Summary: The issue leads with Xi Jinping's important article on accelerating the construction of a Healthy China, drawn from his speech to a joint group meeting of CPPCC members from specific committees (including agriculture, health, and social security). The article outlines key principles, priorities, and safeguards, emphasizing party leadership, reform, technological innovation, and medical ethics. Additional pieces analyze party governance through Xi's selected works and assess the current economic situation following the July 30 Politburo meeting. Notably, two articles directly address U.S.-China tensions: one refutes the Western-propagated "China squeeze theory," and another condemns U.S. hegemonic actions that stigmatize and suppress China's AI development. The issue also features an article on resolving the problem of cadres who are unable to step down from their positions.
Summary: In a March 6, 2026 speech to a joint CPPCC group meeting of members from the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, Jiusan Society, and the medical, social welfare, and social security sectors, Xi Jinping said building a Healthy China by 2035 is a strategic decision and that the 15th Five-Year Plan period is critical. He stressed maintaining Party leadership and a China-specific path for health development, with priorities including public health systems, mental health, tiered diagnosis, integrated Chinese-Western medicine, and healthy lifestyles. He called for safeguards through institutional reforms, coordinated medical-insurance-pharmaceutical policies, digital health technology, and stronger medical talent and ethics. Finally, he urged the CPPCC and professionals in these fields to contribute ideas and proposals to Healthy China construction.
Summary: General Secretary Xi Jinping, in a speech delivered at a March 6, 2026, joint group meeting of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) involving the agricultural workers' and democratic parties, medical and health, and social welfare sectors, emphasized the need to unwaveringly follow the path of health development with Chinese characteristics. The article highlights China's health achievements, including a rise in average life expectancy to 79.25 years and the establishment of the world's largest healthcare service and security systems, achieved with relatively low investment. Xi outlined priorities for the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, including strengthening the public health system, building a high-quality medical service system, and promoting healthy lifestyles. The article also stresses deepening medical reform, advancing scientific and technological innovation in healthcare, and strengthening the medical workforce to address challenges such as resource imbalances and grassroots capacity gaps.
Summary: 国家卫生健康委员会主任雷海潮撰文阐述“十五五”时期健康中国建设路径，强调在2035年建成健康中国的战略目标下，需加强党的全面领导、健全公共卫生体系、建设优质高效医疗服务体系并倡导健康文明生活方式。他指出当前面临疾病谱变化、基层能力不足、心理健康服务缺口等挑战，提出“强基、稳二、控三”的分级诊疗策略，并强调深化公立医院公益性改革、推广三明医改经验及科技创新驱动。文章未涉及美国或中美关系议题。
Summary: This article by Liang Wannian and Wang Hongchuan of Tsinghua University analyzes China's efforts to promote coordinated development and governance of healthcare, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals ("three medical" areas) as a core part of deepening health system reform. It highlights the Sanming model as a replicable experience, alongside local practices in Shenzhen, Tianchang, and Huzhou, and notes the role of digital technology in integrating data across these sectors. While acknowledging progress—such as expanded grassroots services and centralized procurement—the authors identify persistent problems including fragmented governance, uneven resource allocation, and weak coordination between pricing, evaluation, and development mechanisms. They recommend deepening price reform, unifying data standards, and strengthening evaluation frameworks to better link medical services, insurance funds, and pharmaceutical supply.
Summary: The article emphasizes that strengthening primary healthcare is foundational to China's health modernization, citing Xi Jinping's directive to prioritize resources toward grassroots services. It highlights persistent challenges: a shortage and poor retention of rural medical talent, limited diagnostic and chronic disease management capabilities, and fragmented institutional mechanisms. To address these, the author advocates for stronger talent pipelines, integrated health management, smart technology adoption, and enhanced governance to transform grassroots care into proactive, people-centered support.
Summary: A commentary article in *Qiushi* magazine interprets the directives of the July 30 Politburo meeting on economic work for the latter half of the year. It acknowledges that while the economy demonstrated "new momentum and improved structure" in the first half, it faces difficulties from a complex external environment and domestic issues, though long-term fundamentals remain unchanged. The article outlines policy priorities including expanding domestic demand, accelerating the shift between old and new growth drivers, implementing more proactive macro policies, and deepening reforms. It stresses the importance of strengthening expectation management and stabilizing market confidence. The piece concludes by urging efforts to overcome current challenges to achieve annual targets and lay a solid foundation for the "15th Five-Year Plan."
Summary: In a Qiushi interview with reporters Chen Youyong and Han Jiashuo, the National Bureau of Statistics spokesperson said that despite external turmoil—including the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict and global energy shocks—China’s economy remained stable in the first half, with GDP up 4.7%, new drivers contributing over 40% of growth, and the yuan appreciating about 3% against the U.S. dollar. The spokesperson highlighted economic resilience through steady energy supplies and mild inflation, while noting investment is shifting toward innovation, new infrastructure, and livelihood projects. Consumption continued to expand, with service consumption outpacing goods retail. Looking ahead, he said faster structural transformation, deepening reform and opening-up, and targeted policy support would sustain long-term growth.
Summary: The article examines the "temperature gap" between China's stable macroeconomic indicators and the weaker lived experiences of businesses and individuals, attributing it to differing perspectives, sectoral disparities, and the ongoing transition from old to new growth drivers. It highlights artificial intelligence as both an accelerator and a dividing line in this structural shift, with technology adoption spreading unevenly across industries. The piece argues that bridging this gap requires policies to translate macro-level growth into tangible benefits, support traditional sectors, and improve communication between official data and public perception. It concludes that while transformation brings adjustment pains, proactive adaptation and targeted reforms can ensure the gains from new technologies reach more people.
Summary: The article argues that a robust social security system is essential for boosting household consumption in China by reducing precautionary savings and stabilizing income expectations. It cites official data showing rising household deposits and notes that pension, medical insurance, and childcare subsidies have expanded significantly, yet gaps remain for flexible employment workers, rural residents, and elderly care. The authors identify shortcomings including low rural pension levels, fragmented policy coordination, and insufficient coverage for new employment forms. They propose enhancing benefit levels, expanding insurance coverage, and improving system sustainability to strengthen consumer confidence. The piece references past crises—including the 1998 Asian financial crisis and 2008 global financial crisis—where social security measures helped sustain consumption, with the latter implicitly tied to U.S.-originated economic shocks.
Summary: The article critiques the "China squeeze" narrative promoted by the Peterson Institute for International Economics and U.S. media, arguing it is a pseudo-academic extension of prior anti-China discourses like the "debt trap" and "overcapacity" theories. It contends that China's industrial development has not squeezed developing countries but has instead contributed to global growth, lowered costs, and supported industrialization in the Global South through trade and cooperation. The piece accuses Western narratives of historical amnesia, double standards, and zero-sum thinking, serving as political tools for U.S.-led strategic containment of China. It highlights that China's success challenges the "modernization equals Westernization" paradigm and offers developing nations an alternative development path. The article concludes by defending China's integration into globalization and advocating for a more inclusive international economic order.
Summary: The article reports on a joint research team's findings on myopia prevention among Chinese children and adolescents, noting that the national myopia rate fell for four consecutive years to 50.3% by 2024. Key remaining challenges include high myopia rates in older students, early-onset myopia in younger children, inadequate early intervention systems, insufficient outdoor activity due to academic pressure, weak coordination among families, schools, and society, and gaps in data sharing and rural healthcare resources. The team recommends shifting focus to protecting "farsighted reserve" in preschool and early primary grades, strengthening school health staffing and rural infrastructure, integrating physical activity into education, and leveraging AI-based screening and big data for precision prevention. The article emphasizes the need for stronger government accountability, sustained funding, and continued research to build a comprehensive prevention system.
Summary: The article, authored by Shing-Tung Yau, a Chair Professor at Tsinghua University, argues that science and the humanities are fundamentally interconnected, both stemming from a shared pursuit of truth and beauty. Yau emphasizes that genuine creativity in mathematics and other sciences is fueled by emotional depth and broad humanistic knowledge, drawing parallels between literary classics and mathematical breakthroughs. He advocates for a "liberal arts" education that includes history and literature to cultivate this creativity, noting that Chinese theoretical scientists still lag behind top global standards partly due to insufficient humanistic training. The piece references the International Congress of Basic Science, which Yau founded in 2023, as an initiative promoting interdisciplinary collaboration. While not directly discussing the United States, the article calls for open cooperation among scholars globally, implicitly connecting to broader international scientific efforts.
Summary: The article examines China's traditional diplomatic philosophy of "讲信修睦、亲仁善邻" (honoring trust, fostering harmony, and befriending neighbors), tracing its evolution from ancient classics through Confucian, Daoist, and Legalist thought to its modern application. It cites Xi Jinping's June 2023 speech at the Cultural Heritage Development Symposium, which identified this philosophy as a key element of China's fine traditional culture. The piece argues this tradition underpins China's contemporary foreign policy, including the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind and initiatives such as the Global Development, Security, Civilization, and Governance initiatives. The author is a distinguished professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University's School of Marxism.
Summary: The article features four working-class writers—a delivery rider, a miner, a factory worker, and a domestic worker—who share their journeys of creating literature as part of China's "New Mass Art" movement. They describe how writing emerged from their labor experiences, with one noting the shift from an elite "pyramid" structure in the arts to a broader stage that now recognizes ordinary people's voices. The writers stress that their work stems from authentic life rather than serving as internet spectacle or a "civilian" persona for traffic, advocating for continued sincerity and effort. They highlight how writing has empowered them personally, expanded their horizons, and connected them to cultural traditions, while also giving voice to silent, hardworking communities. The piece frames this phenomenon as a significant contemporary cultural shift, without discussing the United States or bilateral relations.
Summary: Wang Jibing, a delivery rider and poet, reflects on his 38-year writing journey, which began in 1988 and gained public attention only after he became a courier in 2019. He credits the rise of "new mass literature" for expanding opportunities for ordinary workers, challenging the traditional pyramid structure of the literary world that favored only a select few. Wang warns against treating "ordinary person" status as a gimmick or commodity, urging fellow writers to maintain sincerity and effort rather than exploiting their backgrounds for attention. He envisions a future literary pyramid whose peak is formed not by individual elites but by a collective of everyday voices. The article does not address the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: The article is a personal essay by Chen Nianxi, a miner and poet from Shaanxi, reflecting on how his impoverished upbringing and 16 years as a mine blaster shaped his literary voice, which he divides into pre-1999 imitative verse and later work grounded in lived experience. He describes writing as a survival mechanism amid grueling labor, with his famous lines about blasting rock at five thousand meters serving as a metaphor for reassembling his life. Chen argues that authentic writing emerges from blood, flesh, and the worksite itself, positioning laborers as the most ordinary people whose words rise from the earth's depths. He contends that in an age of information overload, literature remains vital as a space for slowness and mutual recognition beyond algorithms and traffic. He rejects being confined by the “miner-poet” label, insisting his responsibility is to broaden readers' understanding of contemporary workers while keeping his feet on the soil and eyes toward the clouds.
Summary: The article is a first-person essay by worker-poet Xiao Hai, reflecting on 20 years of writing poetry while working factory jobs in Guangdong, Ningbo, and Beijing. He describes how poetry gave him spiritual strength, connecting him to Tang-dynasty poets and later to Haizi, whose work inspired his pen name. He emphasizes that writing is a weapon for the dispossessed, helping workers articulate their dignity beyond statistics. The essay concludes by celebrating the rise of "new mass literature" enabled by the internet, where ordinary laborers like cleaners, cooks, and assembly-line workers can share their stories. No mention is made of the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: Li Wenli, a domestic worker, describes how reading an essay by Fan Yusu inspired her to start writing in 2017 after moving to Beijing. She joined a workers' literary group in Pichun, where teachers encouraged her to record her daily experiences, and her first collection was printed, boosting her confidence. Through reading and writing, she transformed from a pessimistic, self-doubting woman into a more optimistic and courageous one, seeing literature as a way to illuminate her own life and that of other silent, hardworking women. She urges fellow workers with artistic interests to start writing without fear, emphasizing that it is never too late to learn and create. The article focuses on her personal journey and does not discuss the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: The article, written by Yang Ting of the Jianchuan County Propaganda Department, highlights the cultural significance of couplets (楹联) in fostering local customs and traditions, particularly in Jianchuan, Yunnan. It traces the history of couplets from the Five Dynasties to their role in family instruction, community values, and social harmony. The piece emphasizes Jianchuan's unique practice of residents composing and writing their own couplets, which serve as vehicles for transmitting virtues like diligence, integrity, and neighborly goodwill. It also describes a national couplet "village evening" event held in Jianchuan, attended by hundreds of students and residents, which drew over 560 million views online. The article concludes that couplets are not merely literary forms but enduring carriers of cultural heritage and communal identity.
Summary: The article analyzes the evolving transatlantic alliance, arguing that while the U.S.-Europe relationship persists, it is shifting from a "threat-driven" to a "mechanism-driven" dynamic, with growing rifts over burden-sharing, trade rules, technology governance, and strategic autonomy. The author contends that economic globalization, identity politics, and diverging views on international responsibility have eroded the ideological consensus underpinning the alliance, though neither side can afford a complete rupture. Looking ahead, the U.S. is moving from "leading the West" to "managing the alliance," while Europe is pursuing strategic autonomy without fully replacing U.S. security guarantees. The article concludes that these changes will reduce Western dominance over global governance, and it highlights China and Global South countries as advocates for a more multipolar, democratic international order. The author is affiliated with the Think Tank Center of Tsinghua University.
Summary: The article argues that recent U.S. accusations against Chinese AI firms for "industrial-scale distillation" of American models are a politically motivated smear campaign, reframing a standard, neutral technique as intellectual property theft to contain China's technological rise. It notes that U.S. officials and companies like Anthropic, OpenAI, and Google have coordinated in this effort, while Chinese models such as DeepSeek and Kimi K3 are globally competitive without relying on distillation. The piece highlights opposition from Silicon Valley, including Nvidia's Jensen Huang, to restricting access to Chinese open-source models, and cites China's Commerce Ministry denouncing the claims as "AI hegemony." It concludes by referencing Xi Jinping's call at the 2026 World AI Conference for opposing the politicization of national security in AI and promoting inclusive global governance.
Summary: In an article, Yu Huiwen, Inner Mongolia Party Standing Committee member and Hohhot Party Secretary, argues for normalizing the “capable up, incompetent down” cadre mechanism, with emphasis on solving the difficult “down” adjustment. He reports that Hohhot has removed 11 cadres from leadership since 2021, adjusted 14 unsuitable division-level cadres this year, and reassigned or promoted 49 previously demoted cadres who performed well afterward. He stresses refining performance assessments to identify incompetent officials and managing demoted cadres through follow-up education and possible reinstatement.
Summary: The article argues that comprehensive strict party governance is a strategic policy central to Xi Jinping's thought on party building, essential for maintaining the party's先进性 and purity. It traces the party's historical commitment to strict discipline from revolutionary times through reform era, addressing problems like corruption and weakened leadership. The piece explains the policy's core elements—leadership, comprehensiveness, strictness, and governance—and stresses it must be a long-term, systematic effort, not a temporary measure. It acknowledges persistent challenges such as formalism, bureaucracy, and resistance among officials, calling for continued vigilance and institutional improvement. Written by Zhang Leibao of Wuhan University's Marxism school, the text frames this approach as crucial for the party's future and national governance.
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This issue publishes General Secretary Xi Jinping's important article "Accelerating the Building of a Healthy China." This is the main part of the speech delivered by General Secretary Xi Jinping on March 6, 2026, when he participated in the joint group meeting of members from the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party (农工党), the Jiusan Society (九三学社), the medical and health sector, and the social welfare and social security sector at the Fourth Session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference. The article profoundly elucidates the major principles, key tasks, and important safeguards for the building of a Healthy China, pointing the way for further advancing the development of health and wellness undertakings. In studying this important article, one must deeply understand the requirement of proceeding from China's national conditions and following the path of health development with Chinese characteristics, and more consciously implement the health and wellness work policy for the new era; deeply understand that the building of a Healthy China must highlight priorities, grasping such requirements as improving the public health system, building a high-quality and efficient medical service system, and advocating a healthy and civilized lifestyle; deeply understand the need to provide strong safeguards for the building of a Healthy China, grasping such requirements as upholding Party leadership and deepening reform, promoting scientific and technological innovation, strengthening Party building in the health industry, and fostering excellent medical ethics and professional conduct.
Centering on the study and implementation of the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important article, this issue also carries an article by the editorial department of this journal, focusing on unswervingly following the path of health development with Chinese characteristics and providing interpretation and elucidation from three aspects; Lei Haichao's (雷海潮) article, explaining how to promote decisive progress in the building of a Healthy China during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period; Liang Wannian's (梁万年) and Wang Hongchuan's (王洪川) article, explaining how to promote the coordinated development and governance of medical services, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals; Ma Li's (马骊) article, explaining from the perspective of advancing the development of grassroots health and wellness undertakings.
Zhang Peng's (张鹏) article "A Vivid Teaching Material Reflecting the Magnificent Practice of Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance in the New Era," centering on the study of Volume I and Volume II of the Selected Works of Xi Jinping on Party Building, elucidates the truth power and practical might of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building.
How to view the current situation and trend of China's economic development? The commentator's article of this journal, centering on the study and implementation of the spirit of the meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held on July 30, explains how to make every effort to promote the development of the economy in the second half of the year toward innovation, excellence, and improvement; this journal's reporter's exclusive interview with the spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics (国家统计局) analyzes the operation and development trend of the economy in the first half of the year; Jing Ping's (景平) article analyzes the "temperature difference" phenomenon between macro data and micro perceptions.
Qing Yuan's (青原) article "Unmasking the Pseudo-Academic Packaging of the 'China Squeeze Theory' (中国挤压论)" analyzes and refutes the so-called "China squeeze theory" hyped recently by the United States and other Western countries.
Li Yan's (李艳) article "Joining Hands to Oppose Hegemonic Acts in Artificial Intelligence" exposes and criticizes the hegemonic acts of the United States in stigmatizing, containing, and suppressing the development of China's artificial intelligence.
Yu Huiwen's (于会文) article "Effectively Solving the Problem of Cadres 'Being Able to Step Down'" explains, in light of practical realities, how to advance the ability of leading cadres to go up and come down by solving the problem of "being able to step down."
Return to TopBy: 习近平
Speed Up Building a Healthy China
※
Xi Jinping
Building a Healthy China by 2035 is a strategic decision made by the CPC Central Committee. The "15th Five-Year Plan" period is a critical period for achieving this goal. We must make overall plans, step up our efforts, and strive for decisive progress.
First, we must proceed from China's national conditions in promoting the development of health and wellness undertakings. China is a socialist country and a developing country with a huge population and still relatively large urban-rural and regional disparities. This determines that we must uphold the Party's leadership over health and wellness work, uphold putting the people first and life first, uphold the health-first development strategy, uphold the public-welfare nature of basic medical and health services, and follow the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics. At the 2016 National Conference on Health and Wellness (全国卫生与健康大会), the CPC Central Committee clearly put forward the guidelines for health and wellness work in the new era, namely, focusing on the grassroots, taking reform and innovation as the driving force, giving priority to prevention, giving equal weight to traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, integrating health into all policies, and having the people build and share. The historic achievements in China's health and wellness undertakings since the beginning of the new era fully prove that these requirements are in keeping with China's national conditions and are completely correct. At present and for some time to come, China's health and wellness work needs to respond to the development and changes in the situation and optimize and improve some specific policies and measures. However, we must not waver in following the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics, and we must not waver in implementing the guidelines for health and wellness work in the new era. On these fundamental issues, we must always keep a clear head and maintain strategic focus.
Second, we must focus on key priorities in advancing the building of a Healthy China. The building of a Healthy China is a systematic project. Facing the people's growing and diversified health and wellness needs, we must firmly grasp those tasks that benefit a wide range of people, where a pull on one hair moves the whole body, and that have a major impact on the entire health and wellness undertaking, concentrate forces and resources to advance them, and continuously achieve new results. For example, improving the public health system requires deepening social co-governance, coordination between medical care and prevention, and integration of medical care and prevention, as well as strengthening infectious disease prevention and control, monitoring and early warning, medical treatment, emergency response, material support, and supervision and management. We must attach great importance to psychological health and mental health issues and strengthen prevention and guidance, early detection, and comprehensive intervention. For another example, the people have high expectations for building a high-quality and efficient medical service system. We must continue to optimize the layout of the system, implement the Medical and Health Grassroots-Strengthening Project (医疗卫生强基工程), promote tiered diagnosis and treatment, and strengthen operational support for medical and health institutions in counties and districts and at the grassroots level. We must promote the integration of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, accelerate filling the gaps in medical services for key populations and weak specialties, improve the level of comprehensive prevention and control of chronic diseases, and expand the supply of services such as rehabilitation care and hospice care. For yet another example, advocating healthy and civilized lifestyles requires further improving the health literacy of the whole population, carrying out the national fitness campaign and the patriotic health campaign (爱国卫生运动), and guiding people to maintain a balanced diet, strengthen healthy weight management, and so on. All of these require concrete measures and specific handles. When the key work is done well, the building of a Healthy China can be solidly advanced.
Third, we must provide strong safeguards for the building of a Healthy China. In this regard, we must improve the work pattern of unified leadership by Party committees and joint management by the Party and the government, improve the policy and institutional system for health promotion, and integrate the concept of health into the entire process of public policy formulation and implementation. We must deepen the reform of public hospitals and the reform of medical insurance payment methods, improve the drug price formation mechanism, optimize the policies for centralized procurement of drugs and medical consumables, improve the efficiency of medical insurance fund use, and improve the mechanism for coordinated development and governance of medical services, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals. We must promote the transformation and application of scientific and technological innovation achievements in the health and wellness field, and advance the digital-intelligent development of health for the whole people. We must strengthen Party building in the health and wellness sector, mobilize the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of the broad ranks of medical personnel, intensify personnel training, promote fine medical ethics and conduct, and strive to create a clean and upright environment in the sector.
Building a Healthy China requires the joint efforts of the whole society. The Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC) should give play to its role as a specialized consultative body, focus on relevant theoretical and practical issues, conduct in-depth investigation and research, and put forward practical and effective countermeasures and suggestions. Members of the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party (农工党) and the Jiusan Society (九三学社), and personages from the medical and health sector and the social welfare and social security sector, should make good use of their professional advantages and contribute their wisdom and strength to building a Healthy China.
※ This is the main part of the speech delivered by General Secretary Xi Jinping on March 6, 2026, when, during the Fourth Session of the 14th CPPCC National Committee, he attended the joint group meeting of committee members from the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party, the Jiusan Society, the medical and health sector, and the social welfare and social security sector.
Return to TopBy: 《求是》杂志编辑部
Unswervingly Follow the Path of Health and Wellness Development with Chinese Characteristics
Editorial Department of Qiushi Magazine
On March 6, 2026, General Secretary Xi Jinping attended the joint group meeting of members of the Chinese Peasants' and Workers' Democratic Party, the Jiusan Society, the medical and health sector, and the social welfare and social security sector at the Fourth Session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference and delivered an important speech. The article "Accelerating the Building of a Healthy China" is the main part of the General Secretary's speech. In this important article, the General Secretary set the direction for health and wellness work on the new journey, emphasizing the need to unswervingly follow the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics and promote decisive progress in the building of a Healthy China during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. The General Secretary also made important arrangements for improving the public health system, building a high-quality and efficient medical service system, advocating healthy and civilized lifestyles, improving the work framework, and perfecting the health promotion policy and institutional system, pointing out the direction and providing clear guidance for accelerating the building of a Healthy China. To study this important article of the General Secretary, we must deeply grasp the rich connotation and practical requirements of the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics, unswervingly follow this path well, implement the Party Central Committee's series of decisions and arrangements for the building of a Healthy China, continuously improve the people's health level, and enable all the people to devote themselves to Chinese-style modernization with abundant energy and strong physique.
How did the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics come about?
Looking at the world, countries differ greatly in their health and wellness governance models due to differences in history, culture, stage of development, and social systems. For China, a large developing country with a huge population, what kind of health and wellness development path can effectively safeguard the health and well-being of all the people? In 2016, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly proposed at the National Health and Wellness Conference to "uphold the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics." In this important article "Accelerating the Building of a Healthy China," the General Secretary again emphasized that "the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics cannot be shaken." The reason for repeatedly emphasizing the "path" issue is that it concerns the nature, direction, and effectiveness of China's health and wellness undertaking. We must always remain clear-headed on this fundamental issue and maintain strategic resolve.
The path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics did not emerge from thin air, nor is it a product of copying or mechanically transplanting foreign models. Rather, it was explored step by step by our Party through long-term efforts, based on China's national conditions and in response to the requirements of the times. In old China, 山河破碎 (shān hé pò suì - "mountains and rivers shattered," describing a country in ruin), wars were frequent, epidemics raged, doctors and medicine were scarce, and the people's physique was generally weak, earning China the derisive label of the "Sick Man of East Asia." From its founding, our Party closely linked the protection of the people's health with the cause of striving for national independence and people's liberation, and wrote the protection of workers' health and welfare into the Party's program. During the revolutionary war years, under extremely difficult conditions, the health institutions and health personnel led by our Party used 千方百计 (qiān fāng bǎi jì - "a thousand methods, a hundred schemes," by every possible means) to rescue and treat the wounded and sick, tried 想方设法 (xiǎng fāng shè fǎ - "think of ways, devise methods," by all means) to treat the ailments of the common people, and carried out mass health campaigns in the base areas, playing an important role in safeguarding the health of the military and civilians and strengthening the revolutionary forces. After the founding of New China, our Party insisted on placing the focus of medical and health work in rural areas, established the three-tier urban and rural medical prevention and health care network, rural cooperative medical care, barefoot doctors and other primary health care systems, paid attention to giving play to the advantages of traditional Chinese medicine's "one needle, one handful of grass" being simple, convenient, effective, and inexpensive, reduced the burden of medical treatment on the masses, while vigorously developing medical technology, extensively carrying out mass patriotic health campaigns and popularizing sports activities. After reform and opening up, in order to further solve the problem of the people's access to medical treatment, our Party clearly proposed to provide the basic medical and health system as a public good to all the people, established the goal of universal access to basic medical and health services, and focused on building a basic medical security system covering urban and rural residents, laying a solid institutional foundation for the long-term development of the health and wellness undertaking. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has placed the protection of the people's health in a strategic position of priority development, established the Party's health and wellness work policy for the new era, comprehensively advanced the building of a Healthy China, and successfully blazed a path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics on the basis of past practice.
By following the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics, China's health and wellness undertaking has achieved all-round progress and historic accomplishments. The average life expectancy has increased from 35 years at the founding of New China to 79.25 years in 2025. The maternal mortality rate and infant mortality rate have dropped from 1500/100,000 and 200‰ respectively to 14.3/100,000 and 4.0‰. Major health indicators have entered the forefront of countries with upper-middle income and populations exceeding 100 million. We have completely eradicated smallpox, successively eliminated the harm of major infectious diseases such as malaria and polio, and effectively controlled the spread of major diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, schistosomiasis, and hepatitis B. Medical and health services and security capabilities have comprehensively leaped forward, building the world's largest medical and health service system and medical security system. Basic medical insurance coverage has remained stable at over 95%, and over 90% of residents can reach the nearest medical point within 15 minutes. Medical resource supply has achieved a magnitude expansion. The number of beds and physicians per thousand population has increased approximately 26 times and 5 times respectively over more than 70 years, laying a solid foundation for safeguarding the people's health. In particular, we withstood the severe impact of the century-old pandemic and created the miracle of a populous country successfully emerging from a major pandemic in the history of human civilization.
By following the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics, we have achieved maximum health benefits with relatively low investment. For a long time, the international community generally believed that in health and wellness development, only high investment could yield high returns. However, our country has optimized resource allocation by giving play to institutional advantages, serving nearly 20% of the world's population with 9% of the world's total health expenditure, blazing a development path of low input and high efficiency. The latest data show that China's total health expenditure accounts for 6.7% of GDP, far lower than the global average of 9.3% and the 17.2% of high-income countries. In terms of per capita health expenditure, China uses only one-seventh of the average level of OECD countries to achieve health output close to their average level. In recent years, more and more patients from Western and neighboring countries have traveled thousands of miles to China for treatment, forming a striking new trend of "reverse medical treatment." What they value is precisely the comprehensive advantage of China's medical care being "fast, economical, and strong." This cross-border "voting with their feet" is not only a vivid endorsement of China's medical hard power, but also a powerful proof of the successful practice of the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics.
What kind of path is the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics?
Facts have fully proved that the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics is a correct path that conforms to China's national conditions and is the only way to achieve the strategic goal of a Healthy China. Only by accurately grasping the scientific connotation and distinctive features of the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics can we understand the secret of its success, and can we further deeply comprehend the profound meaning of General Secretary Xi Jinping's emphasis on unswervingly following this path.
This is a path that insists on serving the health of the broad masses of the people. The question of for whom is the fundamental question of the health and wellness undertaking. Our Party is a party that serves the people wholeheartedly, our country is a socialist country where the people are masters of the country, and health is the basic right of the broad masses of the people, not the privilege of a few. This determines that our country's health and wellness undertaking serves all the people, not any specific interest group. This universal and inclusive fundamental attribute embodies the Party's original aspiration and mission, nature and purpose, and is the profound confidence for us to follow this path. Looking back at history, from clearly proposing "serving the workers, peasants, and soldiers," to solemnly committing to "health for all through primary health care," to firmly implementing "universal access to basic medical and health services," no matter how the times have changed, the people-oriented stance of China's health and wellness undertaking has never wavered. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized "people first, life first," clearly pointed out that "people's health is the foundation of social civilization and progress," "the most important indicator of modernization is still the people's health," "protecting the people's life safety and health can be at all costs," and has made a series of major arrangements for safeguarding the people's health. In contrast, some Western countries, constrained by their social systems and the politics of interest groups, find it difficult for their medical and health services to escape the logic of capital, showing an obvious "the rich first" orientation. High-quality medical resources are concentrated among the wealthy classes, while the health demands of the broad masses of ordinary people are often difficult to satisfy.
This is a path that insists on the public welfare nature of basic medical and health undertakings. Basic medical and health services are the most fundamental and core part of medical and health services and are the safety bottom line for safeguarding the people's health. In this field, whether to insist on government responsibility or completely push it to the market determines the fundamental character of the health and wellness undertaking. Our Party has clearly proposed that basic medical and health services should be mainly guaranteed by the government and that all the people should have fair access to them. In practice, we have strengthened the government's leading responsibility, and through various means such as giving play to the main role of public hospitals and perfecting the medical insurance safety net, we have secured the public welfare attribute of basic medical services, ensuring that every ordinary person can "have access to medical treatment when sick." At the same time, in the field of non-basic medical and health services, we have paid attention to giving play to the role of the market and encouraged social forces to establish non-profit medical institutions as a beneficial supplement. This model of "walking on two legs," based on China's national conditions of a huge population and still large urban-rural and regional gaps, not only consolidates the foundation of public welfare, but also effectively enriches the supply levels of medical services and meets the people's diversified, differentiated, and personalized health needs. This forms a sharp contrast with some Western countries. Surveys show that in the United States, which has the highest medical expenditure in the world, about 8%-10% of the population has no medical insurance, about 40% of adults delay or give up necessary medical services due to cost, and the phenomenon of falling into bankruptcy crisis due to illness is common. Some developing countries, due to prematurely and excessively pushing medical and health care to the market, have seen public hospitals shrink and private institutions pursue profit, making "difficulty and high cost of seeing a doctor" a major social problem.
This is a path of health-first development. For each person, health is 1, and the others are the 0s behind it. If the 1 is gone, no matter how many 0s there are, they are meaningless. For a country, the people's health is the basic condition for economic and social development. Having a healthy people means having stronger comprehensive national power and sustainable development capability. In advancing Chinese-style modernization, the people's health is both a development goal and a development support. We must not only regard the people's health as an important livelihood and welfare, but also understand and grasp it from a political and overall perspective. It is precisely based on this far-reaching strategic consideration that the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core made the major decision to implement the strategy of health-first development, elevating health from the traditional health category to a core issue of national governance. From the first proposal of "placing the people's health in a strategic position of priority development" at the 2016 National Health and Wellness Conference, to listing it as the primary principle in the "Healthy China 2030" Planning Outline, to the 20th National Congress report proposing "improving the people's health promotion policies" and the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee making important arrangements for implementing the health-first development strategy, our Party's understanding of the people's health has continued to deepen, completing a systematic construction from political declaration to national strategy and then to institutional system. In our country, health is not a "one-man show" of the medical and health system, but a "chorus" integrated into all policies. By building cross-departmental coordination mechanisms and incorporating health indicators into the economic and social development evaluation system, we have not only changed the way public services are provided, but also made health a yardstick for measuring high-quality economic and social development. This is a vivid portrayal of Chinese-style modernization benefiting the people and promoting the all-round development of human beings.
