HANGZHOU, June 4 (Xinhua) -- As China works to narrow the development gap between cities and the countryside, the transformation of Jiaxing City in eastern Zhejiang Province is reflected in something as ordinary as a bus ride.

One spring afternoon in 2004, Xi Jinping, then secretary of Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), stepped onto a bus in downtown Jiaxing and rode more than 20 kilometers to the rural end of the route.

Xi wanted to see for himself how the city's new urban-rural bus service was faring. Launched in 2003, it was among the earliest bus lines in Zhejiang -- and even in China -- to directly link the city with the countryside.

During the journey, Xi struck up a conversation with conductor Jin Lijun, asking about changes since the route opened.

"Now, farmers can travel into the city much more easily," said Jin.

This bus route winds its way to Sanxing Village, a well-known peach-growing area. In the past, farmers took their harvests only as far as the township market to sell. The new bus line carried them straight into the city, where their peaches could fetch higher prices.

Xi also invited passengers to share their views on the service -- what still needed improvement and what they hoped to see next. The bus came alive with conversation.

After getting off the bus, Xi spoke with nearby villagers and listened to their views on urban-rural integration. They talked enthusiastically about the changes the new service had brought to their daily lives.

Such scenes reflected an approach Xi had long emphasized throughout his political career: pursuing projects that genuinely benefit the public and shaping policies by listening directly to the people they affect.

Among the concerns raised during the bus tour was a request for traffic lights at an intersection of a highway and a township road. Xi immediately instructed local authorities to look into the matter.

The 40-minute ride also gave him a firsthand look at infrastructure bottlenecks. Xi suggested widening a narrow road to improve accessibility and facilitate more convenient travel between urban and rural areas.

By then, Jiaxing had already opened 36 such bus routes linking 30 townships and 238 administrative villages -- part of the efforts to close the urban-rural divide that had emerged alongside China's rapid economic development.

When Xi began working in Zhejiang in late 2002, he spent months traveling across the province to understand its realities on the ground. During visits to villages, he spoke with grassroots officials and farmers, guided by a central question: how could Zhejiang's over 30 million rural residents share more fully in the benefits of growth?

In July 2003, Xi unveiled a development strategy that made coordinated urban-rural development and deeper integration between city and countryside a long-term priority for Zhejiang. Integrated bus services in Jiaxing were among the first initiatives.

A bus route generated no headline-grabbing economic statistics, yet it quietly transformed daily lives for thousands of residents. In Xi's view, addressing people's everyday concerns is what constitutes meaningful public service and a genuine measure of governance achievement.

"Tackling problems in economic development is an achievement, and so is addressing people's livelihood concerns," Xi said in a 2004 speech at the provincial Party School on the question of what it means to perform well -- remarks that challenged the long-standing tendency to equate official performance solely with GDP growth.

For Xi, pursuing achievements that genuinely benefit the people has long been rooted in his identity as a CPC member. As he has said, the Party was born for the people and has prospered because of the people. "Serving the people wholeheartedly is the ultimate purpose of our Party's actions and what distinguishes the CPC from all others," he noted.

That conviction took shape in Xi's early years. More than half a century ago, while working in a poor rural area of northwest China, he led villagers in digging wells, building terraced fields and installing biogas pits to improve daily life. It was the first chapter in a political journey that would later take him through various levels of governance before eventually reaching China's top leadership -- with striving to improve people's lives remaining a consistent thread throughout.

In November 2012, after being elected general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, Xi told journalists from China and abroad: "The Chinese people's aspiration for a better life is the goal we must strive for."

Over the past two decades, Zhejiang has steadily moved toward the goals Xi laid out during his time in the province. It is now among China's most balanced regions in terms of the urban-rural income gap, with the ratio narrowing from 2.43:1 in 2003 to 1.81:1 in 2025. Part of that shift has come from the rise of rural industries with local features.

Public services have also spread deeper into rural areas. Zhejiang is one of the first provinces to provide passenger bus access to every administrative village. Today, integrated urban-rural bus networks cover more than 90 percent of the province. Basic public services in other areas have also improved, leading to more equitable and balanced access to high-quality services for both urban and rural residents.

In Jiaxing, the bus route Xi took is still in service, but the landscape along the route has quietly changed. Buses once crowded with farmers are now also carrying urban visitors heading to the countryside for fruit-picking trips, camping, or music festivals.

Jin, the conductor, is now a ride-hailing driver. "I go back and forth between the city and the countryside every day," Jin said. "You can really feel the gap narrowing year by year."

As China kicks off its 15th Five-Year Plan period (2026-2030) and enters the final decade toward its 2035 goal of basically achieving modernization, officials' understanding of performance has come under renewed scrutiny, seen as central to delivering on long-term development targets.

"Leading officials at all levels now are full of enthusiasm and drive -- which is a good thing. But what matters most is that understanding of what counts as good performance must be correct," Xi said during a February inspection trip in Beijing.

Later that month, the CPC initiated a Party-wide study campaign, urging members -- especially officials at the county level and above -- to establish and practice a correct understanding of governance performance, which prioritizes people's well-being and values long-term, tangible results that may not be immediately visible, yet delivered through sound decision-making and concrete actions.

In March, Xi returned to the theme during a group deliberation with national lawmakers. "Party officials and members should be guided to work diligently," he said, "and to deliver results that stand up in practice, in the eyes of the people, and over the course of time." ■