Liu also donates most of his retirement stipend to a charity. As a former cadre, he receives 10,000 yuan a month from the government. In 1995, he was the first person in his city to donate to the local Project Hope, a foundation associated with the Communist Youth League that aims to bring schools into impoverished areas and that had just begun efforts in Yangzhou. Since then, he has donated more than 400,000 yuan to the organization. More than 200 needy children have received help from him.

"He is happy to be poor," says his wife.

Liu agrees. "I have no savings, but I am a rich man," he said.

Liu also donates a lot of his time to helping his community. In the summer, he volunteers as a traffic officer and helps children cross the street. Once, in the summer of 2003, catastrophic flooding along the Huaihe River called for military rescue teams to build a temporary dam that would prevent the water from damaging crops and houses. Liu, then 92, asked for a "battle assignment" and was assigned to hand out drinking water to the soldiers.

Liu attributes the Long March's success to help from the people. "So we need to be grateful to them and pay them back," he wrote in his reading notes.

CPC members should work for people's welfare but should not seek personal gains for their families, Liu says.

Liu has adhered to this philosophy with his own family. He did not support a military promotion for his older son. Likewise, he said his second son was not competent for a job in the public security department. Then, when his daughter wanted to return to the city after being a rural collective laborer, he said that if the offspring of farmers can till the land, so can the offspring of a Red Army soldier.

"For the common people, a party member is a representative of the CPC," Liu said. "I'm 100 years old, and I should keep on protecting the Party's integrity and being a model. My every action should add luster to the Party flag."