This is a path of reform and innovation. Facing the contradiction between the people's ever-growing health needs and the supply of medical and health resources, only by relying on reform and innovation can we break down institutional and mechanistic barriers and safeguard the people's health. China's medical and health system reform has always been breaking through in tackling difficulties and innovating in exploration. From the early expansion of medical institutions' autonomy and activation of service supply, to the launch of a new round of medical reform in 2009 establishing the principle of "guaranteeing basics, strengthening grassroots, and building mechanisms," to the promotion of systematic and integrated reform with the five basic medical and health systems as the starting point since the 18th National Congress of the Party, we have always adhered to a problem-oriented approach and used Chinese methods to solve this world-class problem of medical reform. Through reform and innovation, we have historically broken the old mechanism of "using drugs to supplement medical care," built the basic medical security network and the framework of the hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system, established the "four beams and eight pillars" of the basic medical and health system, and effectively alleviated the problem of the masses finding it "difficult and expensive to see a doctor." At present, medical reform has entered a new stage of comprehensive deepening, undergoing a profound transformation from single-soldier advance and local pilot projects to system integration and collaborative efficiency, from simple policy patching and point breakthroughs to all-round structural reshaping and institutional reconstruction. This deep-seated change from point to surface and from surface to interior, this tenacious persistence of continuously discovering and solving problems and continuously iterating and upgrading, demonstrates our firm determination and courage to use reform to remove deep-seated institutional and mechanistic barriers, and also endows the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics with strong vitality.
How to continue to follow well the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics?
Safeguarding the people's health is a systematic project that requires long-term sustained efforts. With the continuous improvement of the level of economic and social development and the people's living standards, the people have come to attach greater importance to the quality of life and health and safety, and have higher expectations for the government to safeguard the people's health and provide basic health and wellness services. At the same time, under the influence of industrialization, urbanization, and population aging, the disease spectrum is also changing. Multiple chronic diseases are highly prevalent, the situation of infectious disease prevention and control remains severe, and issues such as mental health and occupational health cannot be ignored. Facing the new situation, new challenges, and the people's new health expectations, we must strengthen the Party's leadership over health and wellness work, unswervingly follow the path of health and wellness development with Chinese characteristics, unswervingly implement the Party's health and wellness work policy for the new era, improve policy measures in response to changes in the situation and development, and continuously enhance the people's sense of health gain.
We must focus on key points to advance the building of a Healthy China. Building a Healthy China by 2035 is a strategic decision made by the Party Central Committee, and the "15th Five-Year Plan" period is a crucial period for achieving this goal. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that we must firmly grasp those tasks that benefit a wide range of people, affect the whole situation when one part is moved, and have a major impact on the entire health and wellness undertaking, concentrate forces and resources to promote them, and continuously achieve new results. The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee made major arrangements for accelerating the building of a Healthy China during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. The State Council recently issued the "National Health '15th Five-Year Plan'" further clarifying the roadmap for accelerating the building of a Healthy China. First, we must improve the public health system. A strong public health system is an important barrier against health risks and for safeguarding the people's health. We must deepen the integration of medical care and prevention, the coordination of medical care and prevention, and social co-governance, strengthen the capacity building of disease control systems and emergency treatment, strengthen the prevention and control of major infectious diseases, strengthen mental health and psychiatric services, and build a solid line of defense for public health security. Second, we must build a high-quality and efficient medical service system. Continue to optimize the system layout, implement the project of strengthening the foundation of medical care at the grassroots level, promote the construction of compact medical consortia, strengthen the operational guarantee of county and district and grassroots medical institutions, improve the hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system, promote the mutual supplementation and coordinated development of Chinese and Western medicine, and increase the supply of health services for the elderly, children, women, chronic diseases, rehabilitation nursing, and hospice care. Third, we must actively advocate healthy and civilized lifestyles. Further improve the health literacy of the whole people, vigorously carry out national fitness and patriotic health campaigns, guide people to strengthen dietary and healthy weight management, and be the "first person responsible" for their own health.
We must continue to comprehensively deepen the reform of the medical and health system. The purpose of deepening medical reform is to solve the most direct and realistic interest issues that the masses care most about in seeing doctors, seeking medical treatment, and preventive health care, and to provide the people with higher-quality, more efficient, systematic, continuous, fair, and accessible health and wellness services. At present, our country still faces problems such as unbalanced distribution of medical resources, relatively weak grassroots service capacity, and inflexible public hospital operating mechanisms. Whether they are accumulated contradictions or new challenges, they must ultimately be solved through reform. We must deepen the reform of public hospitals oriented toward public welfare. Facing deep-seated problems such as low operational management efficiency, imperfect financial compensation mechanisms, and imperfect medical service pricing, the focus of public hospital reform should be on how to better strengthen the guarantee and operating mechanism of the public welfare nature of public hospitals, continuously improve the quality and efficiency of medical services, and enhance the universality and accessibility of medical services. We must adhere to systematic thinking and promote the coordinated development and governance of medical care, medical insurance, and medicine. At present, the structure of medical service supply is not yet reasonable enough, the leverage effect of medical insurance payment on medical behavior is not yet obvious, and there are problems such as poor coordination in the price, supply, use, and supervision of drugs and consumables. Partial adjustments are difficult to solve deep-seated chronic problems. We must play a "combined punch" of policies to achieve a new governance pattern in which the "three medicines" support each other and interact benignly. We must promote the Sanming medical reform experience according to local conditions, coordinate the promotion of reforms in medical service prices, medical insurance payment methods, and drug and consumable governance, so that the reform goals of medical care, medical insurance, and medicine can better focus on safeguarding the health of the masses.
We must solidly advance scientific and technological innovation in the health field. At present, scientific and technological innovation is reshaping the global medical and health development model. In particular, technologies such as AI-assisted diagnosis, innovative drugs, high-end medical devices, and big data early warning systems can not only greatly improve the accuracy of diagnosis and treatment of difficult diseases and fill the shortcomings of public health emergency response, but also promote the optimal allocation of medical resources and further reduce the cost of medical treatment. In the field of health in our country, there are still problems such as insufficient connection between clinical needs, scientific research tackling, and industrial transformation. We must adhere to both application-driven and source innovation, and firmly grasp the initiative of development in our own hands. Give play to the advantages of the new nationwide system for mobilizing resources, strengthen independent tackling of key problems in the directions of high-end medical equipment, innovative vaccines, targeted drugs, and public health testing reagents, strengthen the collaborative tackling of high-level medical institutions, scientific research institutes, and biomedical enterprises, and enhance the autonomous diagnosis and treatment capability for major diseases and difficult diseases. Promote the digital and intelligent construction of national health, promote the interconnection and interoperability of medical and health information, let data run more and the masses run less, promote the sinking of high-quality resources to the grassroots, and truly transform advanced technology into the capacity to safeguard the health of the whole people.
We must further strengthen the construction of the medical and health talent team. Our country's medical and health team is generally good, but there are also shortcomings such as insufficient total quantity, unreasonable structure, weak grassroots attractiveness, and frequent problems in medical ethics and conduct. We must adhere to stratified and precise talent cultivation, cultivate strategic leading talents in public health, clinical medicine, and medical prevention and management, increase the cultivation of urgently needed talents in public health, health care nursing, and chronic disease management, and focus on the grassroots level to expand the talent team. Improve the salary system that reflects the value of technical labor, appropriately tilt professional title evaluation and staffing quotas toward the grassroots and the front line, and solve the problem of retaining talent at the grassroots level; improve the targeted training and collaborative exchange mechanisms, promote urban-rural counterpart support and regional talent rotation, guide talent to flow to counties and villages, and form a talent layout that is connected from top to bottom and balanced in allocation. We must adhere to the guidance of Party building, implement the president responsibility system under the leadership of the Party committee, strengthen the construction of medical ethics and professional conduct, severely crack down on insurance fraud and medical corruption, guide the broad masses of medical workers to consciously practice the great anti-epidemic spirit and noble professional spirit, promote good medical ethics and conduct, and create a clean and upright industry environment.
Return to TopBy: 雷海潮
Promoting Decisive Progress in Building a Healthy China
Lei Haichao
Building a Healthy China by 2035 is a strategic decision made by the Party Central Committee. The "15th Five-Year Plan" period is the crucial period for achieving this goal. On March 6, 2026, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech on accelerating the building of a Healthy China when he joined the joint group discussion of the Chinese Peasants and Workers Democratic Party, the Jiusan Society, the medical and health sector, and the social welfare and social security sector at the Fourth Session of the 14th National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, profoundly elucidating the major principles that must be upheld in building a Healthy China, the key work to be advanced with concentrated efforts, and the strong safeguards that need to be provided. At the crucial juncture of the start of the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the General Secretary's important speech, with its far-sighted vision, is inspiring and motivating, providing fundamental guidance and injecting strong impetus for accelerating the building of a Healthy China. Not long ago, the "National Health '15th Five-Year Plan'" was issued, clarifying the main goals and indicators, major strategic tasks, major reform measures, and major engineering projects for building a Healthy China during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period. We must deeply study and implement the spirit of the General Secretary's important speech, unswervingly follow the path of health development with Chinese characteristics, unswervingly implement the Party's health and wellness work guidelines for the new era, solidly promote the implementation of the "National Health '15th Five-Year Plan'," and ensure that decisive progress is made in building a Healthy China.
Strengthening the Party's Overall Leadership over Health and Wellness Work
Building a Healthy China is a systematic project involving a wide range of areas, and it is necessary to give full play to the Party's core leadership role in exercising overall leadership and coordinating all parties. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, General Secretary Xi Jinping has made a series of important statements on building a Healthy China, emphasizing that without national health, there can be no comprehensive well-off society, and that people's health is an important indicator of socialist modernization, being not only a livelihood issue but also a social and political issue; emphasizing that we must proceed from China's national conditions and unswervingly follow the path of health development with Chinese characteristics; emphasizing that the Party's health and wellness work guidelines for the new era are to focus on the grassroots, take reform and innovation as the driving force, give priority to prevention, place equal emphasis on traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, integrate health into all policies, and achieve shared contribution and shared benefits by the people; emphasizing that building a Healthy China must highlight priorities, concentrating efforts and resources on improving the public health system, building a high-quality and efficient medical service system, advocating healthy and civilized lifestyles, and taking effective measures to promote these; and so on. The General Secretary's important statements systematically answer the fundamental, directional, and overarching questions concerning the building of a Healthy China, providing scientific guidance for the development of China's health sector. The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has always placed people's health in the strategic position of priority development and placed the development of the health sector in the foundational position within the overall modernization drive. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee of the Party explicitly proposed advancing the building of a Healthy China. From "advancing" during the "13th Five-Year Plan" period, to "comprehensively advancing" during the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, and then to "accelerating the building" during the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the pace of building a Healthy China has become increasingly firm.
Through long-term efforts, China has built the world's largest medical service, traditional medicine, and medical security systems covering both urban and rural areas. The disease prevention and control system has been restructured and reshaped. Positive progress has been made in deepening the reform of the medical and health system. The pharmaceutical industry is growing into an emerging pillar industry. The concept of a community of shared health for mankind has received widespread response. In 2025, China's average life expectancy rose to 79.25 years, and major health indicators have moved into the forefront among countries with upper-middle income and a population of over 100 million. These achievements fully prove that the Party's leadership is the fundamental political guarantee for building a Healthy China, and that the Party Central Committee's various decisions and arrangements for health work are in line with national conditions, follow objective laws, and respond to the expectations of the masses, and are completely correct.
Now there are only 9 years left to achieve the goal of building a Healthy China, but we still face many problems and challenges. From the perspective of basic national conditions, China is still in and will long remain in the primary stage of socialism, with a huge population, gaps in urban-rural and regional development levels, and other basic national conditions persisting over the long term, and the problem of unbalanced and inadequate development in the health sector remains prominent. From the perspective of the development stage, the disease spectrum has undergone profound changes, and people's health faces a complex situation where multiple disease threats coexist and multiple health-influencing factors are intertwined. The masses have a growing demand for all-round, full-cycle health services, but there is still a gap between service supply and people's needs. To solve these problems, we must uphold and strengthen the Party's overall leadership, implement Party leadership in all fields, links, and aspects of building a Healthy China, shore up weaknesses, plug loopholes, strengthen weak links, and consolidate advantages, ensuring that we follow the direction set by the Party Central Committee and turn the goals into reality step by step. All relevant parties should fully understand the important position and role of building a Healthy China, improve the work pattern of unified leadership by Party committees and joint management by the Party and government, formulate specific implementation plans and measures for their own regions and departments based on the Party Central Committee's decisions and arrangements, and organize implementation in stages and steps. Implement the strategy of giving priority to health development, integrate health concepts into the entire process of public policy formulation and implementation, and promote the firm establishment of health concepts, priority arrangement of planning projects, priority formulation of laws, regulations, and policies, priority improvement of governance mechanisms, and priority guarantee of resources and factors. Establish and improve the health impact assessment and evaluation system, and systematically assess the impact of various economic and social development plans, important policies, and major engineering projects on health. Adhere to the Party's mass line, give play to the advantages of organizational mobilization, deeply carry out the patriotic health campaign, and improve the health promotion governance pattern featuring leadership by Party committees, government dominance, extensive social mobilization, and active individual participation.
Improving the Public Health System
The public health system is an important component of the national security system and the first line of defense for preventing and controlling infectious diseases and safeguarding national health. Since the beginning of the 21st century, an average of one new emerging infectious disease has appeared globally each year. Especially with the continuous expansion of human activity, cross-species transmission of pathogenic microorganisms has occurred frequently. Affected by factors such as global warming and increased extreme weather, the activity range of some disease vectors such as mosquitoes and other insects has expanded to higher latitudes and altitudes, and some infectious diseases have seen expanded transmission ranges, changed epidemic patterns, and prolonged epidemic periods. From the domestic perspective, with the increase in cross-border personnel flows and international trade, the pressure and risk of imported infectious diseases causing transmission and spread in China continue to rise. At the same time, threats from traditional infectious diseases such as AIDS, tuberculosis, and hepatitis still exist. After the COVID-19 pandemic, China promulgated and implemented the Law on Prevention and Treatment of Infectious Diseases and the Law on Response to Public Health Emergencies, and the core capacity for responding to infectious diseases has been continuously improved. However, problems such as the inflexible mechanism of the disease prevention and control system, insufficient momentum, and the lack of close integration of prevention and treatment have not yet been fundamentally changed.
China is a large country with a population of over 1.4 billion. Building a strong public health system bears on national security and development and on the stability of the overall social and political situation. We must strengthen our sense of urgency, remain vigilant at all times, strictly guard against major infectious disease epidemics, consolidate, expand, and make good use of the useful experience and practices formed in COVID-19 prevention and control, consolidate the four-party responsibilities of localities, departments, units, and individuals, improve cross-regional and cross-departmental joint prevention and control mechanisms, accelerate the building of an intelligent multi-point-triggered monitoring and early warning system, and enhance the capacity for early identification, dynamic assessment, and precise intervention of major epidemic risks. Strengthen early warning of overseas epidemics and assessment of the situation, strengthen coordination and cooperation among departments, enhance the prevention and control capacity of port cities and commercial distribution centers, and improve the capacity to prevent importation from abroad. Improve the basic conditions of disease prevention and control institutions, especially those at the grassroots level, optimize functional settings, and establish a division-of-labor and coordination mechanism with upper and lower levels linked. Innovate the mechanism for coordination and integration of medical treatment and prevention, and vigorously cultivate strategic talents with interdisciplinary expertise in medicine, prevention, and management. Since the founding of New China, we have effectively controlled or even eliminated a variety of infectious diseases through the implementation of immunization programs. We should gradually include more vaccines in the immunization program, accelerate the improvement of the multi-channel financing guarantee mechanism for vaccination, and continuously optimize vaccination services.
Mental health and mental hygiene are important components of public health. At present, psychological problems and common mental disorders such as anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders are increasing, and the people's demand for mental health services is growing. However, some provinces and cities in China still do not have specialized psychiatric hospitals, and some counties and districts do not have psychiatric outpatient clinics. We must further improve the national, provincial, municipal, and county-level specialized psychiatric medical service system, strengthen the support of the talent team, strengthen prevention and guidance, early detection, and comprehensive intervention, improve the whole-chain management of psychological screening, intervention, and counseling for key groups, and build a solid line of defense for mental health.
Building a High-Quality and Efficient Medical and Health Service System
The medical and health service system is the main battlefield for maintaining and promoting people's health. Enabling the people to obtain high-quality, efficient, systematic, and continuous medical and health services nearby and conveniently is an inevitable requirement for building a Healthy China and also the ardent expectation of the masses. After long-term development, the accessibility of medical and health services in China has improved significantly. More than 1.1 million medical and health institutions cover urban and rural areas, and over 90% of residents can reach the nearest medical service point within 15 minutes. In 2025, the number of outpatient and emergency visits at primary-level medical and health institutions nationwide reached 5.56 billion, accounting for 52.6%, and both the number and proportion of primary-level outpatient and emergency visits achieved double increases for five consecutive years. However, it must also be noted that the total amount, structure, and distribution of China's medical resources are still unbalanced, coordination and collaboration among primary, secondary, and tertiary medical institutions still need to be further straightened out, and the capacity of primary-level medical and health institutions still needs to be further improved; disciplines such as pediatrics, mental health, pathology, rehabilitation nursing, and hospice care are still shortcomings, with insufficient service supply; and the National Medical Centers and Regional Medical Centers are still in the early stage of construction and operation, and their radiating and driving role needs to be further strengthened. There is still much work to be done to achieve the goal of "serious illnesses not leaving the province, general illnesses being solved in cities and counties, and daily illnesses being solved at the primary level."
During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, the key to building a high-quality and efficient medical and health service system is to focus on the grassroots, accelerate the building of the hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system, "strengthen the primary level, stabilize the secondary level, and control the tertiary level," and continuously improve the inclusiveness, accessibility, and capacity level of medical services. "Strengthening the primary level" means enhancing primary-level service capacity, implementing the project to strengthen the primary-level medical and health system, strengthening the operational support for county-level and primary-level medical and health institutions, continuously promoting the sinking of personnel and services, basically achieving full coverage of compact medical consortia, solidifying family doctor contracted services, strengthening the connection of medication at the primary level, and facilitating the masses' access to medical treatment nearby. "Stabilizing the secondary level" means stabilizing and promoting the development of secondary hospitals, stabilizing their settings, optimizing their functions, and further developing services that are currently in short supply. "Controlling the tertiary level" means regulating the scale and development speed of tertiary hospitals, giving play to the radiating and driving role of National Medical Centers and Regional Medical Centers, strengthening the assistance of tertiary hospitals to secondary hospitals and of secondary hospitals to primary-level medical and health institutions, advancing the construction of referral and consultation centers, and improving the continuity of services.
"The elderly and the young" are the key groups for medical and health services. We must strengthen health services for women and children, carry out the early pregnancy care initiative, and implement the plan to improve the capacity for preventing birth defects and promoting maternal and child health during pregnancy and childbirth. Advance the project to expand and upgrade rehabilitation nursing, and expand the supply of rehabilitation nursing and hospice care. Comprehensively promote the coordinated and integrated development of traditional Chinese medicine and Western medicine, and give play to the role of traditional Chinese medicine in prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation. Strengthen comprehensive prevention and control of chronic diseases, advance early screening and early treatment of tumors and other diseases, achieve precise intervention at the prevention end, multidisciplinary collaboration at the treatment end, continuous services at the rehabilitation end, and long-term follow-up at the post-discharge daily management end, and develop whole-chain services for prevention, treatment, rehabilitation, and management.
Advocating Healthy and Civilized Lifestyles
Improving the people's health literacy is one of the most fundamental, most economical, and most effective measures for improving the health level of the entire population. The purpose of advocating healthy and civilized lifestyles is to implement the concept of prevention first and let the masses take the initiative for their health into their own hands. At present, major chronic diseases represented by cancer, cardiovascular and cerebrovascular diseases, chronic respiratory diseases, and diabetes have become the most important diseases threatening the health of Chinese residents. China has 330 million cardiovascular disease patients, chronic diseases account for more than 80% of total deaths, and the prevalence of chronic diseases among the elderly aged 60 and above exceeds 78%. Research by the World Health Organization shows that among the factors affecting health, individual behavior and lifestyle account for 60%. At present, the overall health literacy level of Chinese residents is not high. Many residents have bad habits such as smoking and excessive drinking, staying up late, sitting for long periods without exercise, lack of physical activity, and unreasonable dietary structure, which have become major risk factors for chronic diseases.
Everyone is the first person responsible for their own health. It is necessary to strengthen individual initiative, actively enhance the learning of health knowledge, maintain a balanced diet, engage in moderate exercise, control smoking and limit alcohol, achieve psychological balance, and actively cultivate healthy and civilized lifestyles. In recent years, the National Health Commission has held multiple press conferences on "seasonal solar terms and health." This year, more than 10,000 health knowledge lectures will be held nationwide. However, to truly integrate health knowledge into the daily work and life of the masses, it also depends on the joint efforts of the government, departments, units, and the whole society. It is necessary to deeply implement the rational diet initiative, the national nutrition plan, and the healthy weight management initiative, promote the inclusion of health education in the national education system, continuously advance the "five health" promotion initiatives for young people covering weight health, vision health, mental health, bone health, and oral health, and enable the vast number of young people to develop healthy living habits from an early age. Basic social units such as communities, schools, government agencies, enterprises, and public institutions should actively publicize and popularize health knowledge. Medical personnel should act as promoters of health knowledge, letting health knowledge fly into the homes of ordinary people. It should be noted that in society and on the internet, there is no small amount of phenomenon of disguised product promotion for profit under the guise of health science popularization. It is necessary to vigorously rectify the chaos of internet health science popularization, strengthen platform supervision and industry governance, purify the industry ecology, and safeguard the health rights and interests of the people.
Injecting Strong Impetus and Vitality into Building a Healthy China
Further deepening medical reform is the key path to removing obstacles restricting the high-quality development of the health sector and supporting the building of a Healthy China. Deepening the reform of public hospitals oriented toward public welfare is the top priority among the various tasks of deepening medical reform. As the main body of China's medical and health service system, public medical institutions provide more than 80% of the services in the country's annual outpatient and emergency services. Upholding the public welfare nature of public hospitals is an important guarantee for the people to obtain high-quality medical services fairly and accessibly. No matter how developed society becomes, the public welfare nature of public hospitals must be unswervingly upheld. It is necessary to take public welfare as the orientation, implement the main responsibility of governments at all levels for running hospitals, deepen the reform of the staffing, service pricing, remuneration system, and comprehensive supervision of public hospitals, and improve the financial subsidy policy for public hospitals. Comprehensively promote the experience of medical reform in Sanming, Fujian, advance the "learning from Sanming and grasping medical reform" initiative at the city level, and cultivate more models of medical reform nationwide. Improve the mechanism for coordinated development and governance of medical treatment, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals, advance provincial-level overall planning of basic medical insurance, deepen the reform of the medical insurance payment method, improve the policy on the use of surplus funds, optimize the policy on centralized drug procurement and pricing, and improve the pharmaceutical security system.
Advancing the building of a Healthy China also requires the drive of scientific and technological innovation. At present, a number of China's diagnosis and treatment plans and innovative drugs and devices are at the internationally advanced level. In 2025, the number of innovative drugs approved for marketing hit a record high. A number of high-end independently developed products such as endoscopic surgical robots and photon-counting CT have been put into clinical use. However, there are also prominent problems such as the still weak basic research in scientific and technological innovation in the health sector, the small number of original drugs with new targets and new mechanisms, and the fact that the biomedical industry is large but not strong. It is necessary to give full play to the advantages of the new nationwide system for mobilizing resources, strengthen multidisciplinary integration and multi-institution collaborative research, and accelerate basic research, original scientific and technological innovation, and tackling of key core technologies in the health sector. Promote the transformation and application of scientific and technological innovation achievements in the health sector, strengthen the construction of pilot bases for artificial intelligence application, enrich the application scenarios of artificial intelligence, and better empower health services.
Medical personnel are the main force in building a Healthy China. At present, China has more than 16 million medical personnel, but the total number is still insufficient. In 2025, China's medical and health institutions handled more than 10.6 billion outpatient and emergency visits and 300 million inpatient discharges, while there are only 3.25 practicing physicians and 4.32 registered nurses per 1,000 population. Overtime and delayed work by medical personnel has become the norm. Especially in the face of the deepening aging of the population, the demand for medical personnel will increase substantially. It is necessary to intensify talent training, expand the medical personnel team, and improve the level of medical personnel. Medical ethics and professional conduct are the foundation of medical personnel. For a long time, the vast number of medical personnel have wholeheartedly protected the life and health of the people and won widespread praise. However, there have also been individual cases of medical personnel losing moral integrity and professional standards and violating discipline and law. In this regard, the medical and health system has solidly carried out special rectification of medical corruption, unhealthy practices, and medical quality and safety, continuously removing viruses that erode the body of the health system. It is necessary to continuously consolidate and expand the strict tone, strict measures, and strict atmosphere, implement the system of director responsibility under the leadership of the Party committee, improve the system for primary-level Party organizations in public hospitals to participate in decision-making on major matters, and promote primary-level Party organizations to play a fighting fortress role in serving the masses and building medical ethics and professional conduct. Focus on what the masses need and think, strengthen medical quality and safety, improve service capacity, optimize service models, and improve the medical experience. Vigorously promote the spirit of fighting SARS, the great spirit of fighting the epidemic, and the noble professional spirit, persistently advance the building of medical ethics and professional conduct, and continuously create a clean, upright, and positive industry environment.
Author: Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Director of the National Health Commission
By: 梁万年 王洪川
Promoting Coordinated Development and Governance of Healthcare, Medical Insurance, and Pharmaceuticals
Liang Wannian, Wang Hongchuan
Promoting the coordinated development and governance of healthcare, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals (hereinafter referred to as the "three medicals") is an important part of deepening healthcare reform and an important measure for achieving the strategic goal of a Healthy China. Healthcare is the core content of the people's access to medical treatment, health protection, and rehabilitation, and has the most direct relationship with and the most concrete experience for the people. The medical insurance fund is the "life-saving money" for the people's access to medical treatment, and is also an important source of funding for medical services and pharmaceutical products. Pharmaceuticals, as an important means of medical and health services, directly bear on the quality, safety, capability, and level of services. Healthcare, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals are inseparable, and relevant departments need to work in the same direction and form a joint force so that healthcare reform can more directly benefit people's livelihoods and better meet the people's new expectations for a better life.
At present, promoting the coordinated development and governance of the "three medicals" has entered a critical stage of overall deployment and step-by-step implementation, and a number of replicable, promotable, and expandable reform experiences have emerged. Sanming City, Fujian Province, combining national conditions and local realities, has blazed an implementation path of "making room in space, adjusting structure, and maintaining linkage" in the coordinated reform of the "three medicals." The Sanming reform broke through first from the pharmaceutical supply side, institutionalizing and normalizing centralized procurement of drugs and consumables, continuously compressing inflated profits in the circulation link, and making room for straightening out medical service prices and fully reflecting the technical labor value of medical personnel. On this basis, it reshaped the medical service operation ecology with compact county-wide medical communities as the carrier, coordinated the entire county's public institution staffing, smoothed two-way flow of urban and rural talent, implemented a post-based annual salary system for all staff, and promoted deep-seated structural reform of the medical and health system. Throughout this process, the reform of the medical insurance payment mechanism ran through the entire process and played a coordinating and linking role, implementing annual per-capita capitation package payment for compact county-wide medical communities, implementing the incentive and constraint rules of "retaining surplus, sharing reasonable overspending," and clarifying that medical insurance surplus funds can be counted as hospital medical service income and that health promotion funds are included in the operating costs of medical institutions, thereby realizing the coordinated force of healthcare, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals.
Based on the Sanming reform practice, some localities have explored "three medicals" coordinated reform paths in light of local conditions, forming distinctive and effective reform measures. For example, Shenzhen, focusing on the problems of overlapping hospital functions and weak primary-level capacity in megacities, has built a service framework of "municipal medical centers + district-level medical groups." Municipal medical centers rely on high-level municipal hospitals to build medical highlands, while district-level medical groups coordinate the integrated operation of community health service institutions within their jurisdictions, implementing supporting measures such as integrated management of personnel, finances, and materials, reform of medical insurance payment methods, and preferential primary-level reimbursement, guiding quality resources to sink to communities. Tianchang, Anhui, as one of the first national pilot counties for comprehensive reform of county-level public hospitals, has built a "county-township-village integrated" operation system, implementing unified legal person management by the leading hospital, coordinating and allocating the entire county's medical resources and public institution staffing, and promoting the balanced distribution of quality medical resources from the institutional level. Huzhou, Zhejiang, has carried out pilot construction of compact urban medical groups, implemented diversified and composite medical insurance payment methods under the overall budget of medical communities, established a dynamic adjustment mechanism for medical service prices, and promoted the transformation of medical communities into health communities. In addition, digital technology provides a new path for breaking down the barriers of the "three medicals." For example, Beijing has coordinated the promotion of integrated governance of "three medicals" data, with more than 200 medical institutions at or above the second level in the city achieving data sharing, while also empowering new drug research and development through a trusted medical and health data space, providing new momentum for industrial innovation.
Relying on the institutionalized reform measures of "three medicals" coordination, the synergy of China's medical services, medical insurance protection, and pharmaceutical supply has been continuously strengthened, achieving simultaneous improvement in public welfare attributes, protection effectiveness, and innovation capacity. In 2025, the number of outpatient visits at primary-level medical and health institutions nationwide reached 5.56 billion, accounting for 52.6%; more than 90% of residents can reach the nearest medical service point within 15 minutes. The strategic purchasing role of medical insurance has been further brought into play. Payment by diagnosis-related groups (DRG) and by disease-diagnosis-intervention packet (DIP) has basically covered all pooling areas. As of July 2026, the national level has organized and implemented 11 batches of centralized procurement covering 490 drugs and 6 batches covering 142 types of medical consumables in 9 categories. Medical insurance convenience services have continued to advance. From January to May 2026, 147 million cross-province off-site medical treatment settlements were made directly, reducing the amount advanced by the people by 88.6 billion yuan. Pharmaceutical supply security and innovation capacity have continued to strengthen, and the pharmaceutical industry has accelerated its leap from imitation dependence to independent innovation.
However, it must also be clearly recognized that the integrated operation mechanism of medicine and health is not yet sound, and the traditional operation model "centered on disease" has not yet been broken out of. The problems of "three medicals" segmentation by department and fragmented supply remain prominent. From the healthcare side, gaps in the allocation of medical resources between urban and rural areas and between regions still exist, the siphon effect of large high-quality hospitals remains obvious, the sinking of quality medical resources is not balanced or thorough enough, primary-level medical and health institutions lack sufficient software and hardware support, the loss of backbone talent and the problem of echelon building are prominent, the effectiveness of the hierarchical diagnosis and treatment system needs to be consolidated, there are gaps in integrated and continuous health services, the supply of full-cycle health management and care for chronic disease and elderly groups is insufficient, and trust, recognition, and satisfaction in primary-level medical and health institutions need to be improved. From the medical insurance side, population aging, clinical application of new technologies, and the expansion of the people's medical treatment needs continue to increase pressure on fund expenditure, and medium- and long-term balance of revenue and expenditure faces rigid constraints. Although payment by disease type has basically achieved coverage of all pooling areas, the supporting dynamic adjustment of medical service prices lags behind, the construction of a multi-level medical security system advances slowly, various security policies are poorly connected and data interoperability is insufficient, commercial health insurance is severely homogenized, and there remains a gap with the people's multi-level, differentiated, and high-quality health security needs. From the pharmaceutical side, there are problems such as imbalance between supply and demand allocation and insufficient connection in the innovation transformation chain. Primary-level medical and health institutions have few types of drugs available and poor accessibility of drugs for referral treatment. The supply of high-end innovative drugs urgently needed clinically is insufficient, and original innovation capacity in frontier fields needs to be improved. Although the review and approval of innovative drugs and devices continues to accelerate, the connection of clinical access evaluation, real-world data application, dynamic medical insurance access, and in-hospital implementation and reimbursement is insufficient, and the channel for transforming innovation into universal clinical benefit is not smooth enough.
