Rural revitalization strategy makes countryside more beautiful, modernized

Students walk past the newly-built flush toilet at a primary school in Zhijin County, southwest China's Guizhou Province, Oct. 23, 2018. In addition to education and healthcare, the Chinese government is also turning its attention to something equally important to rural areas: toilets. The world's second-largest economy is in the midst of a "toilet revolution," launched in 2015 to improve restrooms across the country. China has announced plans to install or renovate toilets for 10 million rural households in 30,000 villages this year. The fund allocation by the central government is expected to be 7 billion yuan (about 1.04 billion U.S. dollars). Toilet revolution is just part of a much grander rural revitalization strategy, first put forward during the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China in 2017 and repeatedly stressed by the Chinese leadership since then. The strategy aims at achieving the basic modernization of agriculture and rural areas by 2035, and the grand goal of a strong agriculture, a beautiful countryside and well-off farmers by 2050. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuwei)