We value partnership and understanding that we have with similar news organisation such as Reuters and, incidentally, we have a long standing relationship with AFP which you just raised.
“I know for years we have exchange of news between NAN and AFP but it’s a cooperation that we will like to strengthen and with your greater involvement,’’ he said.

The MD commended the ambassador for reaching out and engaging with some Nigerians communities to douse the tension of the allegation made by the Nigeriens.

He also lauded the envoy’s leadership and visibility to Nigeria and the ECOWAS, “which has helped to douse the perception and misconceptions about France, especially in the Sahel”.
“I think you have helped to reverse some of this perceptions. I thank you for the kind words that you said about the agency and about our management.

“We also see partnership as an important tool in checking the spread of fake news.
“We’ve seen instances where fake news has done great deal of damage, and with the coming of social media it has done even greater damage.

“Our country is facing a lot of challenges, one of which is the increasing insecurity, and the social media has been used by those who do not want to see our country to prosper,” Ali said.
He further said that NAN was a credible news agency that always fact check to correct the wrong narratives by those who are in the business of causing troubles.

He also told the envoy that the agency has its content in the Nigerian indigenous languages, starting with Hausa and it would proceed to Yoruba and Igbo languages later, “then later in future to French.

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