The root cause of the problem lies in the poor coordination of the "three medicals," which is concentrated in the failure to achieve mechanism coordination in resource allocation, assessment and evaluation, and development governance, resulting in failure of factor linkage, disconnection of institutional supporting measures, and absence of governance synergy. The first is the virtualization of resource allocation coordination, where the core elements of the "three medicals" sink asynchronously and supporting measures are not linked. When localities promote the project to strengthen the primary-level medical and health system, they generally focus on sinking medical personnel and improving primary-level diagnosis and treatment teams, but key safeguard measures such as medical insurance fund tilting, primary-level equipment renewal, and drug supply have not been implemented simultaneously. Taking chronic disease management as an example, a large number of primary-level medical and health institutions have fully equipped family doctor follow-up teams, but supporting mechanisms in some counties and districts, such as medical insurance capitation payment for chronic diseases and differentiated incentives for hierarchical diagnosis and treatment, have not kept pace. Primary-level pharmacies are not fully stocked with routine drugs for chronic diseases, and patients still need to travel back and forth to central hospitals for prescription renewal, follow-up examinations, and monitoring. The second is that the assessment and evaluation mechanism is not sound, with current assessment standards being separate and administration-oriented. Medical departments focus their assessment on medical quality and diagnosis and treatment order supervision, medical insurance departments focus on fund risk control, and drug regulatory departments focus on the bottom-line control of drug and device safety. All parties lack sufficient assessment and evaluation of coordinated tasks such as clinical adaptation of pharmaceuticals, coordination of innovative drug medical insurance implementation, and multi-level security linkage. At the same time, there is also a lack of effective incentive and assessment measures in promoting "three medicals" data interconnection and information sharing, resulting in insufficient motivation in various localities to advance data integration. This assessment mechanism can also easily trigger chain governance bottlenecks. For example, commercial insurance institutions cannot legally obtain standardized medical data, making it difficult to carry out precise risk pricing, refined underwriting and claims settlement, and personalized product development, resulting in insufficient supply of commercial insurance products. The third is the weakening of development and governance coordination, with a cognitive bias that emphasizes coordinated governance over coordinated development, severing the dialectical relationship of development and governance as "one body with two wings." Taking the reform of dynamic adjustment of medical service prices as an example, this is the core development hub linking public hospital compensation, medical insurance payment, centralized procurement implementation, and medical service quality improvement, requiring pre-coordination by health, medical insurance, drug regulatory, and other departments. Some regions only strengthen supervision and governance of medical institution charging compliance and fund use standards, while neglecting coordination of price mechanism linkage development. The three parties lack joint calculation, dynamic calibration, and supporting linkage, and the reform space freed by centralized procurement price reductions cannot be effectively transformed into improvement of the technical labor value of medical personnel, weakening the effects of compensation incentives, service quality improvement, and industrial empowerment.
To improve the coordinated development and governance of the "three medicals," it is necessary to closely follow the national "15th Five-Year Plan" deployment, take the people's health needs as the orientation, identify the practical entry points for "three medicals" coordination, and promote the implementation and effectiveness of various measures.
Price reform runs through the entire chain of medical services, medical insurance payment, and pharmaceutical production, and is the core issue for coordinating the demands of all parties and unifying the reform orientation. The difficulty of "three medicals" coordination lies to a large extent in the mutual separation of the value transmission chains of healthcare, medical insurance, and pharmaceuticals, and the mismatch between the income levels of all parties and their performance responsibilities and actual contributions. In response to the current problems of insufficient matching between medical service prices and the technical labor value of medical personnel and insufficient public welfare orientation of compensation incentives, it is necessary to establish and improve a mechanism for joint research, judgment, and synchronous calibration of medical service prices by health, medical insurance, drug regulatory, finance, and human resources and social security departments, establish annual cost accounting, value assessment, and revenue coordination systems, fully utilize the reform space freed by drug price reductions, and better reflect the technical labor value of medical personnel. It is necessary to establish and improve a compensation distribution mechanism with public welfare duty performance, clinical service quality, diagnosis and treatment technical difficulty, health improvement effectiveness, and patient satisfaction as core elements, improve the market-led drug price formation mechanism, standardize the full-cycle pricing of innovative drugs and devices, improve the medical insurance value assessment and dynamic adjustment mechanism, and continuously rectify illegal acts such as failure to clearly mark prices in accordance with regulations and price fraud in the circulation link.
Data elements connect the entire process of diagnosis and treatment services, fund security, and drug and device supervision, and are an important carrier for breaking down departmental divisions and realizing governance linkage, as well as a necessary foundation for deepening price reform. In response to the current shortcomings of the "three medicals" data systems being self-contained, having different standards, and imperfect authorized circulation mechanisms, it is necessary to establish a cross-departmental routine data consultation and joint governance system, and coordinate and standardize data standards across the entire domain, including diagnosis and treatment records, chronic disease management, medical insurance settlement, drug and device supervision, and quality control. It is necessary to build an integrated data sharing foundation covering the "three medicals," improve data classification, grading, and authorized circulation norms, and clarify the boundaries of hierarchical management and control of diagnosis and treatment data, medical insurance settlement data, and real-world data for drug and device research and development. It is necessary to continuously expand convenient service scenarios for two-way data circulation and promote interoperability and mutual recognition of laboratory tests, medical imaging, and electronic medical records. Relying on the unified digital foundation, it is necessary to build an all-domain smart supervision platform for real-time monitoring of clinical diagnosis and treatment, fund operation, and drug and consumable circulation, achieving efficient coordination of services, security, and supervision.
On the basis of price reform and data integration, it is necessary to simultaneously advance supporting reforms of assessment guidance, resource sinking, and commercial insurance linkage. It is necessary to build a hierarchical evaluation framework, taking average life expectancy, health service accessibility, and the people's medical treatment experience as common goals of health, medical insurance, and drug regulatory departments, incorporating coordinated tasks such as two-way referral, data interoperability, and multi-level security linkage into assessment, and directly linking assessment results with fiscal fund allocation and local healthcare reform performance evaluation. Relying on compact medical alliances, it is necessary to implement the operation model of "one family, one account book, one heart," coordinating the simultaneous sinking of personnel staffing, operating funds, routine diagnosis and treatment equipment, intelligent health management terminals, and drugs for chronic and common diseases. It is necessary to promote the dynamic linkage between the medical insurance drug catalog and the innovative drug catalogs of commercial health insurance, encourage commercial insurance to expand the payment scope of innovative drugs, and realize two-way empowerment of industrial innovation and the people's health needs.
Author affiliations: Tsinghua University
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Consolidating the Grassroots Foundation for Building a Healthy China
Ma Li (马骊)
People's health is an important indicator for measuring modernization. Since the Party's 18th National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping has always placed people's health in the strategic position of priority development, repeatedly stressing that "we must push the focus of medical and health work downward, sink medical and health resources downward, and promote the equalization of basic public services between urban and rural areas." In the course of Chinese-style modernization, the whole-life-cycle health needs of more than 1.4 billion people are mainly borne by the grassroots; the key to preventing people from becoming impoverished or returning to poverty due to illness, preventing and controlling infectious diseases, and advancing chronic disease management also lies at the grassroots. Only when the grassroots is consolidated and strengthened can the building of a Healthy China have solid support.
Attaching importance to the grassroots is a fine tradition and valuable experience of our Party in leading the health care cause. During the revolutionary war years, the Party established red hospitals and trained red doctors in the base areas, extensively mobilized soldiers and civilians to carry out mass health and epidemic prevention practices, and accumulated useful experience in advancing health work by relying on the masses. After the founding of New China, Comrade Mao Zedong issued the great call to "put the focus of medical and health work in the countryside." Barefoot doctors, cooperative medical care, and the three-tiered medical and health network at the county, township, and village levels built a 举世瞩目 (jǔ shì zhǔ mù - "the whole world watches," attracting worldwide attention) primary health care system, which greatly improved the health of hundreds of millions of people at extremely low cost. Since reform and opening up, from restoring and rebuilding the rural health network to promoting the new rural cooperative medical care system, from deepening the reform of the medical and health system to establishing the basic principles of "ensuring the basics, strengthening the grassroots, and establishing mechanisms," attaching importance to the grassroots has always been the keynote of the development of the health care cause. Entering the new era, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has upheld the grassroots medical and health system as the frontline position for safeguarding people's health, systematically deployed the building of compact county-level medical communities (紧密型县域医共体), continuously improved the three-tiered medical and health service network at the county, township, and village levels, steadily increased the number of general practitioners per 10,000 population, continuously raised the share of grassroots diagnosis and treatment, extended family doctor contracted services to cover hundreds of millions of people, greatly enhanced the standardized management of chronic diseases and the capacity for grassroots public health emergency response, and basically formed a pattern in which urban and rural residents enjoy convenient basic medical and public health services nearby.
In the tide of the times in advancing the building of a Healthy China, the enhancement of the grassroots' capacity for disease prevention, treatment, and health management — the grassroots being the "first line of defense" safeguarding the people's health — has become a key task bearing on the health and well-being of the whole population. From the perspective of population development trends and the people's needs, the current degree of population aging continues to deepen and chronic diseases are highly prevalent and frequent; the people's health needs have shifted from single-purpose medical treatment for illness to whole-life-cycle health care and management, raising higher requirements for nearby, routine, and sustained health services at the grassroots and compelling grassroots medical care to consolidate its foundation and shore up its weak points. From the perspective of the volume of services borne, grassroots medical care is the net-bottom support of the health system. The diagnosis and treatment volume of grassroots medical and health institutions nationwide has accounted for more than 50 percent for many consecutive years; they have the broadest coverage and are closest to the people, undertaking core foundational work such as chronic disease screening, infectious disease surveillance, and management and care of key populations, and serving as the frontline gateway for preventing public health risks and blocking impoverishment and return to poverty due to illness. Only when the grassroots is solid can early prevention and early control of disease and burden reduction at the source be achieved. From the perspective of medical reform practice, with the accelerated building of compact county-level medical communities and urban medical groups, the grassroots has transformed from a traditional service terminal into health gatekeepers and resource-linking hubs, directly determining the overall effectiveness of tiered diagnosis and treatment and medical-prevention coordination, and is also the key to solving the problems of the people traveling far for medical treatment and finding medical treatment expensive. From the perspective of policy orientation, the National Health "15th Five-Year Plan" (国民健康“十五五”规划) clearly states: "implement the Medical and Health Grassroots-Strengthening Project" (医疗卫生强基工程); "the proportion of township health centers and community health service centers meeting service capacity standards remains above 95 percent, and the share of diagnosis and treatment volume of grassroots medical and health institutions is further increased."
In light of the new situation and new requirements of building a Healthy China, there are still some shortcomings in China's grassroots health workforce, service capacity, institutional mechanisms, and other aspects.
Talent is the primary resource for the development of the grassroots health care cause. At present, the grassroots health workforce faces problems such as insufficient total quantity, suboptimal structure, and weak stability, concentratedly manifested as the development difficulties of talent that cannot be attracted, cannot go down, and cannot be retained. First, talent introduction is difficult, and job vacancies persist. Influenced by differences in resource allocation between urban and rural areas, urban medical platforms have obvious advantages in platforms, remuneration, and training resources, creating a siphon effect on professional medical and nursing talent; the grassroots has insufficient appeal for attracting external talent, and a long-term mechanism for replenishing grassroots talent has not yet taken shape. At present, the proportion of licensed doctors at the grassroots with a bachelor's degree or above is significantly lower than that in urban hospitals, and in some remote counties, the proportion of physicians with a bachelor's degree or above in township health centers is relatively low. Second, the sinking of young talent is insufficient, and the building of the team echelon lags behind. At the grassroots, the quotas for professional title promotion are small and the channels are narrow, the career development space for young medical and nursing personnel is limited, and their willingness to proactively go down to the grassroots for employment and practice is low. Data from the 2025 China Health Statistical Yearbook (2025中国卫生健康统计年鉴) show that village doctors under age 35 account for only 7.6 percent, while those aged 60 and above account for as high as 22.5 percent, indicating a serious shortage of reserve talent; the supply of professionals in scarce specialties such as geriatric rehabilitation, traditional Chinese medicine diagnosis and treatment, emergency and first aid, and mental health has long been in short supply. Third, retaining on-the-job talent is difficult, and the loss of backbone personnel is relatively common. Grassroots medical personnel undertake a large amount of basic medical and public health services and bear a heavy workload, yet the remuneration incentive system is imperfect and the value of technical labor has not been fully reflected; the supply of standardized training at the grassroots is insufficient, medical personnel have limited capacity to manage complex chronic diseases and geriatric comorbidities, the public's recognition of grassroots medical visits is not high, and the sense of professional fulfillment is weak. The superimposition of multiple shortcomings causes high-quality grassroots talent to continuously flow upward, and the problem of one-way talent attrition is prominent.
Service capacity is the core support for the grassroots in undertaking the health needs of the whole population. At present, grassroots medical and health institutions have achieved standardized coverage of hardware facilities, but there are still obvious shortcomings in comprehensive diagnosis and treatment, health management, and diversified service supply capacity, concentratedly manifested as three contradictions: insufficient supply, weak functions, and mismatch between supply and demand. First, the supply of diversified health services lags behind the people's needs. At present, grassroots services still mainly consist of outpatient services for common diseases and basic public health service programs, with insufficient supply of services such as rehabilitation physiotherapy, traditional Chinese medicine preventive treatment of disease, mental health, and early health guidance for infants and young children. Patients with sequelae of stroke or post-fracture rehabilitation find it difficult to obtain systematic rehabilitation intervention in villages (communities), and there is a relatively large gap in the allocation of convalescent-care beds and professional rehabilitation equipment. Common psychological problems such as anxiety, depression, and sleep disorders lack professional diagnosis and treatment support. Health assessment and guidance for infants and young children aged 0-3 has not yet achieved full coverage, and there are breaks in the whole-life-cycle health service chain. Second, core diagnosis and treatment functions are weak. The hardware conditions of grassroots medical and health institutions have generally improved, but the enhancement of soft power has lagged behind, and the level of standardized diagnosis and treatment of common diseases still needs to be strengthened. Some grassroots medical personnel lack sufficient capacity for independent judgment of examination results, and diagnoses such as electrocardiograms and imaging still rely relatively heavily on support from county-level remote centers. The standardization of some grassroots outpatient clinics in links such as the use of antibiotics and hormones needs to be improved. Third, the alignment of service supply with demand is not precise enough. At present, the health management needs of key populations continue to grow, and the coverage of family doctor contracted services is gradually expanding, but the supply of personalized services such as door-to-door medical rounds, home care, and medication guidance for the very old and disabled remains insufficient, and the phenomenon of "signed but not served" in contracted services exists to a certain extent. The standardized management service rate for hypertension and type 2 diabetes at the grassroots has risen steadily, but the degree of refined management such as complication screening, personalized nutrition and exercise intervention, and continuous glucose monitoring is not high, the control outcomes for some chronic disease patients are still unsatisfactory, and the actual effectiveness of health management needs further improvement.
Institutional mechanisms are the key lever for activating the vitality of grassroots health development, but at present, the reform of supporting systems such as grassroots medical and health management, medical insurance payment, fiscal investment, and coordinated linkage has not yet been fully opened up, and problems such as insufficient incentives, poor coordination, and low input efficiency have become prominent. First, grassroots medical personnel have multifarious duties and broad service coverage, but performance-based distribution does not tilt strongly enough toward public-welfare services, downward-sinking services, and refined health management, and the match between the return on the value of technical labor and work input needs to be improved, which to a certain extent affects the enthusiasm of medical personnel to serve proactively and work in depth at the grassroots. At the same time, policies favoring the grassroots in professional title promotion and evaluation for commendation are not fully implemented on the ground, and the long-term talent incentive mechanism still needs continuous improvement. Second, the integrated operation pattern of compact county-level medical communities has basically taken shape, but the mechanisms for routinized business linkage, resource sharing, and talent exchange between higher- and lower-level medical and health institutions still need to be refined. The sinking of high-quality medical resources is mainly carried out through staged assistance and roving consultations, while long-term mechanisms such as regular on-site guidance, discipline co-building, and talent mentorship have not yet been fully popularized, and the integration and articulation of medical resources between urban and rural areas and between county and township levels are not close enough. Barriers to information exchange and business coordination have not been completely removed, which to a certain extent affects the overall effectiveness of tiered diagnosis and treatment and medical-prevention integration. Third, fiscal investment in grassroots health has continued to grow steadily, but funds are more focused on hardware facility construction, with relatively insufficient investment in areas such as talent cultivation, discipline development, information technology operation and maintenance, and the expansion of distinctive services. At the same time, the degree of differentiation and precision in fund allocation is insufficient, failing to fully adapt to differences in the service volume, population structure, and service radius of grassroots medical and health institutions in different regions, and the empowering effect of fiscal funds has not been fully released.
To consolidate the grassroots foundation for building a Healthy China, we must uphold a systemic approach, take talent as the support, prevention as the main line, technology as the lever, and institutions as the safeguard, achieve coordinated linkage and organic integration, and enhance the effectiveness of grassroots health governance in all respects.
Forge an Outstanding Grassroots Team.
The core of resource sinking is capacity sinking, and the key to capacity sinking is talent sinking. We must improve the system for the supply and cultivation of grassroots talent, improve the talent flow mechanism of "county management with township employment, township recruitment with village employment" (县管乡用、乡聘村用) in compact county-level medical communities, continue to implement the free training of rural order-oriented medical students (农村订单定向医学生免费培养), the general practitioner special post plan (全科医生特岗计划), and the special plan for college-graduate village doctors (大学生乡村医生专项计划), and expand the supply of grassroots talent. We must open up channels for career development guarantees and expand grassroots public-institution staffing through means such as dynamic adjustment of staffing quotas and the establishment of staffing turnover pools (编制周转池). At the same time, we should optimize the internal performance distribution mechanism of medical communities, implement more pay for more work and excellent pay for excellent performance (多劳多得、优绩优酬), improve the policies of separate evaluation and targeted preference for grassroots professional titles, broaden the promotion space for grassroots medical personnel, and make the grassroots a stable platform for undertaking work and building careers. Medical colleges and universities should take the cultivation of grassroots talent as an important task in serving the building of a Healthy China, continue to carry out group-based paired assistance (组团式帮扶) for hospitals in underdeveloped counties, and systematically enhance the diagnosis and treatment strength of the grassroots from the technical, management, and talent levels.
Make Health Management Solid and Meticulous.
Prevention is the most economical and most effective health strategy. To make grassroots health management solid and deepen medical-prevention integration, we must adhere to putting prevention first and effectively translate investment in public health services into health outcomes that the people can perceive and access. We should focus on the new grassroots health situation of high incidence of chronic diseases and coexistence of multiple diseases, continuously deepen the medical-prevention-integrated chronic disease co-management mechanism, improve the whole-process standardized service system for grassroots chronic disease screening, risk intervention, regular follow-up, and rehabilitation guidance, refine the service standards and assessment norms for each link, and promote the standardized and routinized implementation of chronic disease management and control services. We should continuously strengthen the hardware capacity for grassroots chronic disease diagnosis and treatment, fully equip basic equipment for complication screening, formulate integrated personalized plans for medication, nutritional conditioning, and exercise intervention based on the physical signs of different patients, and comprehensively improve the precision of chronic disease management and control. We should fully release the distinctive advantages of traditional Chinese medicine to empower grassroots health, continue to advance the standardized quality-improvement construction of grassroots traditional Chinese medicine clinics, and popularize and promote traditional Chinese medicine appropriate techniques that are safe, simple, convenient, and suited to the grassroots. We should continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of family doctor contracted services, expand value-added services such as door-to-door medical rounds, home care, rehabilitation guidance, and medication supervision for the very old and disabled, and promote health management sinking into the grid and directly reaching households.
Bridge the Gap through Smart Empowerment.
Artificial intelligence can rapidly analyze large amounts of information such as patients' symptoms, medical histories, and examination results, provide doctors with diagnostic suggestions and references for treatment plans, and help grassroots doctors with relatively insufficient experience improve diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic scientificity. In recent years, the empowerment of the grassroots diagnosis and treatment system by artificial intelligence has continued to emerge in practice. At present, more than 80 percent of counties within compact county-level medical communities have preliminarily built resource-sharing centers for imaging, electrocardiography, and laboratory testing. But it must also be noted that many sharing centers are still at the initial completion stage, the long-term operation mechanisms of some county-level sharing centers are not yet sound, and there are still bottlenecks in equipment operation and maintenance, personnel coordination, and the implementation of mutual recognition of test results, and the gap in diagnosis and treatment service capacity between urban and rural areas has not yet been fully closed. We should take the grassroots as the focus, strengthen the role of resource-sharing centers for medical imaging diagnosis, electrocardiogram diagnosis, medical laboratory testing, pathological diagnosis, and disinfection supply, and raise the intelligence level of convenient and people-benefiting services such as diagnosis and treatment services, basic public health, coordinated chronic disease management, family doctor contracted services, and traditional Chinese medicine intelligent auxiliary diagnosis. At the same time, we should follow the construction logic of 循序渐进 (xún xù jiàn jìn - "advance step by step in due order," to proceed gradually and systematically) and consolidating the foundation, refrain from imposing a one-size-fits-all approach to digitalization, and simultaneously advance offline standardization and online smart services, so as to effectively improve the diagnosis and treatment service capacity of the grassroots.
Stimulate the Endogenous Driving Force of Grassroots Governance.
A sound grassroots medical and health system is a key support for advancing comprehensive rural revitalization and consolidating the health foundation of Chinese-style modernization, and is also an important yardstick for testing the effectiveness of grassroots governance. We should coordinate key links such as fiscal investment, medical security, medical community reform, and diversified governance, systematically improve the grassroots health operation guarantee system, and activate the endogenous driving force of grassroots health governance in all respects. We should improve the coordinated guarantee mechanism of fiscal and medical insurance, fully disburse special funds for basic public health services and subsidies under the essential medicines system, implement policies favoring the grassroots in medical insurance reimbursement and tiered referral, and guide the people to proactively choose first consultation at the grassroots and seek medical treatment nearby. We should continue to deepen the connotative development of compact county-level medical communities, focus on tackling key areas such as personnel management, salary distribution, information exchange, and medical insurance coordination on the basis of full coverage, and remove institutional and mechanistic obstacles constraining grassroots development. We should improve the health promotion institutions and mechanisms featuring Party committee leadership, government-led direction, broad social mobilization, and active individual participation, build strong and make good use of the public health committees of villagers' (residents') committees (村（居）民委员会公共卫生委员会), routinely advance the Patriotic Health Campaign, continuously popularize health knowledge among the whole population, improve residents' health literacy, guide the people to firmly establish the awareness of being the first person responsible for their own health, and promote the transformation of grassroots health governance from passive medical treatment to proactive health intervention.
Author: President and Professor of Southern Medical University
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Striving in All Respects to Drive the Economy Toward Innovation, Optimization, and Improvement in the Second Half of the Year
Commentator of Qiushi Magazine
In the first half of this year, in the face of a complex situation in which the external environment was marked by turbulence and interweaving changes while domestic new and old problems overlapped, and under the strong leadership of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, China's economy pressed forward despite pressure, with major economic indicators operating within a reasonable range and demonstrating a development trend of innovation in momentum and optimization in structure. On July 30, the Political Bureau of the Central Committee held a meeting to conduct in-depth analysis and research on the current economic situation and to make comprehensive arrangements for doing a good job in economic work in the second half of the year, emphasizing the need to attach great importance to the difficulties and challenges in economic operation, strengthen confidence, rise to the occasion, make good use of various opportunities and advantages, and promote the sustained development of the economy toward innovation, optimization, and improvement. At the key juncture when more than half of the year has passed and the year is at a transitional point connecting the past and the future, the Central Committee has directly confronted the prominent issues currently facing economic and social development, promptly responded to the interests and concerns of the vast number of business entities and the people, and released a clear signal of unswervingly promoting high-quality development, providing scientific guidance for better accomplishing the year's economic and social development goals and tasks.
At present, China's economy is comprehensively shifting onto the track of high-quality development, and economic growth contains enormous potential and new opportunities. At the same time, it must be recognized that, affected by various complex factors at home and abroad, economic operation has shown some new changes and new trends and is also facing some difficulties and challenges. From the perspective of supply and demand: on the one hand, new growth points in consumption are constantly emerging; in the first half of the year, the cultural, tourism, and sports and leisure markets remained continuously active, with retail sales of services growing by 5.3 percent year on year; on the other hand, the recovery of commodity consumption has been relatively slow, the endogenous driving force of investment is insufficient, and residents' willingness to consume and enterprises' investment confidence still need to be strengthened. From the perspective of the economic structure: on the one hand, new industries, new business forms, and new models are growing relatively rapidly, with new drivers of growth represented by high-end manufacturing contributing more than 40 percent to economic growth in the first half of the year and increasingly shouldering the main beam of economic development; on the other hand, some traditional industries and small and medium-sized enterprises are facing operational difficulties, and development is diverging among different industries and different regions amid the transition between old and new drivers of growth. From the perspective of external influences: on the one hand, the resilience of foreign trade has performed strongly; in the first half of the year, the total value of imports and exports of goods exceeded 25 trillion yuan for the first time in the same period in history, of which exports grew by 13.4 percent; on the other hand, the external environment is complex and changeable, and there is considerable uncertainty regarding economic and trade frictions and the security of industrial and supply chains. Viewed comprehensively and dialectically, the supporting conditions and fundamental trend of China's economy improving in the long run have not changed, and the advantages of a major country and the advantages of the system are becoming increasingly evident. The current problems are problems arising in the course of development and at a particular stage, and they can be completely solved through hard work. By making full use of advantages and properly responding to challenges, the prospects for China's economic development remain bright.
Doing a good job in economic work in the second half of the year is directly related to the realization of the year's development goals and to a good start for the "15th Five-Year Plan." We must unify our thinking and actions with the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee, comprehensively and objectively understand the current economic situation, be adept at analyzing mechanisms and principles, grasp economic work with a sense of urgency and mission that brooks no delay, intensify efforts to expand domestic demand and optimize supply, effectively safeguard and improve people's livelihoods, strengthen development momentum and stimulate social vitality, strive to overcome various unfavorable factors, continuously create new achievements in high-quality development, and lay a solid foundation for a good start to the "15th Five-Year Plan."
Apply systematic policies to unleash the potential of domestic demand. At present and for some time to come, it is necessary to expand domestic demand with greater intensity, adapt to the consumption needs of different groups to expand high-quality supply, and coordinate the relationship between aggregate supply and aggregate demand. We should solidly advance the planning and construction of the "six networks," continue to promote the implementation of major projects in the "15th Five-Year Plan," strengthen the guarantee of funds and factors, and generate more tangible workload. We should adhere to the coordinated efforts of investing in things and investing in people, strengthen investment in human capital such as education and training, and continuously enhance the stamina and vitality of development. We should support industries with strong capacity to drive employment and income growth to expand investment, increase investment in the construction of consumption scenarios and the upgrading of facilities, and tap the potential of service consumption. We should implement the "15th Five-Year Plan" for expanding consumption, improve public services such as medical care, elderly care, and childcare, improve the social security system, reduce residents' worries about consumption, and promote positive interaction between consumption and investment and between supply and demand.
Accelerate the transition between old and new drivers of growth. The rise and fall of old and new drivers of growth is an inevitable stage of economic transformation, and the divergence in economic development is, to a certain extent, a concomitant phenomenon of structural upgrading. To do a good job in economic work in the second half of the year, we must develop new quality productive forces in accordance with local conditions, thoroughly implement the "Artificial Intelligence +" action, develop new forms of the intelligent economy, and cultivate more new industries and new tracks. We should actively promote breakthroughs in frontier technologies and the development of future industries, thoroughly implement large-scale demonstration actions for the application of new technologies, new products, and new scenarios, increase scenario cultivation and opening up, and accelerate the scaled development of emerging industries. We should continuously optimize and upgrade traditional industries, implement projects for the technological transformation and upgrading of manufacturing and for large-scale equipment renewal, promote the digital and intelligent transformation of manufacturing, develop intelligent construction, and be adept at driving increments by revitalizing existing stock.
Implement more proactive and effective macro policies. Since the beginning of this year, the package of policies for fiscal and financial coordination to promote domestic demand has been implemented at an accelerated pace, and the effects are gradually emerging. In the next step, we should strengthen counter-cyclical adjustment, accelerate the pace of fiscal expenditure and the use of bond funds, comprehensively apply and timely adjust monetary policy tools, and strengthen coordination between fiscal policy and monetary policy. We should make full and good use of existing policies, plan and introduce pragmatic and effective incremental policies, and put together a "combination punch" of policies for stabilizing employment and stabilizing enterprises, further consolidating the micro-foundation of domestic demand growth. We should increase support for employment through various policies, continue to implement measures such as stable-job rebates, social insurance subsidies, and special loans, and further increase the scale of investment in work-relief programs. Only when enterprises are vibrant can the economy have momentum. For some enterprises under obvious short-term pressure, we should make full and good use of various relief policy tools such as tax and fee reductions, financing guarantees, and others, increase credit and guarantee quotas, enhance the accessibility of financing for business entities, especially small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises, and effectively reduce the burden on enterprises.
Strengthen reform measures to unleash momentum and vitality. At present, the cyclical, structural, and institutional problems in China's economic development are intertwined and overlapping, and it is necessary to adopt comprehensive measures. We must not only strengthen macro-control to reduce short-term economic fluctuations, but also lose no time in further deepening reform, creating a fair and orderly market competition environment, and promoting a greater shift of the economy toward endogenous growth. In recent years, important progress has been made in building a unified national market, but sustained efforts and long-term perseverance are still needed. We should formulate and implement regulations on the construction of a unified national market, further improve systems for property rights protection, market access, fair competition, social credit, and market exit, and improve statistics, fiscal and taxation, and assessment systems. We should regulate preferential tax and fiscal subsidy policies and guide all localities to shift from "involution-style" competition of competing over preferential treatment and subsidies to benign competition of comparing environments and services. We should fully stimulate the vitality of various business entities such as state-owned assets and enterprises and private enterprises, and promote the complementary advantages and common development of all forms of ownership.
Strengthen and improve expectation management. Scientific expectation management is an important means of amplifying the effects of macro policies and enhancing the effectiveness of macroeconomic governance. It is necessary to strengthen the awareness of expectation management, proactively strengthen and improve expectation management, and incorporate it into the entire process of macroeconomic governance. We should grasp the intensity of policies, dare to break conventions when necessary, and put together a "combination punch" so that the market has a greater sense of gain. We should strengthen policy publicity and interpretation, do a good job in the proactive and precise delivery of policies, strengthen interaction and communication with the market, enable all types of business entities to fully understand and make good use of policies, and transform the continuity and stability of policies into the certainty of expectations. We should accelerate the implementation and implementation of major strategies and reform measures, ensuring that what is said is done and what is done is accomplished, guide the formation of clear and stable market expectations, and realize a positive interaction between deepening reform and strengthening expectations.
Return to TopBy: 《求是》杂志记者 陈有勇 魏佳朔
Qiushi (求是) Exclusive Interview
How to View the Operation and Development Trend of China's Economy in the First Half of the Year
— An Interview with the Spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics (国家统计局)
Qiushi Journal reporters Chen Youyong (陈有勇) and Wei Jiashuo (魏佳朔)
Editor's note: Recently, the half-year report on China's economy for 2026 was released. Gross domestic product (GDP) grew 4.7% year on year, and the supporting and leading role of new drivers of growth was strengthened. Withstanding pressure, the Chinese economy continued its development trend of overall stability and of moving toward the new and the superior. This achievement is truly 难能可贵 (nán néng kě guì - "difficult to do and worthy of praise," rare and commendable). In this regard, our journal's reporters conducted an exclusive interview with the spokesperson of the National Bureau of Statistics, analyzing the operation of the economy in the first half of the year, interpreting hot issues in economic and social development, and assessing the economic trend for the next stage.
Reporter: In the first half of the year, China's economic growth rate fell back slightly compared with the first quarter, but on the whole it still remained within the annual expected growth target range of "4.5%–5%." How should we view the operation of the economy in the first half of the year? How should we understand the fluctuation in the economic growth rate?
Spokesperson: Since the beginning of this year, the external environment has been marked by interwoven change and turbulence, new situations and old problems have been superimposed on each other at home, and the challenges to the stable operation of the economy have increased. Facing a complex situation, the Chinese economy has withstood pressure and pressed forward with resilience. It has operated within a reasonable range, and its development drivers have moved toward the new and the superior, demonstrating strong resilience and vigorous vitality. Overall, four features are especially distinct.
