Xi gets update on Sichuan cliff village

At the ongoing two sessions, President Xi Jinping asked about again the life of villagers in Atule'er, perched on an 800-meter-high cliff in Southwest China's Sichuan Province.

President Xi Jinping visits political advisors at the fifth session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on March 6, 2022.

When Xi visited national agriculture, welfare and social security advisors at the fifth session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) on Sunday, CPPCC member Yeshe Dawa of the Sichuan Province Department of Civil Affairs showed him two photos of the village. Xi studied the photos.

CPPCC member Yeshe Dawa of the Sichuan Province Deaprtment of Civil Affairs shows President Xi two photos of the cliff village during the meeting.

Yeshe Dawa said he had updated news about the village, which is located on Daliang Mountain.

He explained that one photo was of the rattan ladders that once hung precariously from steep cliffs. The other was a steel ladder replacement.

Xi remembered the village.

"Have all the villagers come down?" Xi said. "The children going to school and the elderly who need to go to the doctor are living down the mountain?"

President Xi Jinping visits political advisors at the fifth session of the 13th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference on March 6, 2022. (Photos: Xinhua)

Some chose to move and some to stay, Yeshe Dawa answered. Tourism has developed in the village and life is getting better and better, he said.

When visiting the delegation of Sichuan lawmakers during the two sessions in 2017, Xi said he felt "pretty worried" when reading reports that the cliff villagers were coming and going via a rattan ladder.

"When it comes to the well-being of the public, there is no such thing as a trivial matter," Xi said at Sunday's joint group meeting. "We must give extra attention and care to the people in difficulty to help them solve problems," he said.

The comparison of two photos shows the change from a ratten ladder from the steep cliffs to a steel radder replacement in Zhaojue county, Sichuan's Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture.

Atule'er was widely reported on in 2016, because its only route to the outside world was a 2-hour trek via a zigzag rattan ladder.

In 2017, a handrail-equipped steel ladder was built with government funding, making the trek easier and safer.

In a resettlement program funded by the government in 2020, all 84 households in poverty from the village in Zhaojue county, Sichuan's Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, moved to new houses in the county town.

A couple takes photo outside their house on the cliff before moving to new home on May 23, 2020.

But the village was not abandoned. Instead, it has become a tourism spot and income source for the villagers as its agriculture and tourism have been developed with government support.

The couple takes a photo in their new house on May 13, 2020.

(Translated by Zhang Liyang, edited by Sun Tianren and Huang Jingjing)