People’s Daily ♥︎ Xi Jinping

The People’s Daily website’s top story today (in Chinese) is titled “Xi Jinping and the People’s Daily — the deep passion of the last half century.”

• The article recounts Xi’s long relationship with the Party’s house newspaper, starting from him listening to a teacher read a People’s Daily article about Jiao Yulu 焦裕禄, the absurdly loyal cadre who is said to have devoted himself tirelessly to the Communist Party.
• Xi’s first article in the People’s Daily was — perhaps appropriately — published in 1984, when he was the Party secretary of Zhengding County in Hebei.  
• The article fondly recalls Xi’s 2016 visit to the People’s Daily and other central state media organizations that led to the formulation “the media must be surnamed Party.”