First, the operation of the economy is "stable." Generally speaking, to observe whether the operation of the economy is stable, one mainly looks at the four major macro indicators of growth, employment, prices, and the international balance of payments. In terms of growth, the GDP in the first half of the year was 69.6 trillion yuan, up 4.7% year on year, in line with the annual expected target for economic growth, and China is expected to continue to maintain a leading position among the world's major economies. The economic increment corresponding to the 4.7% economic growth reached 3.6 trillion yuan, the highest increment for the same period in the past five years, which is by no means easy for an economy of China's ultra-large scale. In terms of employment, the average surveyed urban unemployment rate nationwide was 5.2% in the first half of the year, down 0.1 percentage point from the first quarter, remaining generally stable. In terms of prices, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 1.0% year on year, and the Producer Price Index for Industrial Products (PPI) rose 1.5%, a fairly moderate increase. In terms of the international balance of payments, the scale of trade in goods hit a new record high, foreign exchange reserves remained stable at above US$3.4 trillion, and the RMB exchange rate against the US dollar appreciated by about 3% compared with the beginning of the year. This shows that China's economy is operating within a reasonable range, and the main tone of "stability" has not changed.
Second, the foundation for development is "resilient." Since the beginning of this year, global economic growth has been weak, geopolitical conflicts have been frequent, and the U.S.-Israel-Iran conflict has severely impacted the international energy market, with many countries facing the difficult situation of tight energy supply and sharply rising prices. By contrast, China's advantages of an energy transition layout oriented toward the long term and a complete and efficient industrial chain and supply chain system have continued to stand out. The energy system has withstood the shock, with overall balance between supply and demand, effectively guaranteeing energy for domestic production and daily life. The supply of important livelihood commodities has been sufficient, the refined oil product price adjustment mechanism has been implemented in a timely manner, and in recent months consumer price increases have remained stable at around 1%, without major fluctuations. The summer grain harvest was another bumper one, with output exceeding 300 billion jin for the first time, effectively consolidating the foundation of food security. Against the complex and severe international trade environment, China's imports and exports of goods in the first half of the year grew 16.9% year on year, far higher than the World Trade Organization's (WTO) forecast of about 1.9% growth for global goods trade in the whole year. All these show that China's economy has a relatively strong ability to withstand shocks and to regulate itself.
Third, the growth drivers are "new." According to preliminary calculations, in the first half of the year, new drivers of growth represented by high-end manufacturing, the digital-intelligent economy, and modern services contributed more than 40% to economic growth. The feature of economic drivers moving toward the new is distinct and the pace is accelerating, and new drivers have increasingly become the key support for China's economy to maintain stable operation in a complex environment. In the first half of the year, the added value of high-tech manufacturing industries above the designated size grew 13.3% year on year, and industries related to artificial intelligence, such as integrated circuit manufacturing and intelligent vehicle-mounted equipment manufacturing, all maintained high growth of more than 30%. Clean energy developed rapidly, and green production and green consumption performed impressively: lithium-ion battery output grew 39.3%, and retail sales of household appliances with high energy-efficiency grades grew by more than 30%. These data show that new drivers of growth are continuously growing and strengthening and have gradually shouldered the main beam of China's economic development.
Fourth, the quality and efficiency are "superior." To observe whether China's economic development is good, one must not only look at quantitative growth, but also at qualitative improvement, and understand the quality of development from multiple angles such as the optimization of the economic structure and the improvement of quality and efficiency. In the first half of the year, the resilience of China's industrial chain and supply chain continued to improve, and the foundation of the real economy was consolidated and strengthened, with the added value of manufacturing accounting for 26.2% of GDP, up 0.5 percentage points year on year. The performance of enterprises improved. In the first half of the year, profits of industrial enterprises above the designated size grew 18.7% year on year, maintaining double-digit growth. The efficiency of energy and resource utilization improved steadily. According to preliminary calculations, energy consumption per unit of GDP fell 1.9% year on year in the first half of the year.
Of course, it should also be noted that, affected by some external factors and short-term factors, production in industries such as petrochemicals and coal was subject to a certain impact, and the economic growth rate fell back somewhat in the second quarter. But the fundamentals of China's economy operating steadily and moving toward the new and the superior have not changed. Recently, the International Monetary Fund lowered its forecast for world economic growth this year while raising its forecast for China's economic growth by 0.2 percentage points, making China one of the few major economies whose growth forecast was raised. Therefore, the short-term fluctuation in China's economic growth rate should be viewed objectively. At present, the favorable conditions supporting the stable operation of China's economy still outweigh the unfavorable factors, and short-term fluctuation in the economic growth rate will not change the major trend of long-term improvement.
Reporter: You just mentioned that the growth of new drivers was an important support for the stable operation of the economy in the first half of the year. Could you talk specifically about the aspects in which the new drivers are mainly reflected?
Spokesperson: For China's economy being able to achieve 4.7% growth in the first half of the year, the new drivers were 功不可没 (gōng bù kě mò - "one's contribution cannot be erased," deserving full credit). The new drivers, represented by high-end, green, and intelligent development, are one of the most distinct features of economic operation at the present stage. The new drivers are growing and strengthening, accumulating substance and gaining momentum, and have increasingly become the key support for high-quality economic development.
New industries driven by innovation are developing well. In all walks of life, we can increasingly see the presence of new drivers. The modernization of agriculture is advancing steadily, research and development of breeding chips has been accelerated, efforts to shore up weaknesses in agricultural machinery and equipment have continued to increase, and the technological content "in the fields" has been continuously raised. Manufacturing has continued to transform toward high-end, intelligent, and green development. In the first half of the year, new drivers represented by high-tech manufacturing, digital product manufacturing, and the like, with an added-value share of more than 20%, contributed nearly 50% of industrial growth. The transformation and upgrading of manufacturing has driven demand for professional services such as information technology, modern finance, research and development design, and business services, opening broad space for the growth of modern services. In the first half of the year, the added value of the information transmission, software and information technology services industry and of the leasing and business services industry both grew by over 10%, contributing close to one quarter to economic growth.
New achievements of intelligent development are being implemented at a faster pace. China has firmly seized the historic opportunity of the global artificial intelligence transformation, with capital investment continuously increasing and innovation achievements emerging in an endless stream, and artificial intelligence has become an "accelerator" for the growth of new drivers. In the first half of the year, capital investment in frontier fields such as artificial intelligence and humanoid robots grew 120% year on year; "Tao's Law" (韬定律) drove an important step in the establishment of a self-reliant semiconductor ecosystem; the world's first neurodynamic chip was unveiled; and the number of artificial intelligence-related patents granted grew 34.8% year on year. More and more underlying innovation breakthroughs are turning from blueprints into reality, giving birth to multiple incremental markets at the ten-billion-yuan level. The average daily output of integrated circuits exceeded 1.5 billion units, the average daily number of token calls reached hundreds of trillions, ranking first in the world, and the output of intelligent products such as 5G smartphones, 3D printing equipment, and service robots grew rapidly.
New demand oriented toward the new and the green is continuously being released. From the perspective of consumption, consumption concepts such as intelligent, green, and healthy have become deeply integrated into residents' clothing, food, housing, and transport. In the first half of the year, retail sales of wearable smart devices, including smart glasses, grew by more than 100% year on year, and the retail penetration rate of new energy passenger vehicles exceeded 60% for three consecutive months. From the perspective of investment, funds have been accelerating their convergence toward innovation segments, and the focus of enterprise investment has shifted from expanding scale to cultivating internal strength, with investment in intellectual property products accounting for 13.8% of total investment, up 1.9 percentage points from the same period last year. From the perspective of foreign trade, the export structure has extended toward the middle and high end of the value chain, and high-end intelligent and green low-carbon products have become the new calling card of China's foreign trade. In the first half of the year, exports of high-tech products grew 39% year on year; exports of green mobility products such as electric vehicles and electric railway locomotives grew 68.7% and 45.1% respectively; and exports of intelligent bionic robots deeply integrated with artificial intelligence technology exceeded 10,000 units.
New enterprises keen on innovation are emerging at an accelerated pace. The accelerated emergence, growth, and strengthening of innovative enterprises are a vivid manifestation of the same-frequency resonance between the optimization of the macro development environment and the bursting forth of the vitality of micro entities. In the first half of the year, a batch of high-quality enterprises with strong innovation capability delivered outstanding report cards, and leading enterprises in fields such as integrated circuits, embodied intelligence, and large artificial intelligence models continued to make new breakthroughs. Specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative (专精特新) "Little Giant" enterprises focus on segmented fields and intensively cultivate core technologies, releasing "great energy" with "small size." At present, there are more than 17,000 national-level specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative "Little Giant" enterprises. In the first half of the year, the added value of specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative "Little Giant" industrial enterprises above the designated size grew 10.4% year on year. There is another figure also worth attention: in late June, the World Economic Forum released the latest list of "Lighthouse Factories," and one out of every two "Lighthouse Factories" in the world is in China. This is also strong evidence of the notable results of the upgrading and transformation of China's manufacturing industry.
Reporter: You have repeatedly mentioned the resilience of China's economy. Since the beginning of this year, the international geopolitical situation has remained in continuous turmoil, global energy and resource production and supply have been impeded, and inflationary pressure has risen. Could you talk in more detail about China's energy supply guarantee and the operation of prices?
Spokesperson: The geopolitical conflict in the Middle East has dealt a great shock to the global energy production and supply system, and quite a few countries are suffering energy shortages and high inflation. By contrast, China has a solid industrial foundation, sufficient market supply, and timely and effective regulation. Energy supply has been stable and orderly, and the price level has been moderate and controllable, fully demonstrating the ability to withstand external shocks. This is an important manifestation of the resilience of China's economy, and it is even more an important source of confidence for China's economy to respond to changes, overcome difficulties, and advance steadily.
From the perspective of energy supply guarantee, China has made overall use of both domestic and international markets and both kinds of resources, and its energy security guarantee and green and low-carbon transformation have been solid and forceful, ensuring stable energy supply for production and daily life. In the first half of the year, the output of crude oil and natural gas by industry above the designated size reached 109.43 million tons and 133 billion cubic meters respectively, with both scales setting record highs for the same period in history; raw coal output reached 2.37 billion tons, with average daily output the second highest for the same period in history; and electricity generation grew 3.5%. Under the circumstances of sustained high temperatures and relatively high electricity loads in some regions recently, the national electricity supply-demand situation remained stable. While orderly advancing the diversification of energy imports, China has vigorously developed new energy, continuously improved the energy production, supply, storage, and marketing system, strengthened diversified and coordinated guarantees, and effectively enhanced the risk-resistance capability of the energy system. As of the end of May, China's installed power generation capacity reached 4.01 billion kilowatts, exceeding the total installed power generation capacity of the United States, the European Union, India, Japan, and Russia combined; the share of non-fossil energy installed capacity reached 62%, further reducing dependence on fossil energy such as petroleum. China has continued to build a diversified and stable energy supply guarantee system, which has not only successfully withstood external shocks but also made important contributions to stabilizing the global energy market.
From the perspective of price developments, the geopolitical conflict in the Middle East has caused international crude oil prices to fluctuate at high levels, with Brent crude oil prices once breaking through US$100 per barrel, and prices of related petrochemical products also rising sharply, with inflationary pressure climbing in many countries. China is the world's largest importer of crude oil and the second largest consumer of petroleum. The rise in crude oil prices has created enormous pass-through pressure on domestic prices. However, by strengthening energy supply guarantees, effectively implementing refined oil price regulation, controlling the magnitude of domestic refined oil price increases, and strengthening the supply of domestic livelihood commodities and services, China has effectively reduced the impact of external factors on domestic production and daily life. In the first half of the year, the CPI rose 1.0% year on year, with monthly increases continuously stable at around 1%; among which energy prices rose 3.0% year on year, significantly lower than in most major economies. Looking ahead to the second half of the year, the trend of international energy prices still contains uncertainty, but China's economy possesses strong resilience, the supply capacity of commodity and service markets is sufficient, and the policies for ensuring supply and stabilizing prices are forceful and effective. There are many favorable conditions for maintaining overall price stability, and prices are expected to continue to rise moderately.
Reporter: Fixed asset investment is an important macroeconomic indicator to which the market pays close attention. How do you view China's investment situation in the first half of the year? What new features does China's current investment structure have?
Spokesperson: Investment is connected to demand at one end and to supply at the other. The quality of today's input affects the quality of tomorrow's development. In the first half of the year, China's fixed asset investment declined somewhat year on year, but the total amount of investment was as high as 22.6 trillion yuan, still a considerable scale, and of great significance for optimizing the supply structure and enhancing development potential. Looking to the future, developing new quality productive forces, promoting coordinated development between urban and rural areas and among regions, and better safeguarding and improving people's livelihood all require increased input, and investment remains a key link in promoting China's economic development. At present, China's economy has entered the stage of high-quality development, and the focus of investment has shifted more toward "assisting innovation, promoting transformation, and benefiting people's livelihood." Behind the figures of total investment, many structural changes deserve a closer look.
Investment in the field of innovation is being increased. The innovation-driven development strategy has been implemented in depth, funds and factors of production have continuously converged toward emerging fields, and investment in high-technology fields such as integrated circuits, new materials, and new energy has grown comparatively fast. In the first half of the year, investment in high-technology industries grew 4.6% year on year, accounting for more than 10% of total investment. Among them, investment in integrated circuit manufacturing, electronic special materials manufacturing, and lithium-ion battery manufacturing grew 8.8%, 10.0%, and 24.4% respectively, and investment in the information services industry grew 15.5%. With the optimized implementation of the large-scale equipment renewal policy, demand for the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries has been released at an accelerated pace, and investment in the purchase of equipment and tools grew 8.1% in the first half of the year.
The construction of new infrastructure has accelerated. The layout of computing power networks and new-generation communication networks has advanced steadily. In the first half of the year, investment in the information transmission industry and the optical fiber manufacturing industry grew 25.6% and 26.5% year on year respectively. As of the end of June, the number of 5G base stations in China reached 5.102 million, and 5G-A commercial networks covered more than 330 cities; 5G and gigabit optical network applications have been integrated into 94 categories of the national economy, and more than 26,000 "5G + Industrial Internet" projects are under construction nationwide. Digital infrastructure is developing at an accelerated pace, further consolidating the foundation that supports the digital transformation of the economy.
Investment in the field of people's livelihood has been strengthened. Development investment requires calculating not only the "economic account," but also, and more importantly, the "livelihood account" and the "long-term account." In the first half of the year, investment in agriculture and fisheries related to the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas grew 6.7% and 12.0% year on year respectively. Ecological restoration and pollution control have advanced steadily, with investment in environmental monitoring and treatment services growing 5.9%. Behind the blue skies and clear waters is the investment of real gold and white silver. Investment in the field of public services has also continued to increase, and livelihood projects such as the construction of government-subsidized housing, the renovation of old residential communities, and urban renewal have been implemented in an orderly manner.
At present, China's investment still has great development potential and space. In particular, there is strong investment demand for the transformation and upgrading of traditional industries and for advancing emerging industries and future industries. Adapting to changes in the population structure, there is still enormous investment potential in fields such as services for "the elderly and the young" (一老一小), primary-level medical and health services, the expansion of quality education, and the promotion of the comprehensive revitalization of rural areas.
Reporter: At recent press conferences of the National Bureau of Statistics, the indicator "total retail sales of consumer goods and services in society (社会消费商品和服务零售总额)" was mentioned many times. How has this newly released indicator performed? How should we view the current consumption situation?
Spokesperson: Consumption includes not only "buying things," but also "buying services." With the improvement of residents' living standards, the consumption structure of residents has undergone obvious changes, and service consumption has increasingly become an important component of consumption. The indicator "total retail sales of consumer goods and services in society" covers both retail sales of goods and retail sales of services, and can present the full picture of the consumer market in a more comprehensive way. In the first half of the year, the total retail sales of consumer goods and services in society grew 2.7% year on year, reflecting the steady expansion of the scale of the consumer market. Specifically, there are three features.
Service consumption has shown a good growth trend. Residents' consumption has continued to shift toward placing equal emphasis on the consumption of goods and services, and service demand such as cultural tourism, health and wellness, and leisure and entertainment has been released at an accelerated pace, becoming an important field for expanding consumption space. In the first half of the year, retail sales of services grew 5.3% year on year, 4.2 percentage points faster than the growth rate of retail sales of goods. The driving effect of holiday consumption has been evident, and cultural tourism consumption has been active, with retail sales of tourism consultation and rental services and of cultural, sports, and leisure services growing 11.3% and 10.4% year on year respectively. The share of service consumption expenditure has continued to rise. In the first half of the year, the proportion of residents' per capita service consumption expenditure in residents' consumption expenditure was 0.2 percentage points higher than in the same period last year.
Consumption of goods has improved in quality and upgraded. The trend of consumption upgrading has continued, and residents' demand for consumer goods has shifted from "whether they are available" to "whether they are good," with quality consumption demand such as digital consumption and green consumption expanding steadily. In the first half of the year, retail sales of new energy passenger vehicles reached 4.704 million units, with a penetration rate of over 54%; retail sales of communication equipment and cosmetics by units above the designated size grew 14.4% and 6.3% year on year respectively; and retail sales of trendy toys such as blind boxes and figurines continued the trend of high growth. Innovative retail formats oriented toward quality consumption and digital convenience are developing well. In the first half of the year, retail sales of warehouse membership stores and unmanned stores above the designated size both grew by over 25%, the transaction volume of instant retail grew by over 20%, and the retail sales of livestream e-commerce exceeded 1 trillion yuan.
New growth points of consumption are continuously being cultivated. The comprehensive revitalization of rural areas has continued to advance, the construction of the county-level commercial system and circulation networks has been accelerated, and the vitality of the rural consumer market has been released. In the first half of the year, retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas grew 2.5% year on year, 1.3 percentage points faster than in urban areas. The heat of emotional consumption and experiential consumption has not diminished. In the first half of the year, the transaction volume of cultural and sports service platforms grew 9.7% year on year, and tickets for large concerts, music performances, and sports events were often 一票难求 (yī piào nán qiú - "a ticket is hard to obtain," in extremely high demand and hard to come by). "China Travel" has boosted "China Shopping," and inbound consumption has continued to be hot. In the first half of the year, the number of visa-free inbound foreign visits grew 30.6% year on year, and the amount of Hainan outlying-island duty-free shopping grew 18.8%.
On the whole, the trend of China's consumer market toward scale expansion, quality improvement, and innovative development has continued, and it will continue to drive economic growth and benefit the improvement of people's livelihood.
Reporter: Finally, please share your views on the economic trend in the next stage.
Spokesperson: In the first half of the year, withstanding external pressure and overcoming internal difficulties, China's economy maintained the development trend of overall stability and movement toward the new and the superior. This achievement was 来之不易 (lái zhī bù yì - "it did not come easily," hard-won and well earned). Looking ahead to the next stage, although the international environment remains complex and intricate, with many uncertain and hard-to-predict factors, and domestically there is also pressure of transformation and adjustment, these are all problems encountered in the course of advancing and developing, and they can be overcome with effort. China's economy has a stable foundation, many advantages, strong resilience, and great potential. The internal support for long-term improvement has not changed, and there is the foundation, the conditions, and the confidence to maintain stable operation.
First, the conversion of drivers is accelerating. The operation of the economy within a reasonable range in the first half of the year has laid a relatively good foundation for economic development throughout the year. The growth of new drivers is fairly good. In the first half of the year, the proportions of high-tech manufacturing and equipment manufacturing in the added value of industry above the designated size were respectively 3.0 and 4.7 percentage points higher than in the same period five years ago, and the contribution rate of modern services such as information transmission and leasing and business services to economic growth has also increased. While cultivating and strengthening emerging industries and future industries, China is also accelerating the transformation of traditional industries such as steel, petrochemicals, and textiles toward digitalization, intelligence, and green development. In the next stage, the accelerated conversion of old and new drivers and the transformation of industries toward the new and the superior are expected to gradually strengthen their supporting role in economic growth. In particular, the coverage of new drivers is becoming broader and the industrial chain is continuously extending, which will continue to inject stronger momentum into economic growth.
Second, reform and opening up are becoming more effective. Since the beginning of this year, by deepening the building of a unified national market, thoroughly rectifying "involution-style" competition, and effectively improving the market business environment, the vitality of various types of business entities has been forcefully stimulated. In the next stage, reforms in key areas will continue to deepen, and high-level opening up will also continue to expand. In particular, in the first half of the year, China's imports and exports with the European Union, ASEAN, and countries jointly building the "Belt and Road" all grew steadily, and China's circle of friends in foreign trade has been expanding. All this helps to further stimulate the endogenous driving force of economic growth.
Third, policies are precise and forceful. The stable operation of the economy cannot be achieved without the support of forceful and effective macro-control. Since the beginning of this year, macro policies have been front-loaded and have worked in synergy for greater effectiveness; the effects of the package of policies for fiscal and financial coordination to expand domestic demand have continued to be released; and a number of major projects have been started in succession, providing an important guarantee for responding to external changes and stabilizing the fundamentals of the economy. From the perspective of the second half of the year, China's macro-policy toolbox is amply stocked, and there is still considerable space for counter-cyclical and cross-cyclical adjustment, with the ability to dynamically optimize and adjust policies according to changes in the situation. Recently, a batch of national-level special plans are being introduced in an orderly manner, and some localities have launched summer cultural tourism consumption subsidies. These new policies will provide more forceful support for the sustained improvement of the economy.
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Return to TopBy: 景平
How to View the "Temperature Gap" Between Macro Data and Micro Perceptions
Jing Ping
In the first half of this year, China's economy withstood pressure and continued its development trend of overall stability and advancement toward innovation and quality, demonstrating strong resilience and vitality, with major indicators operating within a reasonable range. At the same time, however, some business entities and residents intuitively feel that employment competition has intensified and income improvement has fallen short of expectations, and a "temperature gap" exists between macro aggregates and micro-level felt experience. Macro data are the economy's "thermometer," and micro-level perceptions are the people's "felt temperature"; both are real, only measured along different dimensions. Only by dialectically viewing the "temperature gap" across different dimensions can we accurately grasp the full economic picture and avoid having localized perception deviations amplify anxiety and skew expectations.
The "temperature gap" is not unique to today, nor is it unique to China; it is a common phenomenon in economic development. The larger the economy, the more numerous the business entities, and the richer the forms of business, the more common such a "temperature gap" tends to be. Some say that if you look only at real estate, you would think the economy is undergoing the pain of a long-term adjustment; then turn your attention to the artificial intelligence and robotics tracks, and you would think a fervent economic race is underway. On the one hand, insufficient consumption and slowing lending continue to manifest; on the other hand, the cultural tourism market is full of vitality, trendy toy products are 百花齐放 (bǎi huā qí fàng - "a hundred flowers bloom together," diverse things flourishing side by side), and financing amounts for technology enterprises and the scale of patient capital continue to expand. In recent years, this "temperature gap" has become a common feeling among almost all economic observers.
The "temperature gap" first arises from differences in perspective. Macro data are grounded in the production side: industrial output expansion and inventory increases are counted as growth, measuring the increase in total social wealth in the current period, calculating the "output account." Micro-level entities, standing on the demand side, directly perceive consumption, orders, wages, and cash flow, experiencing the actual warmth or cold of the present, living the "livelihood account." The 热火朝天 (rè huǒ cháo tiān - "hot fire blazing to the sky," in full swing with intense fervor) of the production side may not immediately translate into the prosperity of the demand side, and the time lag in transmission brings about the "temperature gap." Second, aggregate data reflect total scale and naturally overlook differences among industries, groups, and regions. At present, China has 189 million registered business entities, distributed across different tracks and upstream and downstream links; some are riding the wave, some are stuck in the shallows, so their judgments of the economic trend naturally differ. In addition, price factors add another layer of "filter": the sustained low-level operation of prices opens yet another gap between nominal growth and real felt experience. What is even harder for people to judge is that economic growth itself is becoming increasingly "intangible." In the past, growth was mostly reflected in high-rise buildings, factories, and roads, and GDP had a clear physical outline; today's growth is increasingly hidden in algorithms, code, patents, and laboratories, which equally create value but have become harder to observe.
The deeper reason for the existence of the "temperature gap" lies in the fact that China's economy is currently in a critical period of transition between old and new growth drivers, and economic operation shows obvious structural differentiation. In the process of economic structural transformation and upgrading and the transition of old and new growth drivers, industries have never advanced 齐头并进 (qí tóu bìng jìn - "advance shoulder to shoulder," proceed at the same pace); some being fast and others slow is the norm, determined by the stage of development and the level of technology. When new technologies and new industries emerge, old industries and old jobs must shrink and adjust; this is the objective law of economic metabolism. Nor can the new and the old switch seamlessly; there is inevitably a period of 青黄不接 (qīng huáng bù jiē - "green and yellow do not connect," a time of shortage between harvests) in between. At present, China's new business forms such as the intelligent economy and green economy are developing vigorously, but their share of the overall economic picture remains limited; traditional industries account for more than 80 percent of manufacturing, and the increment of new growth drivers is not yet able to fully offset the impact of contraction in traditional manufacturing. The uneven temperature among industries is further transmitted to the income side: some high-growth industries pull up the average level, while operators of small, medium, and micro enterprises on some traditional tracks and their related workers do not feel equivalent improvement, and the "temperature gap" between the "average temperature" of macro data and some people's "felt temperature" thus emerges.
The new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation led by artificial intelligence is precisely an important variable accelerating this structural differentiation. In the past, the popularization of electricity and the internet took decades or even a century, an important reason being that technology implementation required supporting infrastructure and the reconfiguration of productive forces. Taking electricity as an example: even if the power source of an old factory building were replaced with electric motors, the entire factory's workflow and spatial structure would still be constrained by the old framework, and efficiency gains would be limited; only by building new factories could the layout be redesigned according to the logic of electrification and achieve an efficiency leap. Today, the iteration cycle of artificial intelligence technology has been greatly compressed: in 2024, the average version iteration of a large model took about 132 days; by 2026, this figure has already been halved, and in some scenarios it is counted in days. The path from technological breakthrough to industrial penetration has sharply shortened; once the application threshold is crossed, an "efficiency revolution" is triggered simultaneously across the entire chain of research and development, manufacturing, and services. This transmission mechanism makes artificial intelligence both an accelerator and a watershed: seize it, and you gain the acceleration of transformation and occupy the commanding heights of future competition; hesitate and watch, and you can easily be left behind and locked into an unfavorable position. This is true for industries, and likewise for nations.
Narrowing the "temperature gap" does not mean leveling out differences, but rather making the positive effects of new technologies somewhat greater and the adjustment shocks somewhat fewer, so that new growth drivers benefit the majority of people more quickly. From the very beginning, China has been oriented toward landing applications, guiding artificial intelligence technology to embed itself into the physical scenarios of various industries, and has blazed a path that fully releases technological value in industrial depth. In the first half of this year, the penetration rate of artificial intelligence technology application among manufacturing enterprises above designated size in China has exceeded 30 percent. Scenarios such as industrial digitalization and intelligent livelihood services continue to expand, from intelligent quality inspection on production lines to telemedicine in villages, from cloud-based management for small and medium-sized enterprises to creative assistance for individuals; the boundaries of application are constantly widening, and transformation opportunities are being released in large numbers. Opportunities exist not only in a few emerging industries; traditional industries equally possess the potential and space to be reshaped, and ordinary workers equally have the opportunity to receive technological empowerment and enhancement. Actively embrace transformation, and the wave is right before you; cling to established paths, and all you see is a downhill slope.
In sum, we must both see the overall resilience of macro data and not ignore the real warmth or cold of the people. The best way to narrow the "temperature gap" is to use concrete and substantive reform and policy to translate macro-level improvement into tangible improvements in people's livelihoods that the masses can feel and perceive. The current transition of old and new growth drivers is at a critical stage, and the more such a time it is, the more we must place stable growth in a more prominent position, keep economic operation within a reasonable range, support the "bottom line" of people's livelihoods with the "stability" of the overall picture, and safeguard and improve people's livelihoods through development. We must follow the trend of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation; while accelerating the cultivation of new growth drivers, vigorously promote the penetration and diffusion of new technologies into traditional industries, improve market-based allocation of factors, unblock the channels for technology transformation and application, and let new technologies such as artificial intelligence sink from "spotlight industries" to "street corners and alleys," so that the fruits of growth driver transition benefit every industry and every group more quickly and more broadly. We must recognize that transformation is a matter of climbing slopes and crossing hurdles, and some people always take slower steps; we must hold the bottom line of basic livelihoods for affected industries and groups, improve the mechanism for reasonable wage growth, and build an institutional system in which primary distribution, redistribution, and tertiary distribution are coordinated and complementary. We must also recognize that macro data are objective, but human perception is complex; economic communication must both explain clearly the fundamentals of the macro economy's long-term improvement and objectively respond to the concerns of the masses, building a bridge of communication between macro figures and micro-level felt experience, so that business entities and the people can see the general trend clearly, adjust expectations and behavior in a timely manner, and keep pace with the steps of economic and social development.
Return to TopBy: 冯朝睿 郑功成
Boosting Resident Consumption by Improving the Social Security System
Feng Chaorui, Zheng Gongcheng
Social security is the basic institutional arrangement for safeguarding and improving people's livelihood, directly determining whether residents have 后顾之忧 (hòu gù zhī yōu - "worries from behind," concerns about the future) and dare to consume with confidence. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out: "We must establish and improve the long-term mechanism for expanding resident consumption, so that residents with stable income can consume, those without worries about the future dare to consume, and those with a favorable consumption environment and strong sense of gain are willing to consume." The "15th Five-Year Plan for Expanding Consumption" (扩大消费"十五五"规划) lists "improving social security policies" as an important task for enhancing consumption capacity and makes arrangements accordingly. We must deeply grasp the internal logic between social security and resident consumption, adhere to the close integration of benefiting people's livelihood and promoting consumption, continuously activate the potential of domestic demand, and provide solid support for promoting high-quality economic and social development.
I. Why is a sound social security system needed to boost resident consumption?
Resident consumption is a function of current disposable income, and also the result of the combined effect of intertemporal resource allocation and risk-smoothing mechanisms, reflecting the level and quality of a country's economic growth and livelihood security. As a redistribution tool led by the state, social security is essentially a wealth transfer mechanism across subjects and time periods, combining the important functions of a safety net for livelihood security, a regulator of income distribution, and a shock absorber for economic operation, and is an effective way to improve residents' consumption capacity and enhance their consumption willingness.
From the internal logic of national income distribution, social security, through benefit payments and risk sharing, constitutes a "stabilizer" for residents' income and a "pressure-relief valve" for expenditure. On the one hand, social security enriches residents' "money bags" through transfer payments such as pensions, minimum living allowances, and childcare subsidies. In 2025, the country issued over 7.7 trillion yuan in basic pensions and approximately 100 billion yuan in childcare subsidies; the minimum living security standards for urban and rural residents were raised to 832 yuan and 621 yuan per person per month respectively; together with other assistance and welfare subsidies, the national per capita net transfer income of residents reached 8,080 yuan, an increase of more than 160% over 2013. This plays an important role in raising the income of urban and rural residents, especially in enhancing the consumption capacity of the elderly, low-income groups, and families with children. On the other hand, social security greatly reduces residents' expenditure burden in areas such as medical care and old-age support through institutionalized risk sharing. At present, basic medical insurance covers more than 1.33 billion people; the reimbursement ratios for hospitalization expenses within the policy scope of employee medical insurance and resident medical insurance reach about 80% and 70% respectively; personal health expenditure accounts for 27.5% of total health expenditure, greatly alleviating residents' pressure from medical expenses. As of the end of 2025, the number of people covered by basic old-age insurance nationwide reached more than 1.07 billion, and the number of people receiving pension benefits reached more than 340 million, effectively alleviating the intergenerational transfer burden on families. These institutional arrangements relax the budget constraints on resident consumption, enabling savings originally planned for disease prevention and old-age support to be converted into consumption expenditure.
Besides current income and expenditure conditions, concerns about uncertainty in future production and life are also a key reason why residents accumulate precautionary savings and compress current consumption. As of May 2026, household deposits in China reached 172.7 trillion yuan, an increase of more than 80% over the 93.4 trillion yuan at the end of 2020, with an annual increase of about 15 trillion yuan; household deposits account for nearly 50% of total deposits, up about 6 percentage points from the end of 2020. The continued growth of household deposits is not purely due to financial management preferences, but is also a defensive strategy to cope with risks. Facing fluctuations in employment and income expectations, as well as the uncertainty of large expenditures such as medical care, old-age support, and children's education, many residents tend to save more and spend less, building a family risk barrier through their own savings accumulation. A sound social security system can, through mutual assistance and mutual aid mechanisms, offset the uncertainty faced by individuals with the certainty of collective strength, promote more precautionary savings to flow into the consumer market, and thereby release the potential for consumption growth.
