LEADING BY EXAMPLE

Four years ago, when Xie Wanju, a military veteran, was selected to head the poverty alleviation work in Zhadong, a mountainous village in Hechi, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in south China, he was reluctant. The job came with a lot of pressure and would leave him little time for his family. Though he finally accepted his new position—First Secretary of the Communist Party of China Zhadong Village Branch—all he wanted was the two-year term to come to an end as soon as possible, even before he had gone there.

But when he finally reached. “I had to clamber up using my hands as well. The house was dilapidated, like the other houses in the village, and couldn’t keep the rain and wind out. In their cooking pot there was nothing but corn and wild roots.”