Green, smart development

On Monday, Xi went to Yucun Village in the county of Anji, where he was greeted with applause and cheers of villagers thronging along the village roads to welcome his visit.

In 2005, it was in this mountainous village that Xi, then secretary of Zhejiang provincial committee of the CPC, put forward the concept that "lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets."

Yucun has adhered to that concept and pursued green development for the past 15 years.

Revisiting the village, Xi said economic development should not be achieved at the expense of the ecological environment.

To protect the ecological environment is to develop the productive forces, Xi said.

He stressed the equal importance of urban and rural modernization.

Leaving the village, Xi went to Anji's mediation center to learn about how primary-level social disputes are resolved.

Xi stressed adopting diversified methods to prevent, mediate and resolve social disputes, for example through a mechanism where people file their complaints and Party members and officials can reach out to them more effectively.

On Tuesday, Xi visited the Xixi National Wetland Park in the provincial capital of Hangzhou. Along the way, Xi was greeted by people touring the park, and he waved back to express his regards.

Stopping by vendor booths that make Hangzhou's well-known Longjing tea and sell local signature cultural products, Xi encouraged the vendors to inherit and develop traditional handicrafts and other forms of intangible cultural heritage.

He asked Hangzhou to better lay out production, residence and environmental functions in urban planning to create a residents-friendly city where humans and nature coexist and thrive in harmony.

Xi then visited the City Brain, a smart city platform aiming to improve urban management, and learned how Hangzhou uses the technology to ease traffic congestions, manage the city and fight the COVID-19 epidemic.

Advancing the modernization of China's system and capacity for governance requires stepping up modernizing the system and capacity for urban management, Xi said.

Xi stressed utilizing big data, cloud computing, blockchain, artificial intelligence and other cutting-edge technologies to innovate in the methods, models and visions of urban management and to make cities "smarter."