China's economic development practice has fully proved that a sound social security system is an important institutional foundation for expanding domestic demand and stabilizing expectations, and is an effective way to activate consumption momentum. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "China effectively responded to the 1998 Asian financial crisis, the 2008 international financial crisis, and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020 by expanding domestic demand, accumulating successful experience." In responding to these three crises, social security played a key role in each. The 1998 Asian financial crisis coincided with the tough battle of state-owned enterprise reform, and some regions saw prominent problems such as an increase in laid-off workers and worsening livelihood difficulties. In response, China vigorously promoted the "Two Guarantees and Three Security Lines" (两个确保、三条保障线), promptly held the bottom line of people's livelihood, and stabilized social expectations; from 1998 to 2002, the average annual growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods remained at a relatively high level of 8.8%. Hit by the international financial crisis in 2008, China's foreign trade suffered setbacks and employment pressure increased; in 2009, it launched the pilot of the new rural social old-age insurance, and simultaneously advanced the new medical reform aimed at universal medical insurance, effectively increasing the transfer income of urban and rural residents, especially rural elderly people; from 2009 to 2011, the growth rate of total retail sales of consumer goods remained above 15%. Under the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020, China promptly exempted COVID-19 patients from medical expenses, expanded the scope of temporary assistance, and implemented the "reduction, exemption, deferral, and refund" policy for social insurance contributions, which not only safeguarded basic livelihood but also created favorable conditions for the real growth of per capita consumption expenditure of residents by 12.6% in 2021 and the rapid return of the economy to normal.
II. What shortcomings in the current social security system construction constrain consumption growth?
Countries around the world differ in development levels, social conditions, and cultural characteristics, so social security systems are inevitably diverse. Since the Party's 18th National Congress, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has placed the construction of the social security system in a more prominent position, made a series of major reform arrangements, and successfully built the world's largest social security system with distinct Chinese characteristics. But it must also be noted that, with the continued evolution of population aging and declining birth rates, as well as the profound reshaping of employment patterns, wealth creation, and primary distribution patterns brought by the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, China's social security system is still imperfect, constraining the release of resident consumption potential in different dimensions.
Only when the level of social security is commensurate with the stage of economic and social development can it better play the role of benefiting people's livelihood and promoting consumption. The construction of the social security system must neither lag behind, affecting the function of safeguarding and improving people's livelihood, nor blindly pursue high levels beyond the development stage, falling into the "welfare trap" faced by some countries. Since the new era, China has adhered to 尽力而为 (jìn lì ér wéi - "do with all one's strength," to do one's utmost) and 量力而行 (liàng lì ér xíng - "act according to one's ability," to act within one's means), and social security investment has always been commensurate with the stage of economic and social development and with the basic national conditions; the sense of gain, happiness, and security of urban and rural residents has been continuously enhanced, and consumption levels and living standards have improved markedly. At the same time, it must also be noted that, compared with the people's growing needs for a better life, China's social security investment still has room for improvement. Affected by multiple factors such as institutional models and historical evolution, the treatment level of basic old-age insurance for urban and rural residents is generally low. The reimbursement ratio and annual limit for outpatient services at the grassroots level are relatively low; medications for rare diseases are still outside the medical insurance catalog; and the actual personal expenditure for major diseases remains relatively high. It must also be noted that population aging also brings pressure to the sustainable development of social security; in the future, the number of pension recipients and per capita medical insurance expenditure will both increase. Social security investment must be steadily expanded on a more sustainable basis in order to provide lasting and reliable support for boosting resident consumption.
Consumption behavior is closely related to the life cycle; reducing the burden of old-age support and child-rearing on resident families can further release other consumption potential. This year's government work report makes arrangements for strengthening social security and services around actively responding to population aging and building a birth-friendly society. Under the trends of population aging and declining birth rates, the current social security system's protection for the "elderly and young" (一老一小) needs to be further strengthened. On the "elderly" front, although pensions have achieved full institutional coverage, the minimum standard for basic pensions for urban and rural residents nationwide in 2025 is 143 yuan per month; many elderly people's pension income is difficult to convert into substantive consumption momentum, and the vast "silver economy" consumer market is difficult to effectively activate. The long-term care insurance system is still in its initial construction stage, and the old-age support problems of many disabled, semi-disabled, and empty-nest elderly people urgently need to be solved. On the "young" front, the child welfare system needs further improvement; the subsidy intensity of inclusive childcare support policies is not yet sufficient to offset the high cost of child-rearing, which not only suppresses the current improvement-type consumption space of young and middle-aged families, but also affects the overall consumption confidence of families in the long term.
Flexible employment personnel and workers in new employment forms face a protection gap, which suppresses consumption vitality. With the development of the digital economy, flexible employment and new employment forms continue to emerge, and the ranks of workers such as food delivery riders, ride-hailing drivers, and online streamers are growing. In recent years, China's social security system reform has continued to deepen; various localities have actively explored effective paths for flexible employment personnel and workers in new employment forms to participate in social insurance, further expanding the coverage of social insurance. But overall, China's current social security system is still based on traditional standard labor relations; many flexible employment personnel and workers in new employment forms face problems such as insufficient protection coverage and excessive contribution burdens, either choosing not to participate in insurance or choosing contribution tiers with low payments and low protection. This not only increases the life uncertainty of these workers, but also has become a prominent factor currently constraining the boosting of consumption.
The policy system suffers from fragmentation, weakening the overall effectiveness of boosting resident consumption. At present, between urban and rural areas and between regions, there are obvious gaps in the treatment levels of various social security systems, and transfer and continuation are still not smooth. In the construction of the multi-level pension system, enterprise annuities and personal pensions objectively favor higher-income groups, and rural residents, flexible employment personnel, and workers in new employment forms find it difficult to obtain effective coverage. The lack of efficient data sharing and business coordination among various social security systems reduces the overall efficiency of policy operation. At the same time, social security policies and population, employment, and fiscal policies have not yet formed an efficient linkage pattern, constraining the overall optimization of the resident consumption environment and the release of consumption potential.
III. What is the implementation path for boosting resident consumption through a sound social security system?
For the current and coming period, to boost resident consumption within the construction of a sound social security system, we must adhere to taking the promotion of social fairness and justice and the enhancement of people's welfare as the starting point and foothold, follow the requirements of covering all people, coordinating urban and rural areas, fairness and unity, safety and standardization, and sustainability, promote more public resources to be invested in people and serve the people, accelerate the construction of a multi-level social security system, and promote the coordinated improvement of residents' consumption capacity, willingness, and confidence.
Promote high-quality coverage expansion and high-level insurance participation, so that more workers have fewer worries about the future. Make precise efforts in expanding insurance participation coverage; for groups such as flexible employment personnel and workers in new employment forms, innovate participation methods, lower participation thresholds, bring them into the track of effective institutional protection, and enhance the adaptability of the social security system. Guide and support insured residents to choose higher-tier standards and persist in long-term contributions, stabilizing current consumption willingness with higher benefit expectations. Expand the coverage of unemployment, work injury, and maternity insurance, and accelerate the expansion of the pilot for occupational injury protection for workers in new employment forms. In addition, we must accelerate the establishment of a standardized and unified long-term care insurance system, respond to the long-term care needs brought by population aging, and free family resources from caregiving burdens.
Reasonably raise the level of benefit protection, and enhance residents' confidence and ability to consume. To boost resident consumption, we must practice the requirement of investing in people, and enhance residents' sense of security by reasonably raising benefit levels. Improve the mechanism for determining and adjusting basic old-age insurance benefits, gradually raise the standard of basic pensions for urban and rural residents, and tilt more strongly toward groups with low benefits. Reasonably raise the fiscal subsidy standard for basic medical insurance for urban and rural residents, actively explore medical insurance subsidies for infants and young children and elderly residents, and gradually reduce the personal out-of-pocket ratio for hospitalization expenses within the policy scope to a reasonable range. Strengthen protection for key groups, dynamically adjust various allowances, subsidies, and protection standards, and ensure that the actual purchasing power of social security benefits steadily improves.
Improve the overall coherence and coordination of the social security system, and further give play to the regulatory role of social security policies in the macroeconomy. Social security is an organically connected institutional system; it must be planned and advanced as a whole, continuously improving the coordination between social security system construction and economic and social development. We must strengthen top-level design and system integration, improve cross-departmental and cross-level coordination mechanisms, and ensure that various systems are interconnected and mutually supportive. Accelerate the filling of shortcomings in the development of old-age support and child-rearing services, promote the coordinated efforts of old-age insurance, medical security, and social services, and activate the consumption potential of the "elderly and young." Coordinate the policy intensity and timing of introduction across various fields of social security, strengthen the consistency assessment of macro-policy orientations, and strive to form synergy with policies for promoting employment, adjusting distribution, and boosting consumption.
Enhance the sustainability of the social security system, and stabilize residents' long-term consumption expectations. The foundation of consumption confidence lies in the stability and sustainability of the system itself. We must improve and implement the national pooling system for basic old-age insurance, actively and steadily advance provincial-level pooling for basic medical insurance, further improve the quality and effectiveness of provincial-level pooling for work injury insurance and unemployment insurance, and break down institutional barriers to the cross-regional flow of labor. Improve the mechanisms for long-term fund-raising, coordinated adjustment, value preservation and appreciation, and safety supervision of social security funds; improve the actuarial system for social insurance; enhance the scientific nature and forward-looking nature of policies; enable urban and rural residents to form stable expectations for the long-term development of the social security system, dare to formulate long-term consumption plans, and release intertemporal consumption potential.
Authors: Feng Chaorui (冯朝睿), Professor at Kunming University of Science and Technology (昆明理工大学); Zheng Gongcheng (郑功成), Professor at Renmin University of China (中国人民大学)
Return to TopBy: 青原
Unveiling the Pseudo-Academic Packaging of the "China Squeeze Theory"
Qing Yuan
Recently, the Peterson Institute for International Economics, an American think tank, put forward the concept of "China squeeze" in its research article. Shortly thereafter, this line of argument appeared brazenly in mainstream U.S. media such as Foreign Affairs, in an attempt to expand its international influence and steer global public opinion. In terms of its theoretical origins and argumentative logic, it clearly inherits from the negative narratives about China previously fabricated by some countries, such as the so-called "debt trap theory" and "overcapacity theory," and is yet another new narrative about China wrapped in an academic guise and aimed at containing and suppressing China.
I
The so-called "China squeeze theory" has as its core argument that the development of China's manufacturing industry has "compressed" the industrialization space of some developing countries in low-technology industries and labor-intensive manufacturing, thereby "squeezing" the industrialization path of Global South countries. Is this really the case?
For a long time, mainstream Western economic theories, especially the modernization theory that rose in the mid-20th century, constructed a linear "industrialization script." Based on the social evolutionism of Western classical sociology as its theoretical foundation, and under the framework of the "tradition-modernity" dichotomy, this theory understands the development of human society as a unilinear evolution from traditional society to modern society. In this narrative, Western countries completed industrialization and achieved industrial upgrading first, then transferred industries that had lost comparative advantage to the outside in a gradient manner, and latecomer countries could follow this path to achieve industrialization by undertaking industrial transfers and embedding themselves in the global division of labor system. However, a brief examination reveals that this picture is nothing but a mirage for the vast majority of latecomer countries. Since World War II, the number of developing countries that have truly joined the ranks of industrialized nations is, in fact, very few.
What constitutes a systematic challenge to this theoretical framework is the "center-periphery" theory proposed by Argentine economist Raúl Prebisch in 1949. This theory holds that the world economic system consists of two dynamically interrelated parts: the "center" composed of Western developed countries and the "periphery" composed of developing countries. The former constitutes the "great industrial centers," while the latter are the "periphery" that "produces food and raw materials for the great industrial centers," and there are unequal relations between the two in economic structure, technology diffusion, and terms of trade. Relevant research shows that, based on 1950 prices, by 1971, the unit price index of primary product exports from developing countries to developed countries was only 102, while the unit price index of manufactured goods exported by developed countries to developing countries had risen to 153. The terms of trade of the center countries tended to improve, while those of the periphery countries continued to deteriorate under structural pressure, directly constraining their capital accumulation capacity, locking them for a long time in the division of labor position of exporting primary products, and making it difficult to achieve industrial structural upgrading and the goal of industrialization.
History is the best judge. After World War II, Latin American countries once achieved preliminary industrialization progress under the import substitution strategy, and several Southeast Asian countries also accumulated a considerable development foundation in the process of undertaking industrial transfers. However, these advances were all interrupted by external shocks at specific historical junctures, either mired in debt traps from which they could not extricate themselves, or swept clean by financial storms, with strikingly similar endings. This is a vivid portrayal of how peripheral countries find it difficult to escape their dependent status under the "center-periphery" structure. Even if a few economies joined the ranks of industrialized nations under specific geopolitical conditions, their key industries and financial systems are often constrained by external forces; the so-called right to development autonomy is nothing but empty talk.
Further examining the internal logic of the Western industrialization narrative, one question worth asking is: who dominates this order, and whose interests does it serve? Which countries are included in it, and which are excluded? From the perspective of historical evolution, the modern world economic order has always been characterized by a hierarchical structure and has never truly been open to all economies on an equal basis. The global allocation of resource factors appears to follow economic rationality, but in reality it is more dominated by geopolitical logic, serving the strategic goals of specific countries and interest groups. What determines who sits at the table, who sits in which chair, and who gets how much of the cake is not so much market competition and the mechanism of comparative advantage as it is the rule-making power and market discourse power concentrated in the hands of a few Western countries. Therefore, the industrialization narrative depicted by the United States and other Western countries is not a universally applicable development path, but clearly a narrow, one-way gate set up and guarded by the first movers.
The example of Africa best illustrates this point. Since modern times, the African continent has experienced centuries of slave trade and colonial rule, with its resource export directions and production structures determined by the needs of the suzerain states. The capital accumulation, technological capacity, and infrastructure needed for industrialization have long been in a state of deprivation. After World War II, African countries successively gained political independence, yet they have never been able to obtain a ticket to the global industrial layout dominated by a few Western countries. In the mid-to-late 20th century, under the pressure of the debt crisis, more than 30 African countries accepted the "Structural Adjustment Programs" promoted by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, cutting public spending, fully opening their markets, and selling off state assets at bargain prices. The result was that growth never materialized, but people's livelihoods collapsed first. Under the dual assault of the debt yoke and the division-of-labor trap, industrialization went from an "unfinished road" to a "hopeless road." And the instigators, inverting cause and effect, portray Africa as a continent of "development failure," as if the failure is rooted in Africa itself and has nothing to do with this order.
II
China's development achievements have their specific historical conditions and endogenous driving forces. From participating in the international division of labor through labor-intensive industries after reform and opening up, to gradually forming competitive advantages in high-end manufacturing, green industries, and the digital economy, China's industrialization process reflects continuous technological accumulation and industrial upgrading. From the arduous journey of "exchanging a billion shirts for one airplane" to occupying an important place in many frontier fields, every step forward is the result of sustained innovation and industrial climbing. Relying on one's own strength to promote development transformation and improve people's livelihoods is the development right of every sovereign country.
From an economic effects perspective, China's development has contributed approximately 30 percent of global economic growth over the past decade or more. China has become a major trading partner of more than 160 countries and regions; its manufacturing value added accounts for nearly 30 percent of the global total, and its overall scale has ranked first in the world for 16 consecutive years, effectively lowering global price levels for energy and industrial products. According to a report by the International Renewable Energy Agency, over the past decade, the average levelized cost of electricity for global wind power and solar photovoltaic projects has cumulatively fallen by more than 60 percent and 80 percent, respectively, with a large part of the credit going to Chinese innovation, Chinese manufacturing, and Chinese capacity. At the same time, through production capacity cooperation and technology export, China has participated in the formation and development of textile and other industries in countries such as Vietnam, Pakistan, and Bangladesh, helping Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa grow from the margins of supply chains into important nodes of the global manufacturing network. From 2010 to 2025, China's imports of labor-intensive products from developing countries and least developed countries increased by 3.5 times and 16 times, respectively. The facts are perfectly clear: what China brings to the world is development opportunities and shared dividends. This is not "squeezing," but a solid, real "traction."
Examining what lies behind the "China squeeze theory," its true intention is clear at a glance. On the surface, it speaks up for Global South countries, but at its core, it fears that China's complete industrial system and its cluster-style breakthroughs continuously expanding into high-technology fields have "touched the West's cheese." From historical experience, the technological gap has long been an important source of excess profits for Europe and the United States. With a technological lead, one can charge exorbitant prices, strangle others by the throat, and take whatever one wants. Now, China has achieved breakthroughs in a series of key technology fields, ranked among the top globally in the number of patent applications in 2025, and has led the world in the production and sales of new energy vehicles for 11 consecutive years. The technology dividend is gradually spreading from being monopolized by a few Western countries to the vast number of developing countries. With the monopoly position shaken and the privileged cake being shared, how could strategic anxiety not surge? The "China squeeze theory" is precisely the concentrated projection of this anxiety.
At a deeper level, China's development practice has not only failed to follow the script preset by the United States and other Western countries, but has also shattered the century-old myth that "modernization equals Westernization." For a long time, modernization theory has used the development experience of Europe and the United States as the sole template, abstracting their development model into a universal path. This carries a deep Western-centrist color, ignoring the enormous differences among different civilizations and countries in historical conditions, cultural traditions, and actual national conditions, ignoring the principles of market equivalent exchange and comparative advantage that international economic and trade activities should follow, and attempting to bring the entire world into the rule system and value system dominated by a few European and American countries. The successful practice of Chinese-style modernization is precisely a fundamental challenge to this theoretical paradigm and hegemonic system. This brings profound inspiration to the vast number of developing countries: where a country stands in the global industrial division of labor should never be "arranged" by anyone, nor has it ever been "conceded" by anyone; it can only be the result of long-term shaping in market competition by comprehensive conditions such as factor endowments, production efficiency, and industrial supporting facilities. For developing countries to expand their industrialization space, in the final analysis, they must rely on two things: first, adhering to independent development, cultivating their own comparative advantages, improving infrastructure, enhancing human capital, perfecting industrial supporting facilities, and winning their own position through market competition and open cooperation; second, upholding multilateralism, opposing hegemonism, jointly building a more just and reasonable international economic order, maximizing the protection of the legitimate rights and interests of different economies in international economic activities, not attaching themselves to hegemony, and not ceding their autonomy. Every country can likewise blaze a development path that suits its own national conditions.
Today, some Western countries are mired in multiple crises. Internally, they face multiple structural contradictions such as industrial hollowing-out, widening wealth disparity, and rising inflationary pressure; internationally, they face real challenges such as rising costs of maintaining hegemony, greater difficulty in coordinating alliance systems, and deepening North-South contradictions. This forms a sharp contrast with China's stable development and its continued provision of international public goods. The appeal of the so-called "Western model" is rapidly eroding, and more and more Global South countries are turning their gaze toward Chinese-style modernization. Some observers have pointed out that China's development practice has had a structural impact on the pattern in which Europe and the United States have long monopolized the discourse on modernization. Once the narrative power loses its exclusivity, the rule hegemony, financial hegemony, and institutional superiority built upon it will all loosen accordingly. In this context, a discursive strategy of "shifting blame in both directions" has begun to emerge: selling the "China shock theory" to domestic voters to find a cheap explanation for governance failures and opportunistically stirring up populist sentiment; and propagating the "China squeeze theory" to Global South countries, portraying China as a plunderer encroaching on development space, creating estrangement and suspicion, and rallying allies to contain China. These arguments, dressed in the exquisite garb of "academic demonstration," can sometimes deceive quite a few people.
III
There is nothing new under the sun. Looking at the various negative narratives about China in recent years, the "China squeeze theory" is cut from the same cloth as the previous narratives about China by some American think tanks and media outlets — all are variants of the "China threat theory." Their production and dissemination paths also show a certain patterned character: think tanks fabricate concepts and issue reports, media follow up with coverage and expand the scope of dissemination, and politicians and government departments opportunistically cite them and convert them into actual policies such as tariff barriers, investment restrictions, and technology blockades. One may well ask: does this assembly-line operation produce pseudo-academia or genuine scholarship?
The first underlying hue of pseudo-academia is the carefully tailored "historical nihilism." When constructing their modernization narratives, some European and American scholars selectively edit their own history of rise, quietly erasing the slave trade and colonial plunder, attributing their own development to the superiority of their institutions and culture, and blaming the backwardness of other countries on deficiencies in endowments and governance. However, as Marx revealed, the world market has never been a purely commodity exchange venue, but rather a product of the global expansion of the capitalist mode of production, and its formation process itself was accompanied by colonial plunder, unequal exchange, and domination by power. This kind of narrative, lacking historical depth, can neither conceal the true sources of European and American modernization, nor can it explain the realistic logic of China's achieving industrialization through its own efforts. When theory cannot explain things, they tailor reality; when reality does not match up, they distort the facts. The path by which the "China squeeze theory" is fabricated is nothing more than a consistent "habitual operation."
The second underlying hue of pseudo-academia is the continuously performed "double standard." European and American multinational corporations, relying on their advantages in capital, technology, and brands, sweep across the globe seizing territory and extracting excess profits, which is whitewashed as the natural crystallization of "free trade" and "comparative advantage." Yet when Chinese enterprises win a place through technological innovation and market competition, they are branded with the labels of "unfair competition" and "overcapacity." The United States' introduction of the CHIPS and Science Act and its implementation of "long-arm jurisdiction" are beautified as "legitimate acts" to "defend national security" and "maintain technological leadership." China's guidance of industrial upgrading and support for enterprise innovation, however, are stigmatized as "government-led" and "market-distorting." One world, two yardsticks. So-called fairness is nothing but putty in the hands of the strong — its shape depends entirely on what their interests require.
The third underlying hue of pseudo-academia is the stubborn and rigid "zero-sum thinking." In the narratives of some people in the United States and other Western countries, the global industrial division of labor is imagined as a "cake" of fixed size — if China takes a bigger slice, others get a smaller share. But the real world is exactly the opposite: China continues to make the "cake" bigger, and through jointly building the Belt and Road and deepening production capacity cooperation, it has given the vast number of developing countries such as those in Africa the opportunity to "sit at the table" to participate in the global division of labor and share in the fruits of development. Some Western countries also impose their own logic of "a rising power is bound to seek hegemony" onto China, ignoring China's advocacy of mutually beneficial win-win cooperation and building a community with a shared future for mankind. When you hold a hammer in your hand, you see nails everywhere. In their eyes, China does not "seek hegemony" only because it does not yet have the capability to do so. They will never understand that there is also a development path in this world called "win-win cooperation."
The three underlying hues above jointly point to one clear fact: the "China squeeze theory" and similar narratives have fundamental defects at the levels of theoretical foundation, factual judgment, and value standards. It is by no means a serious academic proposition, but merely a political tool serving the strategic containment of China by the United States and other Western countries. Deliberately binding academic propositions to political agendas, it cannot stand up academically, and morally it cannot withstand the scrutiny of history.
Facts are the most powerful rebuttal. Although the process of economic globalization is currently facing certain setbacks, it plays an important and positive role in promoting the flow of goods and capital, scientific and technological and civilizational progress, and exchanges among the peoples of all countries, and it remains an unstoppable historical trend. As a developing country, China has followed this historical trend, unswervingly taken the path of reform and opening up, and while deeply integrating into the world economy and achieving its own leapfrog development, it has also provided strong impetus for global economic growth. We firmly oppose the politicization of economic and trade issues, always advocate open cooperation and mutually beneficial win-win outcomes, support more economies in pursuing independent development, participating equally in and deeply integrating into the global industrial system, and will, as always, promote economic globalization to release more positive effects, enter a new phase that is more dynamic, more inclusive, and more sustainable, and let the fruits of development better benefit the people of all countries in the world.
Written by: Yang Guoliang
Return to TopBy: 联合调研组
In-depth Investigation
Analysis of the Current State of Myopia Prevention and Control in Children and Adolescents and Reflections on Countermeasures
Joint Research Group
Children and adolescents are the future of the country and the hope of the nation, and their physical and mental health concerns the hearts of the whole society. Myopia is a prominent problem threatening the physical and mental health of children and adolescents. It not only affects daily study and life, but high myopia also increases the risk of blinding eye diseases such as retinopathy and glaucoma. With the internet fully penetrating daily life, the internet penetration rate among minors exceeds 97%, and problems such as excessive eye use are becoming increasingly serious. Myopia among children and adolescents is occurring at high rates and showing trends of younger onset and greater severity.
General Secretary Xi Jinping is deeply concerned about the "little glasses" problem, pointing out that "the high incidence and younger age of onset of myopia among students in our country seriously affect children's physical and mental health. This is a major issue concerning the future of the country and the nation, and it must be given great importance and must not be allowed to develop unchecked," and requiring that "schools and the whole society take action to jointly protect children's eyes." Under the General Secretary's care and concern, actions to safeguard children's "vision" world have continued to deepen. At present, what results have been achieved in myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents? What shortcomings remain? How can the pain points and difficulties of prevention and control be better resolved? With these questions, the Comprehensive Editorial Department of Qiushi magazine and the Institute of Child and Adolescent Health of Peking University (北京大学儿童青少年卫生研究所) formed a joint research group, visited primary and secondary schools, held extensive discussions with students, parents, educators, and medical workers, summarized experience, identified problems, and proposed countermeasures.
I. What results have been achieved in prevention and control?
According to data obtained by the research group from the Ministry of Education (教育部), from 2021 to 2024, the national overall myopia rate among students achieved "four consecutive declines," falling to 50.3% in 2024, a decrease of 3.3 percentage points compared with 2018. After years of effort, the upward trend in the myopia rate among children and adolescents in our country has been effectively curbed, and the results of prevention and control are steadily emerging. Many people reflected during the research that "this is a remarkable achievement" and "the results were hard-won."
The most core driving factor behind the notable results achieved in myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents is its elevation to a national strategy. In August 2018, eight departments including the Ministry of Education and the National Health Commission (国家卫生健康委) jointly issued the Implementation Plan for Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents (《综合防控儿童青少年近视实施方案》), proposing phased goals for prevention and control and prevention and control measures to be taken by the government, schools, and other parties, while also clarifying that the work of myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents, the overall myopia rate, and physical health status would be incorporated into government performance assessment. Subsequently, relevant departments intensively issued supporting documents such as the Measures for Evaluation and Assessment of National Comprehensive Prevention and Control of Myopia in Children and Adolescents (Trial) (《全国综合防控儿童青少年近视工作评议考核办法（试行）》), the Action Plan for the "Bright Action" of Myopia Prevention and Control for Children and Adolescents (2021–2025) (《儿童青少年近视防控光明行动工作方案（2021—2025年）》), and the Myopia Prevention and Control Guidelines for Different School Segments Including Preschool, Primary School, and Middle School (《学前、小学、中学等不同学段近视防控指引》), gradually forming a policy "combination punch" with clear goals, clear responsibilities, and specific measures, promoting the deepening of prevention and control work from having rules to follow to having standards to measure and effective implementation. Some interviewees stated that the elevation of myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents to a national action and the inclusion of prevention and control work in government assessment effectively transmitted work pressure and ensured the implementation of prevention and control responsibilities.
Under the guidance of top-level design, relevant departments have coordinated their efforts to jointly play the "one chess game" of myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents. For example, in 2019 the Ministry of Education took the lead in establishing the joint conference mechanism for national comprehensive prevention and control of myopia in children and adolescents, holding a joint conference every year, building a long-term mechanism for leading national prevention and control work, and greatly enhancing the synergy of prevention and control efforts; the National Health Commission issued the Technical Guidelines for Appropriate Myopia Prevention and Control for Children and Adolescents (《儿童青少年近视防控适宜技术指南》) and other documents, further raising the level of scientific and standardized prevention, control, diagnosis, and treatment; the National Disease Control Administration (国家疾控局) has continuously strengthened monitoring and evaluation of myopia and its influencing factors among children and adolescents, guiding localities and schools to implement comprehensive prevention and control measures and intervention actions in a targeted manner; the State Administration for Market Regulation (国家市场监督管理总局) has promoted comprehensive market supervision of myopia prevention and control from dimensions such as supervision of measuring instruments and construction of the standards system; the National Medical Products Administration (国家药品监督管理局), on the basis of formally approving the marketing of 0.01% concentration atropine sulfate eye drops in 2024, approved 0.02% and 0.04% concentration products in January of this year, forming a stepped multi-concentration matrix of atropine eye drops for delaying the progression of myopia in children; and so on. Through multi-departmental coordinated operations, the prevention and control network covering all links including prevention, screening, intervention, diagnosis and treatment, and supervision has been continuously woven more densely.
A series of mandatory national standards related to myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents have also been successively issued. In the area of classroom light environment, multiple key indicators have been added, including illumination uniformity, full-window sunlight duration on the winter solstice, and retinal blue light hazard limits. In the field of learning supplies, strict limits have been placed on indicators such as the brightness (whiteness) and D65 luminance of textbooks and exercise books, to avoid eye fatigue caused by overly white paper and excessive reflection. In the field of ophthalmic and optical products, strict requirements have been put forward for spectacle raw materials, product quality, and fitting services. As of the end of 2025, our country has approved and issued 39 national standards related to myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents, covering the entire chain of learning supplies, ophthalmic and optical products, and fitting services, comprehensively protecting children's and adolescents' "vision" world with a standardized system.
Localities have taken practical measures in light of local conditions, and many visible changes have taken place on campuses across the country. For example, many localities have vigorously promoted "one increase and one decrease"—increasing daytime outdoor activity time and reducing unnecessary academic burden—and the "15-minute recess" and "2 hours of physical education per day" have been fully deployed and implemented in all provinces. Shandong has extensively carried out vision examinations, with the coverage rate of eye health care and vision examinations for children aged 0–6 reaching 98.5%, establishing electronic vision files for more than 15 million primary and secondary school students, with one file per person and classified management. Hunan has promoted physical exercise for primary and secondary school students through legislation, clarifying that students in the compulsory education stage shall have no fewer than one physical education class per day during school hours and no fewer than three physical education classes per week at the senior high school stage. Fujian has incorporated the construction, renovation, and expansion of campus football fields into the list of practical projects for the people by the provincial party committee and provincial government, encouraging students to run and jump.
Overall, a comprehensive prevention and control pattern featuring Party and government leadership, departmental coordination, school as the main body, family cooperation, and professional support has been gradually constructed, and the whole society's awareness of eye care and vision protection has significantly improved, laying a solid foundation for safeguarding the visual health of children and adolescents.
II. What prominent problems remain in prevention and control work?
By 2030, achieving a myopia rate of about 3% for 6-year-old children, a myopia rate below 32% for primary school students, a myopia rate below 60% for junior high school students, and a myopia rate below 70% for senior high school students—these are the phased goals of myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents in our country. However, the research found that there is still a considerable gap between prevention and control work and the goals. On the one hand, the myopia rate in key school segments such as primary and secondary schools remains at a high level. What is particularly worthy of vigilance is that the proportion of high myopia (over 600 degrees) increases with grade level, and the lifelong health risks it brings, such as fundus lesions, increase significantly. On the other hand, the trend of younger onset of myopia has not yet been fundamentally reversed. In particular, the "digital natives" growing up in the internet age have been accustomed to the company of electronic products since childhood. Factors such as prolonged close-range eye use combined with insufficient outdoor activity have moved the high-incidence age of myopia forward to 6–10 years old. The myopia problem among children and adolescents remains severe, and behind this is the result of old problems and new challenges interweaving and interacting.
The early intervention system is not yet complete. Newborns have small eyeballs and short axial lengths, and usually have about 300 degrees of physiological hyperopia, known as "hyperopia reserve." Hyperopia reserve is naturally consumed at a certain rate, generally reaching an emmetropic state by adolescence. However, if children are exposed to electronic products too early or excessively, or engage in high-intensity close-range eye use, the hyperopia reserve will be consumed ahead of time, and the child will rapidly enter the myopia track. Kindergarten and the lower grades of primary school are the key window period for protecting hyperopia reserve and cultivating good eye-use habits, but in some places there is a lack of rigid constraints on myopia prevention and control in kindergartens and the lower grades of primary school, and many parents have insufficient understanding of hyperopia reserve and lack effective management of children's use of mobile phones, tablet computers, and other devices. Some even use electronic products as "electronic babysitters." Although the policy gateway for prevention and control is continuously moving forward, in actual implementation it has not yet truly taken root at the key starting point of preschool and the lower grades of primary school.
The contradiction between academic pressure and outdoor activity remains relatively prominent. Since the implementation of the "Double Reduction" policy, the excessive academic burden on students has been significantly alleviated, but in the face of pressure to advance to higher levels of schooling, the burden reduced in schools sometimes reappears in the form of family homework, online courses, and off-campus tutoring, and the time many children spend on close-range eye use has not substantially decreased. The requirement of "2 hours of physical education per day" has not yet become an institution in some places. Some primary and secondary schools have limited campus activity space, making it difficult to meet the needs of all students for simultaneous outdoor activities, which to a certain extent also limits the quality of outdoor activity implementation. Electronic teaching devices are widely used in classrooms, but control over the duration of use is not strict. Students stare at electronic screens during class and complete electronic homework after class, further increasing the intensity of continuous close-range eye use.
