President Bill Clinton and First Lady Hillary visited a village in northwest China's Shaanxi Province on the morning of June 26, and had a 40-minute discussion with local residents about the country's changes in the past two decades.

The village, Xiahe, is located on the outskirts of Xi'an, the capital city of Shaanxi and the first stop of Clinton's nine-day state visit to China.

The six Chinese participants at the discussion include local farmers, a primary school teacher, an entrepreneur and a university student. They briefed the Clintons on China's development based on their own experiences, and answered the presidential couple's questions.

The first speaker, a 20-year-old girl named Fang Fang now studying in the Xi'an Jiaotong University, talked about China's educational development and her campus life.

Yang Yiquan, a rural doctor at a village clinic, briefed them on China's efforts on health promotion and epidemic control in the rural areas.

Mrs. Clinton then asked Yang whether he has noticed that the health conditions for China's rural population are getting improved.

"This surely has happened as our living standards have kept improving and our physical labor been reduced," Yang replied.

The president also asked Yang what he considers poses the "biggest challenge" for China to improve the people's health conditions in the countryside.

"My decades-long work experience as a village doctor helps me to realize that it's essential to make greater efforts to maintain a clean environment, widely spread the knowledge on people's health, and focus on disease prevention," said the 53-year-old Yang.

"This is a very important issue," said Clinton, adding that economic development has brought about an ever-increasing pressure on the environmental protection.

The president said that China and the U.S. are facing the same challenge, and need to make joint efforts in the protection of the environment.

Meanwhile, Yao Lihua, the female manager of a local township enterprise that makes art handicrafts, recollected how she has turned into a successful entrepreneur from an ordinary farmer in the past two decades of China's reform and opening-up.

She also told the Clintons that she had personally sponsored a home for the needy elderlies in the village.


"China is expected to have more senior citizens in the 21st century," said Yao. "I want to display and carry forward the country's fine tradition of esteeming the elderly through establishing a home for the aged with my own efforts."

People living in Yao's home for the aged average 65 years in age, with the most elderly reaching 89.

"The problem of caring the old is the biggest issue in the world," said the president, citing the fact that the number of people aged above 85 years now surges most rapidly in the US.

All societies must make efforts to find an appropriate and decent way to resolve the problem of caring for the senior citizens, he urged.

Yang Dongyi, a self-employed businessman, said that as an old resident of Xiahe, he has personally experienced three major changes in the villagers' life since the founding of New China in 1949.

"Our living standards had greatly improved first after the national liberation (in 1949) and then in the early years of the reform and opening-up. In recent years, greater changes have taken place in our life," he noted.

The average yearly income for his three-member family has now surged to 30,000 yuan (3,600 US dollars) from mearly 100 yuan (about 12 US dollars) in 1982, Yang said.

However, he went on to acknowledge that there remains a wide gap between his family and other affluent households in the village.

"The gap will be wider still if our incomes are compared with those of the farmers in the coastal regions or of the people in the US. So we need to work harder still," said Yang, now 56.

Xiahe has been cited as one of the "model well-to-do villages" in Shaanxi.

Describing China's rapid economic growth in the past two decades as an "amazing" thing, President Clinton inquired of what has contributed to the sharp increase of the villagers' incomes.

"It's mainly because the government has adopted a good policy, which has helped emancipate the productive force and given us the freedom to do what we are good at," Yang replied.

Apart from farming, many of his fellow villagers are doing business or running enterprises, he told the Clintons.

Liu Lan, a 28-year-old woman teacher with the Xi'an Experimental Primary School, explained to Clinton on the situation in China's education.

"Since the reform and opening-up policies were adopted in the late 1970s, the enrollment rate of children eligible for schooling has greatly increased," she said.

"China is now enforcing a nine-year compulsory education system, which effectively safeguards the healthy growth of our young, and education is the focus of attention of people from all walks of life," she said.

Clinton asked about the proportion of women teachers to men teachers in primary schools in China. And she replied that women account for 70 percent of the total.

Clinton went on to ask how to decide who will have the chance to go to college upon graduation from high school.

"By matriculation exams," Liu said, adding that if the students failed, they can go to vocational school.

The last Chinese speaker was 44-year-old Xie Liming, chairman of the board of the Xi'an Edelweiss Restaurant, who was once a service man with the Chinese air force for 15 consecutive years and later worked in a government institution for another eight years.

However, he quit his government post in 1992 and has now become the owner of a 500-seat restaurant, which he described as one of the best eateries in Xi'an, and invited Clinton to eating out there sometimes when he completes his official government duty.

Acknowledging that the United States is the fourth biggest trade partner of China, Xie expressed the hope that it will rank the first in the future.

"I want to engage in the foreign trade business too, to make some American dollars," he said.

Clinton said he's "working on" the trade issue, and suggested that Xie invite him when he's not in office and he will very much like it.

At the end of discussion, Clinton said he would like to take questions.

Doctor Yang Yiquan asked why he came to talk to them the ordinary folks.

President Clinton cited this precisely for two reasons: namely, he said, for "the people in my position," it is important to know the livelihood of the people and the impact that their policies insert upon the people's life and, secondly, he noted, because of his visit, the Americans will be more interested in the everyday life of the Chinese people. They will come to know how the Chinese are educated, how you see your doctors and how you run a restaurant through the visit and news media's reports, he said.