SATV, Kathmandu, May. 31 - Chinese President Xi Jinping has always made time to join educational and social activities with children.

For more than a decade, Xi has worked side by side with young students in the annual voluntary tree-planting activities in Beijing – swinging the shovel to dig and turn the soil, building up earth around saplings, and carrying water for irrigation.

While giving special instructions regarding the activities once, Xi said that children are naturally lively, and it doesn't matter if they play while planting trees. "What matters most is nurturing in them a love for labor and an awareness of protecting the environment," he noted.

During these activities, Xi often inquires about the children's studies and interests, asking them, for example, if they know what kind of trees they're planting or what sports they usually play.

When he noticed the children struggling with the work, he would patiently guide them, teaching them how to hold a shovel, carry a bucket, and mound the soil properly around the roots.

While joining a tree-planting activity in Beijing's Changping District in March this year, Xi said that young people, like saplings, are full of vitality and hope. He encouraged them to set ambitious goals from an early age, love knowledge, labor and nature, and strive for well-rounded development with sound moral grounding, intellectual ability, physical vigor, aesthetic sensibility and work skills.

At one planting site, Xi told the children, "Ten or twenty years from now, you can come back here and see how the saplings you planted with your own hands have grown. That is something truly meaningful."

"When you yourselves become parents, you should encourage your children and grandchildren to continue planting trees, generation after generation. That is how a beautiful China is built."

These heartfelt words planted seeds of green development in the hearts of the children.

For Xi, planting trees is not only about growing forests, but also about cultivating people.

During one tree-planting activity, as he and members of Young Pioneers, a Chinese youth organization, carried buckets to water the newly-planted saplings, Xi said: "We are watering these saplings together, but in fact, we are also watering you. This is what cultivation means – nurturing the younger generation."

In the spring of 2021, after a tree-planting activity had concluded, Xi underscored China's goal to build a great modern socialist country with Chinese characteristics by the middle of the century. "You have 30 years to go. Now you are 10 years old, and you will be 40 at that time. You will become the pillars of the country."

During an inspection tour in September 2020, Xi entered a classroom of fourth-graders at a primary school in central China's Hunan Province.

"You are like small saplings. Now we water you, cultivate you, and take care of you when the wind and rain come. You will finally grow into towering trees and thrive, and become the forest of the Chinese nation and the forest of talent," Xi said to the rural students.

For decades, China has been providing unprecedented care to children and youth, from ensuring equal access to education and sending teachers to impoverished mountain villages to investing in facility upgrades in rural areas.

Supported by laws, including the Law on the Protection of Minors and the Law on Compulsory Education, the country has built an all-round protection system covering family, school, society and the judiciary, laying a solid legal foundation for children's growth.

To achieve all-round development, China advocates holistic education focusing on morality, intelligence, physical fitness, aesthetics and labor education. The country eases excessive academic pressure, enriches sports and art courses, and encourages children to engage in social practice. In addition, the country strengthens online protection for minors, improves psychological counseling services in schools, and offers targeted welfare support for vulnerable children.