URUMQI - On a frosty Sunday morning, Wang Jinjian joined residents of Huocheng county in far West China's Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region to clear streets blanketed by heavy snow.
Wang, who just arrived in Huocheng two weeks ago after being appointed the head of the county committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), wanted to get acquainted with local people as soon as possible.
"I will work here in the next five years," said Wang, who came from Jiangyin city of economically-developed Jiangsu province in the east. "I wish my hometown's experiences in socioeconomic development could help boost the development of Huocheng."
Wang is among thousands of cadres and experts who were being dispatched by the central government to Xinjiang to assist local development by using their expertise and successful experience in the east.
This marked a new round of China's efforts to narrow the development gap between the west and the east.
In 2010, besides increasing capital investment and policy support, the central government decided to begin a new round of assistance to Tibet autonomous region and Xinjiang by pairing relatively developed provinces and cities with the two regions.
A series of decisions were announced after the CPC Central Committee held conferences on the development of West China, Tibet and Xinjiang this year.
Observers said the three meetings were milestones in working out the plan for narrowing the east-west gap as the western region is a difficult but key point in building a well-off society in a comprehensive way.
The government is aimed at narrowing the gap between east and west in the next decade, with western regions making great progress in comprehensive economic strength, people's living standards and environmental protection.
Compared with other western regions, Tibet and Xinjiang lag further behind eastern areas. As a result, the central government has sketched a detailed route map for the development of both regions in the next decade:
-- By 2015, the gap between Tibet's per capita net income and the nation's average will be significantly narrowed, and by 2020 the gap will be small enough to ensure the accomplishment of a well-off society.
-- Xinjiang's per capita gross production will reach the nation's average level by 2015, and by 2020 it will also realize the goal of building a moderately prosperous society.
The new round of assistance is a significant milestone in promoting the coordinated east-west development plan and in safeguarding the stability of the country's border areas, said Wang Ning, an economist at Xinjiang's Academy of Philosophy and Social Sciences.
Different from previous rounds of assistance, the new initiatives will give the two regions direct income. For instance, the changes in Xinjiang's resource taxes will increase local revenues by billions of yuan.
"This round is unprecedented and inspiring," said Yili Ismail, deputy director of the General Office of the People's Government of Xinjiang.
Compared with previous assistance efforts, this year the central government acted with even greater determination, he said.
In 1996, eight provinces and cities, including Beijing and Shanghai, were assigned to support Xinjiang. This year, 19 provinces and cities are supporting the region.
As the old Chinese saying goes, "give a man fish and he will eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he will eat for the rest of his life." In the new round, the government underscored the improvement of the West's self-development capability.
Paired with the Aksu region in Xinjiang, Zhejiang province plans to train more than 5,000 local high school and primary school teachers. Also, Shandong province, which is paired with the region's Kashgar, is spending 60 million yuan ($9 million) to train 2,000 local cadres.
In the proposal for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015) for the country's development, the CPC Central Committee said the country would continue to give priority to the development of the West and intensify support for Tibet, Xinjiang and other regions of ethnic minorities.
"The input by the central government has been huge. But the most important thing is to stimulate people's growth incentives and local cadres' consciousness of self-development," said Jiang Daming, governor of Shandong province.
