Xi urges greater efforts to nurture capable young people for socialist cause

BEIJING -- Congratulating a popular national children's radio program on its 70th anniversary, Chinese President Xi Jinping urged professionals in children's culture to redouble efforts in nurturing a new generation of capable young people for the socialist cause.

Xi, also general secretary of the Communist Party of China Central Committee and chairman of the Central Military Commission, made the call in a congratulatory letter sent Friday to China Media Group's program named Xiaolaba, or Little Trumpet. He praised the program's 70-year commitment to "telling good stories to children," which have accompanied generations of young listeners as they grew up.

Xi called on the program's team and professionals in children's culture to fulfill the mission of fostering virtue through education, keep pace with the times, tap deeply into the rich cultural resources, and devote themselves to creating more excellent and popular works that promote the true, the good and the beautiful among children.

He urged greater efforts to nurture a new generation of capable young people with sound moral grounding, intellectual ability, physical vigor, aesthetic sensibility, and labor skills, who will be able to contribute to and carry forward the socialist cause.

Launched on Sept 4, 1956, Xiaolaba is the first radio program in the People's Republic of China dedicated to preschool children. It has since grown into a flagship program spanning radio, television, new media and in-school broadcasting.