The synergy of family, school, and society has not yet truly formed. With the continuous development of relevant publicity and education activities, society's scientific understanding of myopia prevention has significantly improved, but some parents still have cognitive misunderstandings, emphasizing treatment over prevention, believing that "myopia is determined by genetics and cannot be prevented," "wearing glasses will deepen myopia," "once myopic, just get glasses," and "myopia is a small matter; laser surgery when grown up can solve it," lacking the initiative and ability for early prevention and scientific intervention. Many schools reflected during the research that schools enforce requirements on students' mobile phone use and outdoor activities relatively strictly, but once students return home, the requirements tend to "lose their grip." In particular, in links requiring family cooperation, such as strictly controlling off-campus tutoring and the use of electronic products, the corresponding prevention and control measures often fail to be implemented properly.
There are shortcomings in data sharing and effective use. The multi-departmental coordinated prevention and control framework has been established, but there are still gaps in the articulation of specific links. For example, student visual health data among departments such as education, health, and disease control has not yet achieved comprehensive, real-time, and efficient interconnection. Vision data from children's examinations at medical institutions cannot be synchronized to school files, and vision abnormalities found in school screenings cannot be promptly pushed to medical institutions, easily causing disconnection in prevention and control and delaying the best intervention opportunity. Some localities have begun to explore AI vision screening and the establishment of big data platforms, which have played a certain role in improving screening efficiency and identifying key populations. However, from a national perspective, the level of informatization in myopia prevention and control is still unbalanced. In some places, platforms have been built, but data updates are not timely and intervention feedback does not form a closed loop; in other places, there is a large amount of screening data, but it lacks stratified management, effective analysis, and continuous tracking, making it difficult to provide effective support for precise prevention and control.
Grassroots professional forces and hardware guarantees are insufficient. School doctors or health teachers are the "frontline sentinels" of school myopia prevention and control, but in many schools, especially in rural and underdeveloped areas, the staffing of relevant teachers is insufficient and professional training is inadequate, affecting the implementation of prevention and control measures. In addition, classroom lighting renovation, updating of adjustable desks and chairs, equipping of vision screening devices, and improvement of campus sports space all require sustained capital investment, but grassroots funding guarantees are insufficient, leading to lagging hardware facility improvements and unsustainable prevention and control measures. Professional diagnosis and treatment resources are unevenly distributed between urban and rural areas and among regions. High-quality diagnosis and treatment resources are mainly concentrated in large hospitals in big cities, while rural and remote areas lack professional personnel and equipment, making it difficult for children to obtain timely and professional vision health services.
III. How can a new pattern of all-round, whole-chain prevention and control be constructed?
Strengthening myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents concerns the physical and mental health of children, concerns the happiness of thousands of families, and concerns the future of the country and the nation. At present, prevention and control work is at a critical juncture of 逆水行舟 (nì shuǐ xíng zhōu - "sail against the current," to struggle against adversity) and 不进则退 (bú jìn zé tuì - "not advance means retreat," to fall behind if one does not keep moving forward). It is necessary to display the spirit of driving nails, keep a close eye on key links, make up for shortcomings and weaknesses, and fight this tough battle and protracted battle well.
Move the prevention and control gateway forward and consolidate grassroots capacity. Through early monitoring and intervention measures, the occurrence and development of myopia in children can be effectively prevented or delayed. It is necessary to further promote the forward movement of the prevention and control gateway, shifting the focus of work from "whether myopia exists" to "whether myopia risk exists," and taking multiple measures simultaneously to protect children's hyperopia reserve. Strictly implement "zero starting point" teaching, resolutely correct the tendency of "primary school-ization" in kindergartens, and avoid premature and excessive reading and writing; the single-use time of electronic products for young children should not exceed 15 minutes, and the cumulative daily time should not exceed 1 hour. All primary and secondary schools and kindergartens should establish vision health files for students, incorporate hyperopia reserve monitoring into routine physical examinations for preschool and lower primary school grades, establish an early warning mechanism, and promptly intervene with children whose hyperopia reserve is being consumed too quickly. Improving the capacity of school and grassroots children's eye health services is an important link in promptly discovering students' eye health problems. It is necessary to fully staff school doctors and health teachers, ensuring that each primary and secondary school is equipped with at least one full-time school doctor, while carrying out rotational training in myopia prevention and control professional skills to enhance their capacity in screening, file establishment, and health education. It is necessary to coordinate and increase financial investment, with priority support for classroom lighting compliance renovation, updating of adjustable desks and chairs, and equipping of basic screening devices in rural, remote, and underdeveloped areas, and to deeply implement the project of strengthening the grassroots medical and health system, strengthen the construction of grassroots children's eye health care and ophthalmology service capacity, and gradually narrow the gap in vision health services between urban and rural areas and among regions.
Deepen the integration of sports and education and reduce the burden on the eyes. Sufficient outdoor activity time is an important guarantee for the visual health of children and adolescents. It is necessary to firmly establish the educational philosophy of "health first," not to judge success solely by students' examination scores and school advancement rates, to direct more attention to students' comprehensive growth and physical and mental health development, to incorporate students' physical health status, including vision status, into the comprehensive quality evaluation system for students, to actively guide scientific eye use, to reasonably control academic burden, to strictly guarantee students' daily outdoor activity time, to promote the offering of one physical education class per day in compulsory education stage schools, to fully implement the systems of "15-minute recess" and "2 hours of physical education per day," and to establish and improve supervision mechanisms, promoting the coordinated development of cultural learning and physical exercise. Students and parents should be encouraged to jointly carry out "screen-pause actions." The duration of use of electronic devices in classroom teaching should not exceed 30% of total class hours, with priority given to the use of projectors and other low-flicker, low-blue-light devices, and the total amount of written homework and electronic homework should be strictly controlled.
Strengthen coordination among all parties and promote smart empowerment. The family is the first line of defense in myopia prevention and control. Parents should understand scientific knowledge of eye use and eye care, control the duration of children's use of electronic products from the preschool stage, accompany children in increasing outdoor activities and exercise, and lead by example in guiding children to develop good eye-use habits. Schools are the main battlefield of myopia prevention and control. They should provide students with a good eye-use environment, create conditions for students to leave the classroom during recess and relax their eyes, strengthen myopia monitoring and intervention, and promptly enable parents to grasp this information. The whole society's eye health science popularization also needs to keep pace. Relying on positions such as schools, communities, and medical and health institutions, as well as various new media platforms, normalized and popular science publicity should be carried out, with emphasis on popularizing knowledge such as hyperopia reserve protection, scientific eye-use behavior, and early intervention for myopia, further enhancing the whole society's awareness of early prevention and early intervention. The rapid development of artificial intelligence and other technologies is expected to provide more comprehensive, precise, and personalized solutions for prevention and control work. It is necessary to promote technologies such as AI vision screening and big data early warning, establish a full-cycle stratified myopia management model covering ages 0–18, and enhance the precision and intelligence level of prevention and control.
Improve assessment and evaluation and perfect long-term guarantees. Compacting responsibility is an important method for doing prevention and control work well. It is necessary to gradually increase the weight of the effectiveness of myopia prevention and control for children and adolescents in the performance assessment systems of relevant departments, promote localities to compact prevention and control responsibilities level by level down to every school and every class, and improve the normalized supervision and evaluation mechanism. Doing prevention and control work well cannot be separated from funding guarantees. It is necessary to incorporate prevention and control work funds into the annual budgets of finance at all levels, establish a sustained and stable investment growth mechanism, and guarantee the normalized development of work such as classroom renovation, equipment procurement, school doctor training, health publicity and education, and health management; at the same time, encourage social forces to participate in myopia prevention and control through charitable donations, public welfare funds, school-enterprise cooperation, and other means, forming a sustainable funding guarantee mechanism of "government investment as the mainstay, with diversified social supplements." In addition, it is necessary to further strengthen scientific research support related to myopia prevention and control, carry out joint research on the mechanisms of myopia occurrence and development, early intervention technologies, and new prevention and control products, promptly transform mature scientific research results into prevention and control practice, update and improve technical norms and standards for links such as myopia screening, diagnosis, and intervention, and continuously enhance the scientific nature, forward-looking nature, and long-term effectiveness of prevention and control work.
Return to TopBy: 丘成桐
Science and the Humanities: The Great Way Shares a Single Source
Shing-Tung Yau
When people speak of science and the humanities, they mostly treat the two as separate, often assuming that science is grounded in reason, values tools, and explores the laws of nature, while the humanities attend to the mind, uphold values, and carry the sentiments of human life. The one seeks truth, the other seeks goodness; they appear to form separate systems, as clearly divided as the channels of the Jing and Wei rivers. Yet in reality this is not so. Confucius said: "My Way is threaded through with one single strand." Though today's scholarship is ever more finely subdivided, at their root science and the humanities have always grown from the same source and interpenetrate each other. Science gives the humanities substance; the humanities give science its soul. In the end they are one great Way running through all.
When the emotions stir within, only then does creation begin
Students often ask me: when doing mathematics, why do I so often speak of poetry, song, prose, and the classics of literature and history? My experience is this: in scholarship, solid professional competence is the foundation of one's standing, but whether it is a top-tier scientific breakthrough or a literary creation handed down through the ages, what is truly valuable in creativity comes from abundant, sincere feeling and a broad, open mind.
Looking back over the millennia of the Chinese literary tradition, Qu Yuan composing the "Li Sao," Sima Qian writing the Records of the Grand Historian, Tao Yuanming singing of fields and gardens, Li Bai and Du Fu pouring out their hearts, Su Shi depicting the vicissitudes of the human world—every one of these is genuine feeling flowing forth, with a spirit of grandeur and power. Why is this so? Mencius said, "I am skilled in nourishing my vast, flowing qi," and Sima Qian likewise said, "When the mind is pent up and cannot find passage for its Way, one therefore recounts past events and thinks of those to come." The classics that can be handed down imperishable all possess a character at once supremely strong and supremely gentle, supremely far-reaching, harboring the feelings of heaven and earth, of country and home, and carrying the understanding of the rises and falls of human life.
In the Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons, Liu Xie honored the Confucian classics as the finest of literature, valuing them for bearing the Way and illuminating principle. In my view, the "Way" here is not merely the humanistic Way of cultivating virtue and caring for worldly affairs; it is also the Way of the natural sciences, the operation and transformation of heaven and earth and all things. Precisely because letters and science are originally one Way, one great Way sharing a single source, from the sages of ancient Greece to the great scientists of the modern era, scholars of outstanding achievement have for the most part written with grace and elegance. They did not deliberately polish their prose; it is simply that the great Way resides in the mind, and letters and science are fused in the bone—when one comprehends the Way, one's writing is naturally correct and one's principles naturally clear.
When solving great problems, the subjective emotions of the scientist play an extremely important role; this is the most original and most enduring motivation for seeking unknown truth. Faced with natural truths that shake the heartstrings, they devote all their energy to pursuing the truth, genuinely feeling how simple and powerful the laws of science are, and sincerely marveling at the incomparable beauty of natural structure. "If truth can be known, even dying nine times I would not regret it." This unwavering sincerity is of one vein with Wen Tianxiang, who, imprisoned, still held fast to the right Way and composed the "Song of the Righteous Spirit" to declare his resolve—the same vast and upright character.
Letters and science interpenetrate; their Way is one
I have said many times that mathematicians doing first-rate scholarship can fully draw on the compositional techniques of classical literature—"exposition, comparison, and stimulation" (fu, bi, xing). This is not a rhetorical metaphor of literary criticism, but a true confirmation that letters and science interpenetrate and that knowledge and action are one. Modern and contemporary mathematicians who have achieved breakthrough results in different branches follow thought paths and innovative logics highly similar to those of literary writers. I have always firmly believed that good mathematicians and scientific researchers must possess deep humanistic cultivation. When we carry humanistic grounding in our hearts, we can draw inspiration from the manifold forms of human life and the myriad phenomena of nature, enlighten our discernment, and continually refine and perfect our mathematical and theoretical systems, achieving the utmost truth and beauty of science. If we stand still, content with patching up the achievements of our predecessors, we can only do follow-up work and cannot produce path-breaking scholarship.
Whether scientific breakthrough or literary creation, neither ever relies on mechanical accumulation or rigid replication; the essential point lies in creative thinking such as association, analogy, and imagination. The scientist finds connections among seemingly unrelated natural phenomena and constructs a unified theory; the poet, standing amid myriad images of the human world, builds a living artistic world. Both seek the essential laws beneath complex appearances. Without this creative thinking, science can hardly break through, and the humanities can hardly produce anything new. The Chinese literary tradition has continued for millennia; the classics left by Qu Yuan, Sima Qian, Li Bai, Su Shi, Cao Xueqin, and other forebears are precious wealth for nourishing the mind and enlightening wisdom. Whether one is deeply engaged in mathematics and science or in the study of the humanities, history, and philosophy, one can draw from them sincere feeling, dialectical wisdom, and broad vision—supporting scientific innovation with humanistic grounding, and enriching the humanistic foundation with scientific reason.
Seeking truth and pursuing beauty: different paths, one destination
Most people believe that science is practical and utilitarian, focused on instrumental function, while the humanities are elegant and transcendent, seeking only spiritual sentiment. However, scientists explore the truth of nature, and literary writers seek the beauty of the human world; though their fields seem utterly different and their paths diverge, deep in their hearts they hold fast to the same pursuit—the tireless quest for ultimate perfection. Seeking truth and pursuing beauty: different paths, one destination.
A mature, self-consistent mathematical theory, with its rigor of logic, refinement of structure, and completeness of system, is no less than a literary classic. Weil extended the boundaries of number theory with algebraic geometry; Langlands built a grand unifying program for number theory with automorphic forms; I and my colleagues developed geometric analysis—all of us seeking, for the truth of the natural world, the most perfect and most self-consistent framework of explanation. This persistent longing for ultimate perfection cannot be explained by utilitarian instrumental reason; it springs from a steadfast faith in truth and beauty at the very core of the heart.
Many times, mathematicians use thousands of pages of abstract theory to unify, describe, and explain some vague, concrete phenomena through extremely abstract methods. This is precisely a vivid manifestation of mathematics' pursuit of ultimate perfection. For example, in the 1970s, physicists proposed supersymmetry theory, predicting that every particle has a supersymmetric partner particle; even though supersymmetric phenomena have not yet been observed in the laboratory, it has continually driven many breakthrough studies in mathematics and physics.
The physicist Hermann Weyl once said: "If a theory conflicts with observed phenomena, and the theory is beautiful and simple, I would rather believe in the theory itself." The vigorous development of gauge field theory is rooted precisely in this faith in the beauty of science. After Dirac completed the famous Dirac equation in relativistic quantum mechanics, he also remarked that the equation "beautifully describes the properties of elementary particles, some of which I had not even anticipated myself." This is precisely the wonder of scientific innovation: the tools we use to seek truth ultimately carry us beyond the boundaries of cognition toward a farther unknown.
Literary writers are the same. Cao Xueqin wrote Dream of the Red Chamber—"every word seems stained with blood; ten years of toil, no ordinary labor." He fused half a lifetime of experience and the vicissitudes of the human world into one complete, living artistic world. This fictional literary work's portrayal of human nature and society is far more profound and moving than countless factual records. Countless later writers have attempted sequels, yet none has ever come close, simply because they lack his depth and purity of humanistic feeling and his vision of grasping the whole and pursuing perfection.
Science turns outward, using reason to deconstruct heaven and earth and all things, seeking the utmost truth of nature; the humanities turn inward, using feeling to contemplate the manifold forms of human life, holding fast to the utmost beauty of the human world. The scientist faces nature, the literary writer faces the human world, but the longing for perfection deep in their hearts never changes: seek truth and be pragmatic; rest only in the highest good. In 2023, I took the lead in founding the International Congress of Basic Science, which has now been held four times. Beneath the congress logo there is a line: "Seek truth and be pragmatic; rest only in the highest good." This is both a tribute to the dedication of the scholars who have won awards over the years in their quiet pursuit of learning, and the goal to which I myself have held unwaveringly throughout a life of scholarship and teaching. The congress focuses on the three fields of basic mathematics, physics, information science, and engineering, emphasizes the cross-fertilization of basic science with artificial intelligence, and calls on scholars at home and abroad to open their minds, cooperate in concert, and plan disciplinary development with a long-term view. The congress established the Basic Science Medal and the Frontier Science Award precisely in the hope that fellow researchers, on the long road of exploring the profound laws of the universe, will hold fast to their original heart of seeking truth and pursuing beauty.
Broad learning and the mirror of history: nourishing scholarship
How do we cultivate this creative thinking that threads through letters and science, and nourish the scholarly heart that seeks truth and pursues beauty? The answer lies in broad, liberal education, in the immersion of the literary tradition, and in the inheritance of history. I often tell my students that scholarship is not divided into letters and science; the first essential is sincerity of heart and sincerity of feeling. When a young person has deep affection for the learning they are to pursue, the road of scholarship can then proceed smoothly and go far with stability. And this pure love and steadfast resolve cannot be separated from long-term humanistic cultivation and broad nourishment.
Throughout my life I have benefited greatly from humanistic cultivation. When I was ten years old, my father taught me to recite poetry, study historical texts, and comprehend the philosophy of ancient and modern times. In his History of Western Philosophy, he quoted a famous line from the Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons: "Set your mind above ten thousand ages, and send your feelings down a thousand years." This line still inspires me today: in scholarship one should set one's aim on the ages, seek imperishable learning, not be trapped by the gains and losses of a moment, not be confined to the view of a single corner. This ambition, this breadth of mind, is the foundation of my scholarship. Even now I insist on teaching a course on the history of mathematics to my students every week. Why teach history? Because history is a mirror: it points out not only the reasons for the successes and failures of our predecessors, but also transmits to us the feelings our ancestors have left over a thousand years. If one does not read history, one does not know where one came from; if one does not know where one came from, one does not know where one is going. This is especially true of the history of mathematics—it lets you see how great ideas were born, and lets you feel the joy and frustration of those mathematicians in their own time. This feeling moves the heart more than any formula.
To this day, China's theoretical scientists still lag behind the world's top level in originality. I think one important reason is that our scientists' cultivation in the humanities is not yet deep enough; their appreciation of the truth and beauty of nature is insufficient, and their feeling is not yet fully awakened. We Chinese are a people rich in feeling and in depth, and this feeling is common to scientists and literary writers alike. The many works of the forebears mentioned above are in no way inferior to the peaks of world literature!
Now artificial intelligence is rising vigorously and has become the core force of technological development in the new era, and it also makes the value of the dialectical unity of letters and science ever more prominent. Artificial intelligence, relying on mathematical logic and big-data computing power, is reshaping the paradigm of scientific research; it is the ultimate extension of human instrumental reason. But the faster technology iterates, the less we can afford to lose our humanistic original heart, our value judgments, and our aesthetic vision. Science divorced from humanistic guidance is blind; the humanities lacking scientific support are hollow. Today, when artificial intelligence is deeply integrated into scientific research and society, holding fast to the ideal of the fusion of letters and science and the unity of truth and beauty is especially urgent.
I hope that the young students of the new era will carry a simple, sincere heart, hold fast to the original heart of seeking truth, inherit the literary tradition of their predecessors without blindly following or clinging to it—able both to delve deeply into mathematics and science, explore the true interest of nature, and tackle original problems, and also to steep themselves in the humanities, nourish a vast and upright mind, and hold fast to the original heart of scholarship. Let the humanities nourish one's vision, let science open the road ahead, and in the fusion of letters and science seek the great Way and realize oneself.
Author: Chair Professor at Tsinghua University, Director of the Yau Mathematical Sciences Center, Dean of the Qiuzhen College
Return to TopBy: 邢云文
Cultural China
The Way of Interaction of Honoring Trust, Cultivating Harmony, and Being Kind to Neighbors
Xing Yunwen
Chinese civilization has always esteemed 和而不同 (hé ér bù tóng - "harmonious yet different," harmony without uniformity), 以和为贵 (yǐ hé wéi guì - "peace is most precious"), and 美美与共 (měi měi yǔ gòng - "beauties shared together"), and over thousands of years of civilizational evolution has crystallized the way of interaction of 讲信修睦 (jiǎng xìn xiū mù - "honor trust, cultivate harmony") and 亲仁善邻 (qīn rén shàn lín - "be close to the benevolent, be kind to neighbors"). On June 2, 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the Symposium on Cultural Inheritance and Development, listing the way of interaction of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being kind to neighbors as an important element of China's fine traditional culture, and emphasizing its important role in shaping the distinctive characteristics of Chinese civilization. This way of interaction advocates establishing relations through trust, supporting one another through harmony, and treating neighbors with benevolence and kindness, and can provide unique Chinese wisdom for building a new type of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind, and for all countries to achieve peaceful coexistence and win-win cooperation.
The phrase "honoring trust, cultivating harmony" originates from the "Li Yun" (Evolution of Rites) chapter of the Book of Rites, where the ancient sages, in their ideal of Great Unity, depicted the grand vision that "when the Great Way prevails, the world is for all; the worthy and able are chosen, trust is honored and harmony cultivated," establishing trust and harmony as the ethical cornerstone of human relations and the inner principle of social operation. "Being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors" appears in the Zuo Commentary, Duke Yin, sixth year, where Duke Zhuang of Zheng sought peace with Chen, and when Duke Huan of Chen refused, his younger brother Wufu admonished him, saying, "To be close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors is a treasure of the state," regarding closeness to benevolence and goodwill toward neighbors as the foundation of statehood. Honoring trust and cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors, are each established respectively from the two poles of social ideal and statecraft, and in historical practice became interpenetrated and mutually infused. Examining their inner meaning, "trust" (xin) is the root by which the other and I can rely upon each other; "harmony" (mu) is the order by which the other and I can coexist in peace; "benevolence" (ren) is the heart by which the other and I can draw near to each other; and "neighbor" (lin) is the proximity, whether geographical or moral, in which we stand. The four characters combined into the way of interaction of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors constitute an ethical arrangement built upon the profound insight that "all people share this heart, and all states share this principle," extending the virtues of honesty, trustworthiness, and harmonious coexistence from the individual to the family, to the state, and to the entire world.
Tracing its origins, this way of interaction had already taken root in the ancient era of Chinese civilization's beginnings. The various tribes active in the middle and lower reaches of the Yellow River, in their gradual process of fusion, experienced wars of annexation. Ancient statesmen not only felt the preciousness of peace through war, but also comprehended the principle that "cultivating oneself brings the world to submission." The Book of Documents records Shun saying, "Be gentle with the distant and able with the near. Honor virtue and trust the good, and keep the crafty at a distance, and the barbarian tribes will submit of themselves," holding that by being generous in virtue, trusting the good, and keeping away glib and artful petty men, one can, without recourse to arms, move the barbarian tribes of the four quarters to vie in submitting. After the Xia and Shang, the Zhou people established the normative order of the Western Zhou through King Wu's enfeoffment and the Duke of Zhou's ritual system, with "virtue" as the foundation of governance and "ritual" as the framework of order, systematically establishing the institutions of court audience, assembly, and diplomatic missions, so that "honoring trust" had covenants to rely upon and "cultivating harmony" had ritual forms to follow. The alliance meetings recorded in historical texts are replete with the ancient Chinese people's efforts to use "trust" and "harmony" to restrain force, bridge differences, and their early practice of peaceful diplomatic intercourse. This institutional framework of establishing trust through ritual and cultivating harmony through alliances profoundly shaped the diplomatic model of later Chinese dynasties.
During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, as the feudal lords contended for hegemony and ritual collapsed and music was destroyed, Su Qin and Zhang Yi pursued "vertical and horizontal alliances," and Fan Ju advocated "befriending the distant and attacking the near" — 合纵连横 (hé zòng lián héng - "vertical and horizontal alliances," alliance strategies of the Warring States) and 远交近攻 (yuǎn jiāo jìn gōng - "befriend the distant, attack the near," a strategy of sequential conquest). States under schemes of power politics readily abandoned covenants and sacrificed their allies. Yet it was precisely in such a turbulent world that thinkers increasingly devoted themselves to rebuilding order and restoring society's confidence in the principles of benevolence and righteousness underlying order, and with one accord advocated and exalted the concepts of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors, making them all the more precious. The prescription the Confucians offered for this chaotic age was to lead "trust" with "benevolence" and to return "trust" to "benevolence." Confucius held that the intercourse of persons lies in trust and the governance of states also lies in trust, proposing that "a man without trust — I do not know what he can do" and "without trust, the people cannot stand," elevating "trust" from a virtue to the foundation of a gentleman's self-establishment and a state's governance, and extending "the trust by which one establishes oneself" outward into "the trust by which one engages one's neighbors." Proceeding from "benevolence," he proposed "governing through virtue," advocating the cultivation of civil virtue and restraint in warfare, so as to open the situation in which "those near are pleased, and those far come." Mencius, living in an age of incessant warfare among the Warring States, elevated the way of benevolence and righteousness into kingly politics, holding that a state that practices benevolent governance over its people "can become king with a territory of a hundred li." In response to Bai Gui, who diverted floodwaters onto neighboring states while claiming his water management surpassed that of Yu the Great, Mencius said, "Yu used the four seas as his drain; now you use your neighboring states as your drain... This is what the benevolent detest. You are wrong," pointing out that using one's neighbor as a drain and shifting calamity onto neighbors is a shameless act detested by the benevolent. Xunzi, as the age of great unification approached, conducted a more realistic exploration of the concepts of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors, closely integrating them with "use," that is, concrete practice, holding that "establish righteousness and you become king; establish trust and you become hegemon," and that righteousness and trust are important principles for governing the state and harmonizing all nations, and that through "exalting ritual" and "emphasizing law," the concepts of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors could obtain an institutional foundation combining both ritual and law. The Confucian sages advanced layer upon layer — establishing the self through "trust," governing the state through "benevolence," and pacifying the world through "kingly rule" — constructing an intellectual system in which trust and benevolence share the same source, righteousness and benefit complete each other, and kingly and hegemonic ways are distinguished, and establishing the mainstream interpretive framework for the concepts of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors for the subsequent two thousand years.
The Daoist, Mohist, and Legalist schools each made important supplements from their own standpoints, extending these concepts beyond the teachings of a single school into a broader body of thought. The Daoists, proceeding from the cosmological view that "the Way models itself on nature," had Laozi warn the world that "it is precisely because he does not contend that no one in the world can contend with him," and also said, "When a great state lowers itself before a small state, it wins over the small state; when a small state lowers itself before a great state, it wins over the great state," regarding humility and non-contention as the wisdom of interaction between large and small states — achieving the effect of "no one can contend with him" through "non-contention," deepening the Chinese nation's understanding of "harmony" at the ontological level, and providing the philosophical foundation of "non-action yet nothing is left undone" for the way of cultivating harmony. The Mohists, taking "universal love and mutual benefit" as their tenet, lamented that "now the feudal lords know only to love their own states, not to love others' states," and advocated transcending closeness and distance, nobility and baseness, to break the malady of "mutual hatred of the different," regarding others' states as one's own state, others' families as one's own family, and others' persons as one's own person. The Legalists, concerned with enriching the state and strengthening the army, seemed far removed from trust, righteousness, and harmony, but in fact had deeper meaning. Han Feizi emphasized that "when small trust is fulfilled, great trust is established; therefore the enlightened ruler accumulates trust," and vigorously advocated promoting trust through law and governing the state through trust. He proposed that "the enlightened ruler does not rely on others not betraying me, but on my being unbetrayable," holding that trust relations should be constructed and constrained through institutional systems such as law and reward and punishment, giving honoring trust and cultivating harmony institutional constraint. The three schools differed in standpoint, yet their ultimate aims were highly consistent: all hoped to find for the chaotic age a way out grounded in trust and righteousness and ordered by harmony. Therefore, honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors is not merely a moral doctrine of the Confucian school alone, but a consensus of thought integrating the various masters, tempered through the Spring and Autumn and Warring States "contest between kingly and hegemonic ways" into a deep cultural gene of the Chinese nation.
After the formation of the great unification pattern in the Qin and Han dynasties, the way of interaction of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors further integrated from the doctrines of the various masters into state governance, and acquired new theoretical forms through the constructions of thinkers. Dong Zhongshu, reconstructing Confucian doctrine in combination with the theory of yin-yang and the five elements, connected benevolent governance with the Way of Heaven, proposing that "the five constant virtues of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trust are what kings should cultivate and regulate," making "trust" stand alongside benevolence, righteousness, propriety, and wisdom as the constant way of heaven and earth. This arrangement elevated sincerity and trust from personal virtue to the constant way maintaining the order of family and state, providing a cosmological basis for the legitimacy of kingly power — a king cannot be without trust toward his people; without trust, Heaven's Way does not bless him and the people's hearts do not attach to him; trust and righteousness are an important pillar of the legitimacy of kingly rule. Thereafter, the Baihu Tongyi (Comprehensive Discussions at the White Tiger Hall) defined the meaning of "trust" as "trust is sincerity, single-minded and unchanging," further consolidating trust and righteousness into a consensus of classical learning. The Han dynasty formed the governing tradition of "mixing the kingly way and the hegemonic way," advocating the combined use of moral education and punishment, and the mutual complement of conciliation and coercion — precisely a typical strategy of practicing the way of trust and benevolence through the arts of both king and hegemon. Emperor Wu of Han dispatched Zhang Qian on missions to the Western Regions, achieving diplomatic intercourse and mutual trade; Emperor Xuan of Han established the Protectorate of the Western Regions, not altering their customs and not seizing their lands, becoming a model of the Han dynasty's use of trust to pacify the border regions.
From the Wei, Jin, and Northern and Southern Dynasties through the Sui and Tang, as regimes divided and united and ethnic groups migrated, the concepts of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors achieved theoretical expansion amid pluralistic ferment. The Wei-Jin Neo-Daoist Wang Bi, through the distinction of "root and branch" and "one and many," elucidated the inner connection between ontological unity and the differentiation of the myriad things, laying a metaphysical foundation for the way of harmonious coexistence amid difference. He annotated the Book of Changes, writing, "Act with vigor not through force, but through culture and enlightenment; respond not with deviance, but with centrality and correctness," emphasizing the handling of relations between states and between persons through central, correct, and civilized means. After Buddhism spread eastward, the Buddhist concepts of "compassion and equality" and "all sentient beings possess Buddha-nature" mutually corroborated and fused with the Confucian "benevolence" and Daoist "non-contention," giving the concepts of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors a deeper foundation in human nature. Thus, whether people were Hua or barbarian, whether states were near or far, all possessed feeling and consciousness, and all could be drawn close to one another, providing an intimate and substantial philosophical support for harmony within the unified multi-ethnic state and with others beyond it. In the early Tang, the classical scholar Kong Yingda presided over the compilation of the Wujing Zhengyi (Correct Meanings of the Five Classics), systematically expounding the educational tenet of the Doctrine of the Mean chapter of the Book of Rites, which takes "centrality and harmony" as its foundation, so that the principle of the mean and harmony became standard classical doctrine throughout the realm, and honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors became important concepts in governance. Emperor Taizong of Tang established his governance on the principle that "ruling over the realm, with deep roots and firm foundation, people at ease and soldiers strong, the nine provinces prosperous, the four barbarians submit of themselves," maintaining relations with the various peoples of east, west, south, and north through conciliation, investiture, mutual trade, and marriage alliances, creating the Chang'an spectacle of myriad states coming to court, embodying the externalization of the thought of harmonizing all peoples through "benevolence" and restraining force through "trust." Xuanzang's journey westward and Jianzhen's voyage eastward further extended the concepts of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors from interstate relations to popular exchange.
From the Song dynasty onward, the way of interaction of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors was further deepened and expanded under the reconstruction of Neo-Confucianism, and was manifested in the reality of multiple ethnic regimes standing side by side and various ethnic groups blending and coexisting. The Song Confucian Zhu Xi, incorporating Daoist cosmological thinking and Buddhist methods of mind-nature speculation, connected the inner sagely cultivation of "making the will sincere and the mind upright" with the outer kingly practice of "honoring trust and cultivating harmony," elevating such moral norms from mere items of virtue to heavenly principle. Through "one principle, many manifestations," he broke through the boundaries between heaven, earth, and the myriad things, so that the sincerity, trust, and harmony between person and person, state and state became consubstantial with the generative virtue of heaven and earth, and honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors thereby obtained the basis of heavenly principle. The Ming Confucian Wang Yangming, through his doctrine of "extending innate knowledge," deepened the connotation of "trust" from "not deceiving others" to "not deceiving oneself," fundamentally guaranteeing the possibility of honoring trust and cultivating harmony — only when the heart is sincere can one act outwardly without contradiction. He proposed "the benevolence of the unity of heaven, earth, and all things," emphasizing that "heaven, earth, and all things are originally one body with me," and advocated "regarding others as oneself, regarding states as one's family," further breaking down narrow geographical and ethnic boundaries and providing a metaphysical demonstration for being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors. Qing Confucians regarded ritual learning as an instrument of statecraft, and the thought of "cultivating their education without changing their customs; unifying their governance without changing their suitability" was thereby deepened, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors was externalized from a virtue of the mind into political practice. Through the establishment of the Court of Colonial Affairs (Lifan Yuan) and the promulgation of relevant statutes and institutions, the Qing dynasty constructed the basic ritual-legal framework for coordinating internal ethnic groups and handling external affairs in the unified multi-ethnic state, promoting at the institutional level the long-term peaceful coexistence, exchange, and integration of all ethnic groups. At this point, the way of interaction of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors had essentially completed its construction from ontology to virtue to institution.
