In pictures: 10 top moments of President Xi in 2020

The year 2020 was an extraordinary year for China. In the face of the sudden onslaught of COVID-19, the world’s most serious pandemic in a century, the Chinese people, under the leadership of President Xi Jinping, united as one and made impressive achievements in containing the virus and bringing production and life back to normal.

In 2020, in addition to chairing and attending meetings and symposiums, Xi set foot on 13 provincial-level regions, learning about the resumption of grass-roots work and making instructions and arrangements.

To look back on the moments of Xi, we have picked 10 pictures and the corresponding remarks he made on the occasion.

This is a picture taken on January 19, six days ahead of Chinese new year, when Xi visited a village of the Wa ethnic group to extend his greetings to the villagers in Qingshui Township of the city of Tengchong, Southwest China's Yunnan Province.

President Xi inspects the Beijing Ditan Hospital, a designated institution treating the COVID-19, on February 10, 2020. Via a video link to hospitals in Wuhan receiving patients with severe conditions, he heard reports from the central guiding team in Hubei Province and the provincial headquarters on the prevention and control of the epidemic, and extended regards to medical workers on the frontline.

President Xi waves to residents who are quarantined at home and sends regards to them at a community in Wuhan, once the hardest-hit city, on March 10, 2020. The inspection to Wuhan, Central China’s Hubei Province, took the president to a hospital treating severely ill COVID-19 patients and a residential community. He visited patients, medics, community residents and workers, police officers, military personnel, officials and volunteers who have been fighting the virus.

President Xi inspects ecological preservation of the Qinling Mountains in Niubeiliang National Nature Reserve in Zhashui County, Shangluo City, Northwest China's Shaanxi Province, April 20, 2020. He urged local officials to be guardians of the ecological environment of the Qinling Mountains.

President Xi learns about grain production, the protection and use of black soil at a demonstration zone for green food production in Lishu County of Siping City, Northeast China's Jilin Province, July 22, 2020.

President Xi learns about local measures for flood control, disaster relief and post-flood production recovery at a "zhuangtai," a residential structure on raised ground with higher elevation that functions as a safe haven from river floods, in Funan County in Fuyang, East China's Anhui Province, August 18, 2020.

President Xi addresses the Global Trade in Services Summit of the 2020 China International Fair for Trade in Services (CIFTIS) via video on September 4, 2020. He said China will stay committed to further opening up, with measures including the establishment of a sound negative list management system in cross-border service trade, and the advancement of constructing open platforms for piloting innovative development of trade in services.

President Xi presents the Medal of the Republic to Zhong Nanshan during a meeting commending role models in the country's fight against the COVID-19 epidemic at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, capital of China, September 8, 2020. In the speech he delivered at the meeting, he summarized the features of China's spirit in combating the COVID-19 epidemic as -- putting people's lives first, nationwide solidarity, sacrifice, respecting science and a sense of mission for humanity.

President Xi visits a primary school in Rucheng County, Central China's Hunan Province, September 16, 2020. He encouraged the students to study hard, thrive and become the "towering trees" of the Chinese nation.

President Xi interacts with a child while visiting a street lined with ancient memorial archways in Chaozhou, South China's Guangdong Province, October 12, 2020. During the tour, he checked the restoration and protection of cultural relics, the inheritance of intangible cultural heritage and the development of cultural and tourism resources. (Photos: Xinhua)

(Produced by Huang Jingjing, Zhao Dantong and He Jiabao)