Xi Jinping tours Guangzhou after highlighting wealth gap on visit to poorer areas
- President’s visit to Guangdong continues, having taken in its impoverished districts in show of commitment to one of his signature goals
- Xi calls on grass-roots party officials to speed up modernisation while boosting rural economic development and infrastructure
Chinese President Xi Jinping visited Guangzhou on Wednesday afternoon on the fourth leg of his much-anticipated trip south ahead of the 40th anniversary of the country’s reform and opening up.
After attending the opening of the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge on Tuesday, Xi also visited Guangdong province’s impoverished backwaters, pledging that “no one would be left behind” in his poverty alleviation campaign.
State television reported that Xi had visited an old district of Guangzhou, the provincial capital, and asked about cultural heritage protection works.
A motorcade believed to be that of Xi also visited the campus of Jinan University in Guangzhou in late afternoon, according to a South China Morning Post reporter at the scene. The campus had been under heavy security since the morning.
Earlier on Wednesday, the president was in the tech hub of Shenzhen, where he visited an exhibition commemorating Guangdong’s pioneering part in the reforms, in which Xi’s late father Xi Zhongxun played an early steering role.