Surveying its evolution, the way of interaction of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors is Chinese civilization's enduring answer to the fundamental question of how states relate to states, persons to persons, and persons to themselves, gradually becoming the distinctive底色 and prominent marker of Chinese civilization, and manifesting a far-reaching power to regulate foreign relations, nourish the social ethos, and shape the moral character of persons.
This way of interaction profoundly influenced the intellectual paradigm by which the Chinese nation handled foreign relations.
The Chinese nation has always firmly believed that "virtue is not solitary; it always has neighbors," holding that a state with the Way will never be isolated in the world, but will naturally attract those of like mind to associate with it, thereby forming a world scene in which myriad states converge and great plans are jointly discussed. Chinese civilization's understanding of "neighbor" is utterly different from the imperial orientation that makes annexation its business and conquest its achievement; rather, it advocates "cultivating civil virtue to attract them," maintaining a dynamic balance between virtue and interest. Marriage alliances for peace, mutual trade, and giving more than receiving are all institutionalized manifestations of this dynamic balance. Thus, the expansion of China's territory through the ages has been more a expansion of cultural identification than of military conquest — a distinctive and precious feature in the history of world civilization. The reason for this lies in Chinese civilization's profound understanding of human nature and order: if trust and benevolence are not established, then disputes are hard to end and myriad states are hard to pacify; subduing others by force, even if successful for a time, can hardly long pacify the multitude or permanently secure territory; only by honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors — exchanging trust and benevolence for trust, and harmony for security — can a lasting order of harmonizing all nations be created. Following this way of interaction, the Chinese nation's relationship with its neighbors and the world can move toward mutual benefit and win-win outcomes within the framework of trust and benevolence, providing a unique intellectual paradigm for humanity's exploration of the way different civilizations can coexist peacefully.
This way of interaction fostered the social character of ancient China, grounded in righteousness and marked by mutual watch and assistance.
"Going out and coming in as friends, watching over and helping each other, supporting each other in illness — then the people are close and harmonious" is a social ideal of the Chinese nation unchanged for millennia. Although traditional Chinese society was bound by kinship, relations between persons could not be regulated by kinship alone; a "soft constraint" that transcended kinship and operated among neighbors was also needed, and honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors was precisely its form of implementation among the people. Village compacts, clan regulations, and merchant guild agreements were all in essence attempts to reconstruct social order with righteousness as the bond. What is called "watching over and helping each other" — 守望相助 (shǒu wàng xiāng zhù - "watch and help each other," mutual aid in times of need) — appears to be a moral requirement on the individual, but is in fact a contract by which members of a community entrust themselves to one another. What is called "propriety values reciprocity" — 礼尚往来 (lǐ shàng wǎng lái - "propriety values reciprocity," the etiquette of mutual exchange) — appears to be a ritual requirement on interaction, but is in fact the ethical rhythm that maintains social harmony. Pushing deeper into its meaning, in arranging relations between persons, traditional Chinese society did not confine "trust" to the behavioral baseline of "not deceiving others," but elevated it into a positive communal responsibility. "Trust" and "harmony," mutually dependent and interpenetrating, enabled society to function properly in times of good governance, and to maintain considerable stability and resilience in times of dynastic change, famine, and war. Where law and institution did not reach, trust, righteousness, and harmony quietly provided support. This is not a stopgap supplement, but Chinese civilization's answer to the question of "how is good order possible." This governing wisdom, grounded in righteousness, endowed traditional Chinese society with a powerful capacity for self-governance.
This way of interaction powerfully shaped the moral character of the Chinese people — cultivating oneself through trust, establishing oneself and enabling others to flourish.
The Chinese nation's understanding of "trust" did not stop at the practical level of "honesty," but rose to "sincerity and trust" as fundamental to what makes a person human. The Doctrine of the Mean chapter of the Book of Rites directly declares that "without sincerity, nothing exists," elevating sincerity and trust to an ontological height — precisely this meaning. Thus, "trust" is both not deceiving others and not deceiving oneself; both keeping agreements and completing the agreements of others. What is interpenetrated with "trust" is the "reciprocity" (shu) of extending oneself to others. Chinese traditional philosophy emphasizes treating others with "to establish oneself, establish others; to achieve oneself, achieve others" and "do not do to others what you would not have done to yourself." A single character "trust" deeply rooted in the heart enables a person to stand firmly and walk uprightly; a single character "reciprocity" extended to social intercourse enables a person to be uncalculating and to accomplish things. Together they internalize the way of interaction of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors into the spiritual底色 of the Chinese people's conduct in the world, and externalize it as a bearing that neither bullies the weak nor delights in exhausting the military, yet neither submits to humiliation nor abandons principle — cultivating, between neither humbleness nor arrogance — 不卑不亢 (bù bēi bù kàng - "neither humble nor arrogant," a dignified and self-assured bearing) — the bearing of a person of honor who has trust, harmony, benevolence, and neighbors. It extends into a deep cultural temperament of the Chinese people, so that Chinese sons and daughters, whether in prosperity or adversity, whether officials or commoners, can always recognize and entrust themselves to one another. The two characters "trust" and "reciprocity," extended to states, are honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors; extended to the world, they are the world for all and the Great Unity.
The way of interaction of honoring trust, cultivating harmony, and being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors is living water surging through the long river of Chinese civilization, shining with the Chinese nation's moral ideal of peace as most precious and its political wisdom, passing through the succession of generations without end, and being continuously endowed with new meaning. The Communist Party of China is the faithful inheritor and promoter of China's fine traditional culture. For more than a hundred years, it has handled relations among ethnic groups, states, and political parties with the pattern of embracing the world and the wisdom of harmony without uniformity. Entering the new era, in response to the major question of "what kind of world to build and how to build it," China has given the answer of the era: building a community with a shared future for mankind. General Secretary Xi Jinping has profoundly pointed out that the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind is of one lineage with the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence — both are rooted in the fine traditional Chinese culture of being close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors, honoring trust and cultivating harmony, and harmonizing all nations; both manifest the spiritual backbone of Chinese diplomacy in being confident and self-reliant, upholding justice, and supporting the weak and promoting the good; both embody the world-minded sentiment of Chinese Communists in making new and greater contributions to humanity; and both demonstrate China's firm resolve to adhere to the path of peaceful development. Looking to the future, General Secretary Xi Jinping has put forward the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative, emphasizing the building of a new type of international relations characterized by mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation, pointing the direction for the future of human civilization. A new-era China that honors trust, cultivates harmony, and is close to the benevolent and kind to neighbors will surely make new and greater contributions to building a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, cleanliness and beauty.
Author: Distinguished Professor at the School of Marxism, Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Return to TopSongs of the Workers: On New Mass Literature and Art
Editor's Note:
In recent years, more and more ordinary working people have taken up the pen to write about their own lives, their breaths, and their heartbeats. This journal has specially invited four authors of new mass literature and art who have long been rooted in various industries to tell the stories of their creative journeys — of how they became connected with literature and walked alongside the times. Their writings contain sweat, but also starlight; bitterness, but also vastness. These plain and sincere strokes of the pen are the vivid echoes of the wave of new mass literature and art.
Our "Pyramid"
Food delivery rider / Poet Wang Jibing
Over the past few years, because I have been writing while delivering food, I have attracted the attention of the media and netizens, and have acquired the extra label of "food delivery poet." In fact, I have only been delivering food for eight years, but I have been writing for thirty-eight years.
In 1988, I entered the city for the first time, became a construction worker, and began attempting to write. In 1992, I published some short fiction works and dreamed of becoming a "great writer." In pursuit of this dream, I forgot to eat and sleep (fèi qǐn wàng shí - "neglect eating and sleeping," to be so absorbed that one forgets basic needs) as I wrote a novel of more than 200,000 characters, but because I was so deeply immersed in it, my health began to suffer. My father worried about my health and would not let me wallow in writing. To put my family at ease, I stopped submitting my work and turned writing into a hobby in my daily life. Using words to record life actually made me more composed.
A true dream is a seed; it is meant to grow. Only by possessing a great dream can one truly live. Carrying my longing for the dream, after an interval of twenty-five years, I submitted my work again and began publishing poetry. In 2019, I registered as a food delivery rider. In the gaps between waiting for meals, waiting for elevators, and waiting for customers, I wrote lines of poetry on scraps of paper and in the palm of my hand. On the road making deliveries, the wind was my pen, and the city was my manuscript paper. I never imagined that these words leaking through my fingers would gather into the poetry collections Flying Low and I Clumsily Love This World, and would bring me to the podium of the Lu Xun Literature Prize. The fact that a delivery worker could write poetry and win an award moves me more than the award itself. It shows that the stage of literature is widening, and that the pens of ordinary working people are being seriously received by this era.
I know well that the flowering and fruiting of this dream seed is not unrelated to catching the fast train of the new mass literature and art era. For a long time, the literary and art world has maintained a pyramid-shaped structure, where the light of literature and art often shines only on the very few at the apex. Countless ordinary people, through subtle influence, have imposed limits on themselves, voluntarily shutting themselves out of the gates of literary and artistic creation, and missing the opportunity to express themselves. But literature and art have never should belong only to the few; they should be the literature and art of everyone who lives seriously. In the early days of the People's Republic of China, the state launched a vigorous literacy campaign, and my mother was a beneficiary of that campaign. Although she only learned to recognize a handful of characters, it was precisely these characters that illuminated my mother's ordinary years and had a profound influence on me.
The emergence of new mass literature and art seems to carry a kind of magical power, prying at and adjusting the angle at which the original pyramid of literature and art stood. It provides a broad stage to those vast numbers of people who have long existed silently at the base of the pyramid, bearing the weight of life and the sedimentation of the times — as long as you are willing to stand up, you will be seen and illuminated by the light of the times. Literature and art, in embracing all things and accommodating everything, also shed their elite filter and take root in the world of mortal烟火 (yān huǒ - "smoke and fire," the ordinary life of the common people).
As a group of creators who have stepped forward early in the new mass literature and art movement, we are fortunate. But we must be vigilant against the creative predicament of "debuting at the peak" (chū dào jí diān fēng - "debut is the summit," reaching one's peak at the very start). We must not slacken, and even less should we adopt the mistaken mentality of "I am an amateur, so I am in the right," letting ourselves go. The writing of ordinary working people has never been meant to provide the public with exotic experiences, and even less should it become a tool for earning internet traffic. If "amateur" is reduced to a persona label, if ordinariness is deliberately fabricated, consumed, and labeled, then this road that should be growing wider will instead grow narrower. We must keep running, running out the creative attitude and literary courage of ordinary people.
Some ask whether the future structure of literature and art will once again produce a pyramid. I think it will, but it will certainly not be what it was before. Its apex will no longer be a sharp acute angle formed by individual "I"s, but a long ridge formed by many "we"s. That will be our literature and art, our literature, our "pyramid."
Writing Is Flight Close to the Ground
Miner / Poet Chen Nianxi
My hometown, Xiahe Village, is located at the border of Shaanxi and Henan provinces, with blocked transportation and barren resources. I spent my childhood, youth, and much of my middle age here. The reed catkins filling the Xiahe River are the deepest memory my hometown left me. Every year from late autumn onward, the snow-white reed catkins stretch vast and boundless, spreading down along both banks of the Xiahe River all the way to the Dan River. I feel that the reed catkins are a kind of metaphor for the fate of all the people on this land: pure white and simple, ordinary yet resilient. Many years ago, my ancestors migrated here from Anhui, and the Chinese sentiment that people are loath to leave their native soil (gù tǔ nán qiān - "native soil hard to leave," deep attachment to one's homeland) has meant that my feeling of rootlessness has never dissipated. These life experiences enlightened my literary creation and also influenced the foundational tone of my writing.
My writing can be divided into two periods, with 1999 as the dividing line. Before 1999, I wrote a great deal of poetry about romantic and aesthetic subjects (fēng huā xuě yuè - "wind, flower, snow, moon," sentimental or romantic themes). At that time I was young, life's trials were light, and I was filled with ethereal passion. On the one hand, I hoped to become a poet like Du Fu, using words to record life and the times; on the other hand, I also wanted to be one of those who, in that era full of change, changed their fate through writing. My writing then was mainly a kind of trend-following writing, mostly imitating the mainstream, and because it lacked the texture of real life, naturally I did not become a true poet. In the winter of 1999, I began working in mines. I traveled far and wide, through wind and dust, for sixteen years. On the banks of the ancient Yarkant River, the figures of the miners appeared so tiny. The immense and boundless nature, and the individuals buried in hard labor — the enormous asymmetry and enormous contrast between the two often made me think deeply about many things.
The heavy and monotonous life of the mines made writing an inner necessity — using writing to find a passage, to temporarily step out and catch one's breath. Later I wrote lines that became widely known: "I spend my middle age at five thousand meters deep / I blast the rock strata apart time and again / Thereby / Reassembling my entire life." In my sixteen years as a mine blaster, I used explosives to blast open rock, and I also used my pen to blast open my creative inspiration.
Looking back now, the writing of the mining period was perhaps the real writing. It was based on life, on flesh and blood, on life itself and the scene itself. Life and fate are one and the same; their relationship with literature is one of mutual discovery, mutual shaping, and mutual growth. Please treat our works as works — look at their literariness, their sociality, their artistry. We are the most ordinary laborers of this country, and our words are cries transmitted up from the earth's core five thousand meters deep.
Today, we live in an era in which everyone possesses complete electronic devices and lives at the center of various information flows every day. People have too many choices, and often even develop the illusion that they are infinitely rich, that there is nothing about this world they do not know. Against this backdrop, literature is not no longer needed; rather, it is needed even more, like gentle breeze and fine rain, like life itself. Beyond algorithms and traffic, it leaves people an open space where they can slow down and see one another.
I am often asked whether the label "miner poet" is an honor or a shackle. I think, first of all, it is a kind of honesty — honesty about where I came from, about my fellow workers, about my mines. But I am also unwilling to be trapped by it. The responsibility of a writer is to cast one's gaze more broadly, so that readers, through the works, can understand more expansively the lives and spiritual worlds of contemporary laborers, and so that the eyes of the people of this era can become broader and look further downward. Flying close to the ground — this is how I describe my writing: feet on the mines and the soil, heart gazing toward the clouds.
My Chest Was Expanded by Poetry
Worker / Poet Xiao Hai
More than twenty years have passed since I wrote my first line on a discarded wage slip while working the night shift at a garment factory in Humen, Dongguan, Guangdong, stepping on a flatbed sewing machine. It may not have qualified as poetry — just youth with nowhere to go and faint, indistinct dreams — but it was the first time that, in a work life confined to two points on a line, in the roaring, clattering workshop, I heard the voice of my own soul. Words were like a hand that gently lifted me up off the assembly line. It was only many years later that I understood: for me, words were never entertainment or pastime, but a weapon for clearing a path through mountains for those who possess nothing.
One day, at a roadside stall in Humen, I saw a copy of the Modern Chinese Dictionary. I gritted my teeth and splurged on this "great work," which cost 20 yuan at the time. When I went to work on Meishan Island in Ningbo, because I wanted to write lyrics, I went through the dictionary from cover to cover after work, writing down all the characters and words I liked in a notebook. That was a special period of learning and self-shaping for me. Later, in the Meishan Town library, on a shabby iron shelf, I was moved by a poem I happened to flip open: "Before me, no one has come; behind me, no one will come. Thinking of the vastness of heaven and earth, alone I shed tears." A kind of genuine, fervent, childlike feeling, like a river bursting its banks, surged roaring through my rusted body. I immediately rented that copy of Three Hundred Tang Poems, and not long after bought an even thicker Tang poetry anthology. At work, I recited Tang poems while stepping on the sewing machine. My colleagues all thought I was crazy, but I did not care. I deeply felt the powerful spiritual strength poetry gave me, and felt the immense charm of China's fine traditional culture. Thinking that my soul could resonate with the souls of great poets like Li Bai, Du Fu, and Wang Changling, I no longer felt lonely.
After work, I would go to the seaside to look at the moon, and would think about how Li Bai would have expressed it if he had seen such a scene. When I began to gaze and to contemplate, I became strong. This strength comes from the sun, the moon, the mountains and rivers; this courage comes from the great poets of the long river of history. There is no doubt that my chest was expanded by poetry.
After writing two or three hundred doggerel verses, I found that five-character or seven-character lines could no longer express my more complex emotions as a worker. In 2012, on a street in Suzhou, I bought The Poetry of Haizi for 5 yuan, treasuring it like a jewel. The line in the book, "After beating the drum, we call the heart that dances in the darkness the moon," struck me directly in the chest, because I too had danced in the depths of darkness. In Haizi's poetry I learned sincerity — he could face everything in life sincerely, including loneliness. To pay tribute to Haizi, I changed my online name to "Xiao Hai," and began to sincerely pay attention to the workers around me, to think about my own workshop life, and to perceive the poetry in the ordinary.
That was a period of vigorous creation for me. During the day I scribbled words on scraps of paper; after work at night I would duck into an internet café, spread out the crumpled scraps, and type on the keyboard, entering into the computer what I had written during the day. Writing was like breathing to me — if I went a day without writing, I felt that life had lost its color.
Later, I left the factory and came to Beijing, where I ran a secondhand clothing store in Pi Village, outside the Fifth Ring Road, with a sign reading "Poetry Shop" hanging at the door. I sold old clothes for a few dozen yuan apiece, and also gave away poems, free of charge. Some people asked me why a worker would still write poetry. I want to say: precisely because I am a worker, I must write all the more. Our bodies hold too much sweat, too much dust, too many thoughts — we need words to remember them for us. Youth is not just the repetition of the assembly line, and laborers are not merely a number on a statistics table. In our hearts there is the moon, there are rivers, there is the bearing of the Wei and Jin dynasties, there is the grandeur of the High Tang — the poetic spirit of the Chinese people flows in our blood.
Thinking about it now, I should be one of the earliest beneficiaries of new mass literature and art. If there had been no internet, if I had not learned to turn on a computer and type, those sheets of paper covered with writing that even I could not recognize a few days later would probably have been thrown away long ago. Today, new mass literature and art blows like a mighty spring wind: street cleaners can write poetry, cooks can publish books, assembly-line workers can tell their stories to the world... Everyone can find an outlet for self-expression through the internet. When we face our own lives and our writing sincerely, ordinary life can also stir up magnificent waves, and our words will carry strength because of our sincerity and courage. This strength belongs not only to ourselves, but also to the millions of laborers of this era who create life with their hands and guard their hearts with words.
Opening a Book and Picking Up a Pen — It Is Never Too Late
Domestic worker / Writer Li Wenli
In 2017, I happened to see the essay "I Am Fan Yusu" on my phone. Its opening line — "My life is a book too painful to read; fate bound it together most clumsily" — struck my gloomy, sunken heart like a bolt of lightning. I thought to myself: she is also a nanny from the countryside — how could she write so well? If she can write, why can't I give it a try? For the first time, the idea of going to Beijing took root in me. It happened that our county's Women's Federation had a long-standing cooperation with a domestic service company in Beijing, which selected and sent rural women for training every year. I signed up and came to Beijing smoothly.
After training at the domestic service company, I entered an employer's home to work. On my days off, I found the New Workers' Literature Group in Pi Village and studied with the writing teachers. At first I did not dare to put pen to paper, always feeling that I wrote poorly. The teachers saw my hesitation and encouraged me to write whatever came to mind; my fellow students also cheered me on, telling me to let go of my worries and write boldly. And so, little by little, I recorded the joys of caring for a baby in the employer's home, the new things I heard and saw outside, and all kinds of feelings in my heart. To my surprise, the teachers had my writing printed into a booklet, titled Meng Yu's World. On the night I received the collection, I was so excited I could not sleep at all — I had never imagined my words could be printed.
From then on, my enthusiasm for writing grew even stronger. After a busy day, I would always eagerly pick up my phone and record in words what I had seen and heard each day. Once, after finishing work at an employer's home, I lay in a small room without windows, and suddenly a flash of inspiration came — my soul flew out of the room. "Dancing on the clouds, singing on the branches, swimming with the fish in the water, the whole night belongs to me..." A little poem that was later revised and titled "The Night Is Really Wonderful" was born, and I even drew many illustrations for it.
In the past, I was a pessimistic, negative person who complained about fate and denied myself, often disappointed and full of inferiority. Later, through reading, studying, and writing, I gradually realized that it was my way of looking at the world and treating fate that was too pessimistic. It was literature that broadened my horizons, increased my knowledge, and enriched my spiritual world, making me — an ordinary, plain rural woman — increasingly confident, cheerful, and brave. It also made me understand that no matter where we are, no matter what our identity or status, the first thing to do is to stand firmly on the ground and do well what is before us, maintain our kindness and sincerity, face all the difficulties and challenges that come at us in life with optimism and positivity, and, within our means, persist in our dreams and pursuits. The day of us domestic worker sisters begins in someone else's kitchen, living room, and the cries of children; but when we pick up the pen, the window of our hearts has light. This light does not only illuminate ourselves — it also illuminates the thousands upon thousands of sisters who, like me, labor in silence and live seriously.
To those sisters who, like me, have literary and artistic interests, I want to say: do not fear failure, do not worry that you are not good enough, and do not set limits on yourselves. Opening a book and picking up a pen — it is never too late. "Live to old age, learn to old age" (huó dào lǎo, xué dào lǎo - "live to old age, learn to old age," one is never too old to learn) has never been a mere slogan, but an action that requires sustained effort, and moreover a process to be enjoyed for a lifetime.
I believe that when an ordinary woman begins to write about her own life, she is not just one person speaking — she is speaking for the aunts in the village who never learned to read, for the sisters who catch the first subway train before dawn, for the women who press their worries beneath their aprons and wash their tears away together with the dishwashing liquid. The most moving thing about new mass literature and art lies precisely here: it makes the silent speak. This is the most precious gift this era has given us, and I am willing to receive it, write it down, and pass it on with the sincerity of a lifetime.
Return to TopBy: 王计兵
Our "Pyramid"
Wang Jibing, delivery rider/poet
Over the past few years, because I have been writing while delivering food, I have attracted the attention of the media and netizens, and have acquired the extra label of "delivery-rider poet." In fact, I have only been delivering food for eight years, whereas I have been writing for thirty-eight.
In 1988, I first went to the city and became a construction worker, and I began trying to write. In 1992, I published a number of short-short stories and dreamed of becoming a "great writer." To pursue that dream, I neglected sleep and meals to compose a novel of more than 200,000 characters, but because I was so deeply absorbed, my health began to fail. My father worried about my health and did not want me to sink into writing. To put my family at ease, I stopped submitting my work and turned writing into a hobby in my life. Using words to record life actually made me more composed.
A true dream is a seed, and it is meant to grow. Only by possessing a great dream does one truly live. Carrying my longing for that dream, after an interval of twenty-five years, I began submitting my work again and started publishing poetry. In 2019, I registered as a delivery rider, and in the gaps between waiting for food, waiting for elevators, and waiting for customers, I wrote lines of poetry on scraps of paper and in the palm of my hand. On the delivery route, the wind is my pen, and the city is my writing paper. I never imagined that these words leaking out from between my fingers would gather into the poetry collections Flying Low and I Clumsily Love This World, or that they would carry me to the podium of the Lu Xun Literature Prize. The fact that a delivery rider writing poetry won an award moves me more than the award itself. It shows that the stage of literature is broadening, and that the writing of ordinary laborers is being seriously received by this era.
I know well that the flowering and fruiting of this dream-seed is inseparable from boarding the express train of the new mass literature and art. For a long time, the literary and art world has had a pyramid-shaped structure, and the radiance of literature and art has often shone only on the very few at the apex of the pyramid. Countless ordinary people, through subtle and gradual influence, have imposed limits on themselves, voluntarily shutting themselves outside the gate of literary and artistic creation, and missing the opportunity to express themselves. But literature and art should never belong only to the few; they should be the literature and art of everyone who lives seriously. In the early days of the founding of New China, the state launched a sweeping literacy campaign, and my mother was a beneficiary of that campaign. Although she learned only a handful of characters, it was precisely those characters that illuminated my mother's ordinary years and exerted a lasting influence on me.
The emergence of the new mass literature and art seems to carry a kind of magical power, prying at and adjusting the angle at which the old literary pyramid stood. It offers a vast stage to the broad masses of people who have long existed silently at the base of the pyramid, bearing the weight of life and the sediment of the era — as long as you are willing to stand up, you will be seen and illuminated by the light of the times. Literature and art, in encompassing all things and accommodating everything, are also shedding their elitist filter and taking root in the world of mortal烟火 (the everyday human world).
As a group of creators who stepped forward early in the new mass literature and art, we are fortunate. But we must be alert to the creative predicament of "peaking at debut," must not slacken, and must not cling to the misplaced mentality of "I am an amateur, so I am in the right," indulging ourselves. The writing of ordinary laborers has never been meant to provide the public with a novelty experience, nor should it become a tool for harvesting traffic in cyberspace. If "amateur" is reduced to a persona label, if ordinariness is deliberately fabricated, consumed, and labeled, then this road, which should be growing wider, will instead grow narrower. We must keep running, running out the creative attitude and literary courage of ordinary people.
Someone asks whether the future literary landscape will once again take the shape of a pyramid. I think it will, but it will certainly not look the same as before. Its apex will no longer be a sharp angle formed by individual "I"s, but a long mountain ridge formed by one "we" after another. That will be our literature and art, our literature, our "pyramid."
Return to TopBy: 陈年喜
Writing is a ground-hugging flight
Miner/Poet Chen Nianxi
My hometown, Xiahe Village, sits at the junction of Shaanxi and Henan provinces—cut off by poor roads, barren of produce. I spent my childhood, my youth, and much of my middle age here. The reeds that fill the Xia River are the deepest memory my hometown left me. Every year from late autumn on, the snow-white reed catkins stretch vast and boundless, spreading down both banks of the Xia River all the way to the Dan River. I feel the reed catkins are a kind of metaphor for the fate of everyone on this land: pure white and simple, ordinary yet tenacious. Years ago, my forebears migrated here from Anhui. The Chinese sentiment that one is loath to leave one's native soil has meant that my sense of drifting has never left me. These life experiences enlightened my literary creation and also shaped the底色 of my writing.
My writing can be divided into two phases, with 1999 as the dividing line. Before 1999, I wrote a great deal of poetry about wind, flowers, snow, and moon. I was young then, with only the lightest wear of life upon me, and full of ethereal passion. On the one hand, I hoped to become a poet like Du Fu, using words to record life and the times; on the other, I wanted to be one of those who, in that era full of variables, changed their fate through writing. My writing then was mainly a kind of bandwagon writing—mostly imitating the mainstream. Lacking the texture of real life, I naturally failed to become a true poet. In the winter of 1999, I began working in mines. North and south, through wind and dust, I did it for sixteen years. By the ancient Yarkant River, the figures of miners seemed so tiny. The immense, boundless natural world and the individuals buried in hard labor—the enormous asymmetry between the two, the enormous contrast, often set me to thinking about many things.
The heaviness and monotony of mine life turned writing into an inner necessity—using writing to find a passage, to step out temporarily, to catch a breath. Later I wrote lines that spread fairly widely: "At five thousand meters of depth I while away my middle age / I blast the rock strata apart again and again / Thereby / Reassembling my life anew." In my sixteen-year career as a mine blaster, I used explosives to crack open rock, and I also used my pen to crack open my creative inspiration.
Looking back now, the writing of the mine years may have been the only true writing—it was based on life, based on flesh and blood, based on life and the scene itself. Life and fate are one body; their relationship with literature is one of mutual discovery, mutual shaping, mutual growth. Please take our works as works—look at their literariness, their sociality, their artistry. We are the most ordinary laborers in this country, and our words are cries sent up from five thousand meters deep in the earth.
Today, we live in an era in which everyone possesses a full set of electronic devices and lives amid all kinds of information centers every day. People have too many choices, and often even develop an illusion: that they are infinitely rich, that there is nothing in this world they do not know. Against this backdrop, literature is not no longer needed—rather, it is needed all the more, like a gentle breeze and fine rain, like life itself. Beyond algorithms and traffic, it leaves people a clearing where they can slow down and see one another.
I am often asked: is the label "miner poet" an honor or a shackle? I think it is, first of all, an honesty—honesty about where I came from, about my fellow workers, about my mines. But neither am I willing to be trapped by it. A writer's responsibility is to cast his gaze a little wider, so that through the works, readers may come to know more broadly the lives and inner worlds of contemporary laborers, and so that the eyes of the people of this era may open wider and look further downward. A ground-hugging flight—that is how I describe my own writing: feet on the mines and the soil, yet the heart gazing toward the clouds.
Return to TopBy: 小海
My mind was stretched wide by poetry
Worker/poet Xiao Hai
It has been 20 years since I first pressed the pedal of a sewing machine on the night shift at a garment factory in Humen, Dongguan, Guangdong, and wrote my first line of words on a discarded work-ticket slip. They may not qualify as poetry—just a youth with nowhere to settle and a faint, formless dream—but they let me, for the first time in a life of shuttling between dormitory and assembly line, hear the voice of my own soul amid the roaring, clattering workshop. Words were like a hand that gently lifted me off the production line. Only years later did I understand that for me words were never entertainment or pastime; they were a weapon that hews a road through the mountains for those who own nothing.
One day, at a roadside stall in Humen, I came across a copy of the Modern Chinese Dictionary. I gritted my teeth and splurged on this "great work," which cost 20 yuan at the time. When I went to work on Meishan Island in Ningbo, because I wanted to write song lyrics, I flipped through the dictionary from cover to cover after work and copied every character and word I liked into a notebook—that was a special period of my self-taught shaping. Later, among the rusty iron shelves of the Meishan Town library, I was moved by a poem I happened to open: "I see no ancients before me, / and none to come after me. / Thinking of the vastness of heaven and earth, / alone I weep bitter tears." A genuine, fervent, childlike feeling surged like a river bursting its banks, roaring and raging through my rusted body. I immediately rented that copy of Three Hundred Tang Poems, and not long after bought an even thicker volume of Tang poetry. At work, I recited Tang poems while pressing the sewing machine pedal. My coworkers all thought I had lost my mind, but I did not care. I felt deeply the immense spiritual strength poetry gave me, and felt the enormous appeal of China's fine traditional culture. When I thought that my soul could resonate with the souls of great poets like Li Bai, Du Fu, and Wang Changling, I no longer felt alone.
After work, I would go to the seaside to look at the moon, and would wonder how Li Bai would have expressed it if he had seen such a scene. When I began to gaze and to ponder, I became strong. This strength comes from the sun, the moon, the mountains and rivers; this courage comes from the great poets of the long river of history. Without a doubt, my mind was stretched wide by poetry.
After writing two or three hundred doggerel verses, I found that five characters or seven characters could no longer express the more complex emotions I had as a worker. In 2012, I bought The Poetry of Haizi on a street in Suzhou for 5 yuan, and treasured it like a rare find. One line in the book struck me straight in the chest: "After the drumming, we call the heart that dances in the darkness the moon"—because I too had danced in the depths of darkness. In Haizi's poetry I learned sincerity: he could face everything in life sincerely, including loneliness. To pay tribute to Haizi, I changed my online name to "Xiao Hai," and began to sincerely pay attention to the workers around me, to reflect on my own workshop life, and to feel the poetry in the ordinary.
That was a period of vigorous creation for me. By day I scribbled on scraps of paper; after work I would slip into an internet café, spread out the crumpled scraps, type on the keyboard, and tap the day's writings into the computer. Writing was like breathing to me—if I went a single day without writing, I felt life had lost its color.
Later, I left the factory and came to Beijing, where I ran a secondhand clothing shop in Picun, outside the Fifth Ring Road to the east, with a sign reading "Poetry Shop" hanging at the door. I sold old clothes for a few dozen yuan apiece, and also gave away poems that cost nothing. Someone asked me: why does a worker still write poetry? I wanted to say: precisely because I am a worker, all the more must I write. Our bodies hold too much sweat, too much dust, too many thoughts—we need words to remember them for us. Youth is not just repetition on the assembly line, and laborers are not merely a number on a statistics sheet. In our hearts there is the moon, there are rivers, there is the bearing of the Wei and Jin, there is the grandeur of the High Tang—the poetry of the Chinese people flows in our blood.
