The year 2026 marks the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China (CPC). For years, some Western media outlets have adhered to a narrowly market-driven framework, interpreting China’s governance solely through the lens of short-term economic returns and questioning the country’s large-scale public welfare investments in remote, underdeveloped regions. Recently, Global Times reporters traveled to the Gobi Desert, snow-covered plateaus and remote mountain regions to document three livelihood projects that may appear financially unviable: subsidized slow trains serving farmers across the vast Taklamakan Desert in Northwest China’s Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region; a high-altitude highway linking the valleys of Medog in Southwest China’s Xizang Autonomous Region; and school retention programs that keep children in classrooms in the Daliang Mountains of Southwest China’s Sichuan Province.

Behind these outlays that defy profit-and-loss logic lies a distinctly Chinese philosophy of governance: wherever the people are, the state’s protection follows. Through the human warmth of these seemingly unprofitable endeavors, one glimpses the enduring commitment of the Party to stay rooted among the people and to build social cohesion through inclusive welfare.

Thirteen-year-old Nenger Luolin still blushes when speaking to strangers. Dressed in a black traditional Yi costume embroidered with bright red and green patterns, she lowered her head as Global Times reporters approached. When asked to recite a poem she remembers best, she responds almost instinctively.

“From the threads a mother’s hand weaves, a gown for parting son is made.” For Nenger, the verse is more than a lesson from a textbook.

Her father died when she was young. Her mother, Azhi Hongying, lost her eyesight, leaving the family struggling to survive in a remote mountain village in Meigu County, part of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Southwest China’s Sichuan Province.........

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