Undated photo shows General Secretary of the Communist Party of China (CPC) Central Committee Hu Jintao (R), who is also Chinese President and Chairman of the Central Military Commission, chats with a villager during his visit to Hougoumen Village of Yanhewan Town in Ansai County of Yan'an City, northwest China's Shaanxi Province. Leaders of the CPC have visited nine places in the country to find out how well the Party members, officials and common citizens were learning and implementing Scientific Outlook on Development. It is considered an important guiding principle for China's economic and social development. [Xinhua]

President Hu Jintao recently made a site tour in Ansai County, Shaanxi Province, to publicize a campaign for the Scientific Concept of Development.

It's an ideology with the same principles of the previous Party leaders' theories known as Mao Zedong Thought, Deng Xiaoping Theory and the Important Thought of "Three Represents". The theories all say the CPC has always represented the most advanced productivity and culture in China, as well as the most fundamental interests of the majority of the Chinese people.

During his tour, which took place October 29-31, Hu explained the Scientific Concept of Development which was adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the Seventeenth CPC Central Committee.

While talking with villagers in Hougoumen, Ansai County, Hu said the new policies, based on a practice of the Scientific Concept of Development,will bring substantial benefits to farmers by allowing them to lease their rights to contract cultivated land and forests.

In the past, villagers were not allowed to lease their rights and as a result, their land was left unattended when they went to cities as transient workers.

"I believe that with the good policies of the Party and the hard efforts by the villagers, you will lead a better life in the future," said Hu, who is also the general secretary of the CPC and chairman of the Central Military Commission.

This is his second visit to Hougoumen Village. On the eve of the traditional Chinese Lunar New Year in 2006, Hu spent the festival night with villagers, having meals and joining in festive activities including a traditional dance.

Ansai, a county subordinate to Yan'an City, is Hu's site for the on-the-spot study of the ideological drive. Yan'an served as the capital for the CPC-led revolutionary base during the 1930s-40s, before the Party took over the power in 1949.

During his stay in Hougoumen this Oct., Hu learned about new progress made by the leadership of the village's Party branch. The villagers have had their income remarkably increased and their living standards much improved, Hu was told.

The village insisted on a Party Member Promise System. All the village cadres and applicants for Party membership are required to make the promise, according to Yang Fengqi, head of the village's Party branch.

Hu called the Party Member Promise System a good way to help Party members and cadres display their exemplary role.

"We must do what we have promised to do by actions," he stressed.

Hu visited a class of the local elementary school and talked with Kang Haifa, a villager whose family spent the 2006 Lunar New Year's eve with the leader at their cave house. Hu encouraged Kang, an agricultural technician, to help villagers with his skills on vegetable planting.

While in Ansai, the leader also visited Longshitou and Fangta villages and a rural hospital in Jianhua Town.

Showing concern for the heath care of rural people, Hu said the recent Third Plenary Session of the 17th CPC Central Committee decided to form a three-level medical network in the countryside. He said a health center will be set up and perfected for each town or township.

During his tour, Hu also visited the county government's complaints reception bureau and talked with officials about rural people's concerns. The officials told him that local villagers mainly cared lawsuits, land confiscation, reclamation of cultivated land to forests and contracting rights for farmland.

In meeting with the leader, local officials and villagers informed Hu of current reform of the managerial rights in the tree-planting sector. Now with the new policy, local people are working diligently to manage the forest while protecting the environment and ecology.

Hu urged local people to plant more trees in Ansai as it is located on the Loess Plateau, which is vulnerable to ecological damage.

At the end of his study trip, the top leader hosted a gathering to hear reports by some local officials who pledged to promote economic development by relying on science and technological progress.

In a key-note speech, Hu called for deepening awareness of the ideological drive, correctly understanding the general demands of the Party Central Committee and further promoting the implementation of the Scientific Concept of Development.

(Xinhua News Agency November 18, 2008)