Thinking back now, I must have been one of the earliest beneficiaries of the new mass literature and art. If not for the internet, if I had not learned to turn on a computer and do simple typing, those manuscript pages covered with writing that even I could not recognize a few days later would probably have been thrown away long ago. Today, the new mass literature and art blows in like a mighty spring wind: a cleaner can write poetry, a cook can publish a book, an assembly-line worker can tell his story to the world… everyone can find an outlet for self-expression through the internet. When we sincerely face our own lives and face writing, ordinary life can stir up magnificent waves, and our words, because of our sincerity and courage, carry their own strength. This strength belongs not only to us, but also to the millions of laborers of this era who create life with their hands and guard their inner hearts with words.
By: 李文丽
It's Never Too Late to Open a Book and Pick Up a Pen
Domestic worker / writer Li Wenli (李文丽)
In 2017, I happened to see the essay "I Am Fan Yusu (范雨素)" on my phone. Its opening line — "My life is a book 不忍卒读 (bù rěn zú dú - "cannot bear to finish reading," too painful to read to the end), and fate has bound it most clumsily" — struck my low, gloomy heart like a bolt of lightning. I thought to myself: she is also a nanny who came from the countryside, so how can she write so well? She can write — why can't I give it a try? For the first time, the idea of going to Beijing took root in me. It happened that our county's Women's Federation had a long-standing cooperation with a housekeeping company in Beijing, and every year they would select and send a group of rural women there to study. I signed up and successfully came to Beijing.
After training at the housekeeping company, I began working in an employer's home. On my days off, I found the Pi Village (皮村) New Workers' Literature Group and studied under the writing teachers there. At first I dared not put pen to paper, always feeling that I wrote poorly. The teachers saw through my hesitation and encouraged me to write whatever came to mind; my fellow students also cheered me on, telling me to set aside my worries and write boldly. In this way, I recorded bit by bit the joy of caring for a baby in my employer's home, the novel things I heard and saw outside, and all kinds of feelings in my heart. Unexpectedly, the teachers had my words printed into a booklet, even giving it the title "Mengyu's World." On the night I received the collection, I was so excited I could not sleep at all — I had never imagined my words could be printed.
From then on, my passion for writing grew even stronger. After a busy day, I would always, 迫不及待 (pò bù jí dài - "too urgent to wait," unable to hold back), pick up my phone and record in words everything I had seen and heard. Once, after finishing work at an employer's home, I lay in a small room without windows when suddenly a flash of inspiration came — my soul flew out of the house. "Dancing on clouds, singing on tree branches, swimming with the fish in the water, the whole night belongs to me..." A little poem that was later revised and titled "The Night Is Really Wonderful" 应运而生 (yìng yùn ér shēng - "arise in response to the times," to come into being at the opportune moment), and I even drew many illustrations for it.
In the past, I was a pessimistic, passive person who complained about fate and denied myself, often feeling disappointed and inferior. Later, through reading, studying, and writing, I gradually realized that it was my own way of viewing the world and treating fate that was too pessimistic. It was literature that broadened my horizons, increased my knowledge, and enriched my spiritual world, making me — an ordinary, common rural woman — increasingly confident, cheerful, and brave. It also made me understand that no matter where we are, no matter what our identity or status, the first thing to do is to 脚踏实地 (tà shí jiǎo dì - "step on solid ground," to be down-to-earth and pragmatic) do the tasks before us well, maintain our kindness and sincerity, face all the difficulties and challenges that come our way in life with a positive and optimistic attitude, and, 力所能及 (lì suǒ néng jí - "within the reach of one's power," to the best of one's ability) within our means, hold fast to our dreams and pursuits. The day of us domestic-worker sisters begins in someone else's kitchen, living room, and with the crying of children; but when we pick up the pen, the window of our hearts gains light. This light does not only illuminate ourselves — it also shines upon the thousands upon thousands of sisters who, like me, labor in silence and live life earnestly.
To those sisters who, like me, have a love for literature and art, I want to say: do not be afraid of failure, do not worry that you are not good enough, and above all do not set limits on yourself. It is never too late to open a book and pick up a pen. "Live to old age, learn to old age" has never been a mere slogan — it is an action that requires sustained effort, and moreover a process to be enjoyed for a lifetime.
I believe that when an ordinary woman begins to write down her own life, she is not just speaking for herself alone — she is speaking for the aunts in the village who never learned to read, for the sisters who rush to catch the first subway in the early morning, for the women who press their worries beneath their aprons and wash their tears away together with the dish soap. The most moving thing about the new mass literature and art lies precisely here: it gives voice to the silent. This is the most precious gift this era has given us, and I am willing, with a lifetime of sincerity, to receive this gift well, to write it down, and to pass it on.
Return to TopBy: 杨婷
Nurturing Simple and Honest Local Customs with Fine Couplet Culture
Yang Ting (杨婷)
The Chinese cultural lineage, stretching continuously for several thousand years, possesses, beyond metal, stone, silk, and bamboo [instruments], another unique carrier — that is, the written couplet. The so-called couplet hangs between door pillars, links upon the literary heart; every character and every sound has its pattern, every couplet and every pair reveals feeling and aspiration.
Tracing its origins, one may go back to the peach-wood charm custom of the pre-Qin period through the Han dynasty. The couplet "The new year receives accumulated blessings; the fine festival is called Eternal Spring," inscribed by Meng Chang (孟昶) of the Later Shu kingdom in the Five Dynasties period, with its balanced antithesis, auspicious meaning, and clear documentary record, has been honored by scholars such as Ji Xiaolan (纪晓岚) and Liang Zhangju (梁章钜) as the origin of the couplet. From that point onward, through the gestation of the Song and Yuan dynasties and the flourishing of the Ming and Qing dynasties, it has continued into the modern era without decline. Though the couplet is small, it can contain heaven and earth; though its form is simple, it can bear the weight of morality and truth. It is a unique art of Chinese characters, a distinctive fragrance of the Chinese language, and moreover a refined vessel by which the Chinese nation expresses feelings, transmits family traditions, and nurtures local customs. As the elders have passed down, one couplet on the lintel can equal ten thousand words of writing; two lines in the courtyard can carry a thousand years of meaning.
Walking through the misty-rain corridors of Jiangnan water towns, threading through the white walls and black tiles of Huizhou ancient villages, touching the brick-carved door lintels of Shanxi courtyards, one scarcely finds a place without the shadow of couplets. In the seasonal festivals they welcome spring and receive blessings — "Heaven increases years and people increase longevity; spring fills the universe and blessings fill the door" is the festivity of the Spring Festival couplet; at wedding ceremonies they convey feeling and meaning — "Red plums emit fragrance to welcome happy swallows; green willows smile to receive the new couple" is the warmth of the wedding couplet; in academies and ancestral halls they illuminate principle and transmit the Way — Zheng Banqiao's (郑板桥) "A refined room need not be large; the fragrance of flowers lies not in abundance" is the elegance of the study couplet; among pavilions and towers they set the scene and express feeling — the 180-character long couplet by Sun Ranweng (孙髯翁) at the Grand View Pavilion in Kunming, "Five hundred li of Dianchi Lake, rushing into view... thousands of years of past events, pouring into the heart," makes mountains and rivers and the literary heart 交相辉映 (jiāo xiāng huī yìng - "mutually shine upon each other," to enhance and illuminate one another). Once a couplet is written, the whole room is fragrant; under a few phrases, a thousand years meet face to face. Couplets have long become an indispensable part of Chinese spiritual life — they are poetry written on lintels, scriptures suspended in courtyards, rivers flowing through the depths of time.
If one speaks of the depth of couplet culture and the richness of folk atmosphere, one must mention a place of spiritual beauty in northwestern Yunnan — Jianchuan (剑川). Jianchuan is a national famous historical and cultural city, and also a Chinese couplet culture base, with an unbroken cultural lineage. In the ancient city of Jianchuan, blue-stone roads wind and twist; every household has flowing water, every courtyard plants flowers. But what most makes one linger is not this water scenery and floral splendor, but rather the pair of red-paper black-character couplets on the lintel of every household. In Jianchuan, there is a unique custom of "whole-people participation, self-composed and self-written." Scholars wield the brush, farmers hold the pen, children learn calligraphy, elders weigh their words — within one city, the fragrance of ink never disperses.
The lintel is wordless yet can teach people; the red paper, though thin, can bear weight. For Jianchuan, couplets are no longer the refined plaything of literati, but have transformed into the life of ordinary people. How can this small piece of red paper nurture the local customs of a place? On careful reflection, its merit is threefold: first, transmitting the family; second, clarifying customs; third, harmonizing hearts.
Speaking of the transmission of family traditions, one cannot but mention Jianchuan's worthy forebear, the late-Qing famous Confucian scholar Zhao Fan (赵藩). His father Zhao Lianyuan (赵联元) left a family-instruction couplet: "Rather be generous than mean; rather be square than round." Zhao Fan remembered this couplet all his life. When he served as an official in Sichuan, he governed with care and compassion for the people, pleading on their behalf, and the people of Sichuan honored him as "Zhao the Clear Sky." His famous "attacking the heart" couplet — "If one can attack the heart, then the restless will naturally subside; from ancient times, those who understand war are not fond of fighting; if one does not assess the situation, then both leniency and severity will err; those who later govern Sichuan should think deeply" — hangs in the Wuhou Shrine in Chengdu, connecting with a thousand years and warning later generations. The reason a couplet can still 掷地有声 (zhì dì yǒu shēng - "to make a sound when thrown to the ground," of words that carry weight and force) across a hundred years is that what it carries is the feeling of governing through virtue and treating people with generosity — the sentiment of family and country. Zhao Fan wrote countless couplets in his life, leaving many traces of ink for his hometown Jianchuan; those words and phrases still hang among the ancient city's towers and pavilions today. A good couplet is just like a kindly elder, teaching descendants, in the midst of 润物无声 (rùn wù wú shēng - "moistening things without sound," to influence subtly and imperceptibly), what the right path is; over time, the family tradition of loyalty, honesty, and uprightness settles into an unchanging spiritual foundation across generations.
From the family to the village, from the village to custom. The thickness or thinness of local customs can often be known at a glance at the lintels. In former years, villagers liked to post "wealth" and "riches and honor"; today, what the people of Jianchuan write onto red paper are mostly "diligent and frugal in managing the household" and "harmony among neighbors." The change in words is in reality a change in the direction of people's hearts and a shift in customs. In recent years, the county has widely collected and gathered, sorting out more than 200 family-style couplets conveying the principles of loyal service to the country, friendly neighborliness, and pure and clean family transmission, so that treasures scattered among the people may be gathered into volumes and spread far and wide. Jianchuan also possesses a 得天独厚 (dé tiān dú hòu - "to receive unique favor from heaven," to be exceptionally endowed by nature) treasure — the national-level representative item of intangible cultural heritage, Jianchuan wood carving. Artisans wield the knife, and flowers bloom on wood; the literary heart knots into characters, and the Way is seen within the couplet. People invite wood-carving masters to inscribe good couplets and good family instructions, stroke by stroke, onto wooden plaques. For example, on West Gate Outer Street there is a couplet: "Before the door, seven bends of long-flowing water; in the courtyard, the sound of reading at the third watch." Once the wood carving is completed and hung in the hall, the spirit of diligent study and the transmission of the family through farming and reading naturally flows forth. There is also the couplet "Loyalty and honesty transmit the family for long; poetry and books continue the lineage for generations," carved into a plaque and hung in the main hall; the virtue of loyalty and honesty and the charm of poetry and books enter the heart along with the fragrance of wood. Wood can carry writing, and writing transforms people; hung in the home, it is both an artistic treasure and a wordless spur — facing it daily, one naturally generates vigilance.
From custom to heart, from heart to harmony. Couplets can not only be pasted on doorways and carved in wood and stone; in Jianchuan, they can also be sung, performed, and enjoyed. Earlier this year, Jianchuan held an elegant and grand event — the nation's first couplet "village evening." This grand gathering at the doorstep brought couplets onto the big stage: the four characters "loyalty and honesty transmit the family" from ordinary lintels were adapted into a situation drama performed on stage; Bai ethnic children's rhymes harmonized with the tonal patterns of couplets, singing a new-era "Sound and Rhythm Enlightenment"; moreover, more than 400 primary and secondary school students from the county recited in unison the classic couplets of the worthy forebear Zhao Fan — young voices clear and bright, elders smiling, and the whole city's people were moved by this cultural lineage and fragrance of books. Men and women, old and young, all took part; online views and likes exceeded 560 million person-times. The villagers all praised: this couplet "village evening" was livelier than the New Year — what it put on stage was not performances, but the cultural lineage and fragrance of books from their own doorsteps. The couplet "village evening" has ended, but that warmth and intimacy lingers long, transforming into warm greetings and caring words exchanged between neighbors when they meet. In this way, couplet after couplet strings together the doorway culture of one family after another into the shared memory of one village after another; between the red paper and black characters, what is added is local feeling, what is deepened is nostalgia, what is warmed is the human heart.
The couplet is not merely one kind of literature; it is even more a carrier of the spirit. With two lines of characters it inherits a thousand years of cultural lineage; with one piece of red paper it gathers the feelings of ten thousand households. The practice of Jianchuan tells us: by nurturing literary spirit between lintels and nurturing local customs within brush and ink, traditional things can 生生不息 (shēng shēng bù xī - "to grow and reproduce without cease," to thrive and perpetuate endlessly), and simple and honest customs can naturally be passed down from generation to generation.
Author's affiliation: Publicity Department of the Jianchuan County Party Committee, Yunnan Province (云南省剑川县委宣传部)
Return to TopBy: 孙成昊
Examining the Transformation of Transatlantic Alliance Relations
Sun Chenghao
In recent years, the transatlantic alliance relationship has been subjected to intense shocks. The current U.S. administration, while reinforcing "America First," demands that Europe assume more security responsibilities and continues to pressure Europe in areas such as trade, science and technology; Europe, while maintaining alliance cooperation, is accelerating the advancement of strategic autonomy and defense capability building. Disagreements between the two sides over defense burden-sharing, economic and trade rules, technology governance, and the international order are becoming increasingly prominent. An in-depth analysis of the historical logic of the evolution of transatlantic alliance relations, the deep roots of current rifts, future prospects, and their impact on the international landscape holds practical significance for accurately grasping the century-long transformations and the development trend of world multipolarity.
I
The transatlantic alliance is not a simple convergence of interests but a long-term alliance relationship jointly supported by three factors: the security structure, institutional maintenance, and ideational identity. Since the end of the Second World War, the transatlantic alliance relationship has undergone multiple rounds of tests, including Cold War confrontation, the dissolution of the Soviet Union and order reconstruction, the impact of the war on terror, and great-power competition.
To address the needs of the Cold War, in 1949, twelve countries including the United States, the United Kingdom, and France signed the North Atlantic Treaty, establishing the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) with the so-called "collective defense" as its core principle. Its provisions stipulate that an armed attack against any member state shall be considered an attack against the entire alliance. The establishment of NATO marked the deep embedding of the United States and Europe in security matters. During this period, the core logic of the alliance relationship was the "security community," whose essence lay in jointly responding to external threats. The United States long maintained large-scale troop deployments in Europe, playing the role of NATO leader, while most European countries relied heavily on the U.S. nuclear umbrella and its advanced military and intelligence capabilities. Although the United States and Europe had disagreements on specific issues such as strategic autonomy, nuclear policy, and military deployments, these contradictions were always overshadowed by more prioritized security needs. The facts of this period demonstrate that as long as external threats are sufficiently strong, internal contradictions within the U.S.-Europe alliance remain in a secondary position.
After the end of the Cold War, the external threats facing the United States and Europe declined substantially. If one followed traditional alliance theory assumptions, the transatlantic alliance should have drifted toward loosening or even disintegration. However, the reality was quite the opposite: not only did NATO not disappear, it instead achieved expansion and functional transformation. At the end of the Cold War, NATO had only 16 member states, but as of July 2026, membership had expanded to 32—doubling in size. NATO's functions also gradually expanded from traditional collective defense to regional intervention, counterterrorism cooperation, cybersecurity, and other fields. The key lies in the institutionalized operation of the alliance—that is, the transatlantic institutional system centered on NATO, which mechanizes U.S.-Europe security cooperation through rules, procedures, and organizational structures, shifting the alliance from "threat-driven" to "mechanism-driven." Stable mechanisms not only provide platforms for decision-making and consultation but also, through bureaucratic collaboration, civil-military coordination, military synergy, and long-term cooperation, create path dependence and raise the costs of "separation." Even in recent years, as the U.S. willingness to invest in European security has declined and Europe has continuously emphasized strategic autonomy, the institutional continuity of NATO still frames both sides within the alliance architecture. As the Russia-Ukraine conflict drags on, the United States and Europe have diverged over defense cost-sharing, yet European countries still, driven by security needs, have substantially increased defense spending and added more defense cooperation mechanisms. This further demonstrates that the mechanism itself has become an important foundation for maintaining the transatlantic alliance relationship.
The transatlantic alliance is not only security cooperation but also a political and ideological identity built on so-called values such as "freedom" and "democracy." Unlike security structures and institutional mechanisms, ideational identity does not function only at a certain historical stage but rather runs through the entire development process of the transatlantic alliance as a cultural bond and spiritual foundation. During the Cold War, the United States and Europe gradually consolidated political and ideological value identification, including liberal democratic systems, market economy models, and the "rules-based international order." From the 1990s to the early 21st century, the United States and Europe generally believed their institutional models were attractive, and their strategic focus gradually shifted from maintaining the existing security order to shaping and expanding the international order they dominated. Whether it was NATO enlargement, EU enlargement, or external actions carried out in the name of "democracy promotion," all carried a distinct color of value-idea export. Even after major disagreements on issues such as the Iraq War, the United States and Europe maintained relatively high consistency in their basic cognition of the so-called "liberal international order," sharing common discourse and value foundations on issues such as global governance, international organization reform, and international rule-making, transforming the transatlantic alliance from a traditional military alliance into a strategic relationship with distinct political attributes and camp coloration.
II
In recent years, the economic and trade frictions, defense burden-sharing disputes, and strategic cognitive divergences within the transatlantic alliance relationship are superficially specific policy contradictions, but in reality they reflect profound changes taking place in the economic foundation, political ideas, and value consensus that support long-term cooperation between the two sides.
At the economic level, economic globalization has not only changed the relationship between the West and the world but has also weakened the U.S.-Europe consensus on economic development. The free trade, multiculturalism, and Western-dominated international institutional framework formed after the Cold War were once important pillars of the so-called "liberal international order" jointly promoted by the United States and Europe. The United States and Europe generally believed that open markets, capital flows, personnel exchanges, and institutional expansion could not only improve economic efficiency but also push the global order in a direction favorable to their long-term dominance. However, as economic globalization advanced deeply, problems such as industrial relocation, loss of manufacturing jobs, widening income gaps, and regional development imbalances continued to accumulate, and some groups gradually became the "losers" of economic globalization. Especially after the 2008 international financial crisis, confidence in the free market and economic globalization within Western societies declined markedly, and more and more people began to question whether the open economic system could continue to bring widespread prosperity. In terms of the path choices for responding to the impact of economic globalization, the U.S.-Europe divergence has become increasingly evident. The United States turned earlier toward a new economic strategy centered on industrial policy, trade protection, and supply chain security, increasingly emphasizing reliance on sovereign state power to strengthen national capacity, reshape strategic planning, and reallocate resources, so as to revitalize the domestic economy and enhance strategic competitiveness. Whether it is "America First," manufacturing reshoring, or strengthening industrial subsidies and economic security policies, all reflect its adjustment or even revision of the neoliberal-dominated model of economic globalization. In comparison, although Europe also faces problems such as declining industrial competitiveness and weak economic growth, constrained by its supranational governance model and member-state coordination mechanisms, it still generally seeks reform within the framework of open markets, free trade, and the multilateral economic system, and is more inclined to advance policy adjustments through rule frameworks and collective consultation. Disagreements between the United States and Europe in areas such as trade, industrial policy, economic security, and supply chain restructuring are increasing.
At the political level, issues of identity and "borders" have become core topics. During the Cold War, the Soviet threat largely masked the differences between the United States and Europe on immigration, identity, and social governance. After the end of the Cold War, as common external threats weakened and economic globalization deepened, questions of who belongs to the "West" and how the boundaries of the community should be defined gradually became important topics of political debate within both the United States and Europe. The United States increasingly emphasizes the priority of national borders, sovereign belonging, and citizenship, tending to build the political community on the foundation of the nation-state; Europe, by contrast, has long been committed to supranational integration, attempting to construct a broader European identity beyond national identity. In recent years, the immigration crisis, refugee problems, and difficulties of social integration have further amplified this divergence. As a result, the divergence between the United States and Europe is no longer merely a dispute over specific immigration policies but an identity struggle over "who Westerners are" and "where the West's borders lie."
At the level of international responsibility, the United States and Europe are also diverging. After the Cold War, the United States and Europe generally regarded themselves as shapers of the global order and promoters of rules, treating multilateralism, free trade, human rights narratives, and institutional export as important manifestations of their own advantages. In recent years, their understandings of what international responsibilities they should bear and how to shape the international order have gradually diverged. The current U.S. administration no longer regards maintaining the Western and global order as a "responsibility," but instead emphasizes "America First" and demands that Europe prove its alliance value at higher cost. Europe still tends to regard multilateralism, norm expansion, and global governance as important components of its international identity, and remains vigilant against the United States' increasingly evident unilateralism. European discussions on "U.S. reliability," "strategic autonomy," and "European responsibility" continue to heat up, reflecting Europe's concerns about the change in the U.S. role and its rethinking of its own positioning. This divergence in understanding of international responsibility has caused the policy differences between the two sides on issues such as security, economy and trade, science and technology, climate change, and global governance to continue widening.
It should be pointed out that the changes currently taking place in the transatlantic alliance relationship do not mean that the common interests and foundation for cooperation between the United States and Europe have completely disappeared, but rather that the main logic sustaining the alliance is undergoing adjustment. Although the two sides find it increasingly difficult to maintain the highly consistent strategic consensus of the post-Cold War era, common needs in security interests, institutional ties, and global interests still exist. Whether in responding to regional security risks, maintaining transatlantic economic links, or coordinating global issues, the two sides still need each other's cooperation, and neither can afford the cost of a complete rupture of the alliance relationship. Precisely for this reason, the transatlantic alliance will not collapse because of increased disagreements, but is more likely to enter a new phase of adjustment under conditions where common interests still exist while common cognition gradually weakens.
III
From a longer-term perspective, security cooperation, economic and trade ties, and institutional coordination within the transatlantic alliance relationship will continue to play important roles, but its internal cohesion will be increasingly influenced by practical needs and strategic considerations.
From the U.S. perspective, its attitude toward the transatlantic alliance is shifting from "leading the West" to "managing the alliance." This is because the focus of U.S. domestic and foreign strategy is changing. Compared with its long post-Cold War role as the "guardian" of the Western liberal international order, the United States increasingly emphasizes prioritizing the resolution of domestic economic competitiveness, industrial development, and social governance issues, and tends to invest limited resources in directions of greater strategic priority such as the Indo-Pacific region. Therefore, the importance of the transatlantic alliance has not substantively declined, but its functions are being adjusted, and in the future it will more serve the U.S. need to maintain external competitive advantages and shape a favorable strategic environment. In this context, the United States will not easily give up Europe as an important ally, and its support for Europe will continue, but it will increasingly emphasize "cost-benefit."
From the European perspective, the transatlantic alliance relationship is undergoing an adjustment from dependence on the United States toward enhanced strategic autonomy. In recent years, Europe has continuously promoted defense cooperation, military-industrial integration, economic security, and critical technology capability building, and strategic autonomy is gradually transforming from a political proposition into practical policy. However, European countries differ in their levels of development, security perceptions, and strategic cultures, and the U.S. nuclear deterrent, intelligence systems, and strategic projection capabilities remain difficult to replace in the short term. Therefore, the realistic goal of European strategic autonomy is not to break away from the United States, but to improve its own operational capacity, risk-bearing capacity, and policy autonomy while continuing to maintain the alliance relationship. At the same time, Europe is increasingly realizing that true strategic autonomy is reflected not only in military capability building but also in industrial competitiveness, technological innovation capacity, and the ability to shape global rules. How to enhance its own strategic agency while maintaining cooperation with the United States will become an important challenge for Europe in handling the transatlantic alliance relationship in the future.
The transformation of the transatlantic alliance relationship will further exert profound influence on the international system and global governance. At the level of the international system, the internal adjustment of the transatlantic alliance means that the ability of the United States and Europe to dominate the international agenda and shape international rules will relatively decline. In the future, international politics will increasingly manifest as interaction and coordination among different forces, rather than an order arrangement dominated by a single power. The autonomy of Global South countries and emerging powers in international affairs will continue to rise, and their voice in areas such as reform of the global governance system, international financial governance, global climate governance, and digital governance will be further strengthened. At the level of global governance, the divergence in cognition and interests within the transatlantic alliance may weaken the coordination capacity of the relevant countries on some international issues, making the global governance system more characterized by consultation, pluralization, and decentralization. In the future, the formation of international rules will depend more on coordination and cooperation among different countries and regions, rather than being mainly driven by a small number of Western countries.
The profound adjustment of the transatlantic alliance relationship also demonstrates that the old security logic based on exclusive alliances, camp division, and bloc politics is increasingly unable to adapt to the trends of the times characterized by world multipolarity, economic globalization, and the democratization of international relations. As the international balance of power undergoes profound adjustment and developing countries rise as a group, more and more countries wish to participate in international affairs as equals and jointly shape international rules, rather than passively accepting institutional arrangements dominated by a few Western countries. It is precisely in this context that China and other Global South countries, holding high the glorious banner of building a community with a shared future for mankind, following the trend of the times toward the democratization of international relations, adhering to true multilateralism, and advocating an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, will surely push the international order to develop in a more just and reasonable direction.
Author's affiliation: Think Tank Center of Tsinghua University
Return to TopBy: 李艳
Join Hands to Oppose Hegemonic Acts in Artificial Intelligence
Li Yan (李艳)
Recently, a rather absurd event has emerged in the field of artificial intelligence: a basic technology that has been in common use in the technical community for more than 10 years — "distillation" — has suddenly been given a security and political coloring. Some US political figures have 煞有介事 (shà yǒu jiè shì - "with great show of solemnity," to pretend to be serious) accused Chinese AI enterprises of "industrial-scale distillation" of American models, packaging an operational method originally intended to lower the threshold of computing power and promote technological popularization and innovation as a synonym for "theft of intellectual property." Congressional hearings, White House memoranda, and joint corporate complaints have 接踵而至 (jiē zhǒng ér zhì - "arriving heel to heel," coming one after another) — quite a spectacle. But examined closely, this matter is riddled with suspicious points. If these doubts are placed in a longer historical lens, this is nothing more than a hegemonic act wrapped in a technological guise, an old script being re-staged on a new stage.
To explain this farce clearly, one must first clarify what "distillation" is. "Distillation" is originally a basic technology in the field of artificial intelligence. In 2015, Geoffrey Hinton, known as the "father of deep learning," and others explicitly proposed this technical designation. Its core logic is: let a large model with abundant computing power serve as the "master," and a lightweight small model as the "apprentice"; the latter observes the former's inputs and outputs, learns its approach and methods for solving problems, and ultimately achieves capability replication. The value of this technical path lies in enabling a smaller, more efficient model to obtain performance approaching that of cutting-edge large models while greatly reducing computing power requirements. Precisely because of this, "distillation" quickly became a recognized routine operation in the global AI community. American tech giants such as Google, OpenAI, and Amazon not only widely use this technology but even provide it externally as a standardized service. In other words, "distillation" is essentially a neutral technical method, one of the important means of AI technological iteration and innovative evolution, and an important path for lowering technological thresholds and promoting the inclusive development of AI.
However, it is precisely such a technically neutral, industry-common basic technology that has been quietly given a different face in the narrative of certain US political and business forces. The trigger for this farce can be traced back to February 23, 2026, when the American AI company Anthropic suddenly issued a notice accusing three Chinese AI enterprises — DeepSeek (深度求索), Moonshot AI (月之暗面), and MiniMax (稀宇科技) — of carrying out so-called "industrial-scale distillation attacks" on its AI models, claiming these companies "systematically extracted American AI model capabilities," posing a "major national security risk" to the United States. Tellingly, OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google — three companies that compete fiercely with one another — 不约而同 (bù yuē ér tóng - "of one mind without prior agreement," acting in concert without consultation) set aside their differences and, through coordinated positions and information sharing, jointly established an inter-enterprise anti-"distillation" coordination mechanism.
The US government quickly followed up. On April 23, Michael Kratsios, Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, published an article stating that certain foreign entities "distill American frontier AI systems in a deliberate, industrial-scale manner." At the same time, the House Foreign Affairs Committee is advancing a package of export control bills, including the "Stop AI Model Theft Act" and others; the Senate Judiciary Committee held hearings discussing "distillation" within the narrative framework of "theft of American intellectual property." At this point, "distillation" has been thoroughly politicized and securitized, transformed from a neutral technical term. Clearly, the US government also felt that forcibly rebranding a widely accepted technical term would not hold up, so it made a great show of playing with wording, deliberately using exaggerated and aggressive terms such as "adversarial distillation" and "industrial-grade distillation" to forcibly distinguish them from normal "distillation" technology. Relevant experts point out that such wording clearly cannot be sustained on technical grounds. Even more ironic, Anthropic had previously paid at least $1.5 billion in settlement for allegedly downloading approximately 7 million pirated books from "shadow libraries" to train its models. On this, Tesla CEO Musk quipped: "How can someone steal what Anthropic stole from human programmers?" — a single remark that punctured the false facade of this manufactured public opinion campaign.
Peeling away layers of discursive packaging, the root of this "distillation" farce is that the rapid development of Chinese AI has touched a sensitive nerve in the United States, which, in a state of extreme strategic anxiety, deliberately fabricates accusations of infringement in order to maintain its own AI hegemony. At present, AI competition is increasingly fierce, model iteration is accelerating, and Chinese large models have made notable breakthroughs in areas such as code capability, mathematical reasoning, and multimodal fusion, with some model capabilities already at the global leading level. Since DeepSeek's explosive emergence, the recently released Kimi K3 open-source model from Moonshot AI has achieved results comparable to the advanced models of closed-source companies such as OpenAI and Anthropic. On this, the panic of America's leading AI companies is real. At present, the single-training cost of American frontier large models has reached the scale of several hundred million US dollars, placing enormous pressure on R&D costs. What worries the United States even more is that Chinese AI large models adhere to openness and open-source principles — global developers can download, use, and further develop them for free — and this inclusive model is fundamentally changing the global AI competitive landscape.
Therefore, it is no accident that US political and business forces chose this juncture to hype the "distillation" issue. First, to stigmatize China's AI development by attributing Chinese models' technological progress to "theft" rather than independent innovation, thereby weakening the global influence of Chinese AI technology; second, to conduct public opinion mobilization and policy groundwork for subsequent, stricter technological controls — after chip blockades, extending control tools precisely to the model and algorithm level; third, by manufacturing a "security threat" narrative, attempting to stitch together consensus among domestic parties and provide legitimacy for technological containment of China. As the spokesperson of China's Ministry of Commerce (商务部) pointed out, the US side, disregarding facts such as China's partial model capabilities already being at the world's leading level, pins on Chinese enterprises the label of so-called "distillation theft of American intellectual property" — this lacks factual basis, has no legal support, and in practice applies double standards; it is typical AI hegemonic behavior. In fact, the research paper on DeepSeek-R1 published in the journal Nature in September 2025 explained precisely how to enhance model reasoning capability through reinforcement learning, and notably did not adopt the "distillation" approach.
If this "distillation" controversy is placed in historical coordinates, a clear pattern emerges: the United States' playbook for maintaining its own technological hegemony has never changed. In 2013, the "Prism" program disclosed by Snowden showed that the US National Security Agency had long monitored global communications networks and conducted large-scale cyber intrusions against multiple countries, with a scope and depth that were shocking. Yet, in the same period, the US government kept drumming up the so-called "China cyber threat theory," playing up "Chinese hacker attacks." Although the United States itself is the world's largest "hacker empire," it explained away its own cyber attacks as "safeguarding national security interests" and "conforming to international practice," while in turn falsely claiming that China launched "cyber attacks" in order to "steal intellectual property and commercial secrets." More than 10 years later, the same script is being performed again in the AI field, with identical methods and a logic 一脉相承 (yī mài xiāng chéng - "inherited from a single vein," following the same lineage). The United States has always repeated the same operation at critical technological competition junctures: first establishing hegemony through technological superiority, then, when that superiority is challenged, fabricating a sensational new term to suppress pursuers and competitors, packaging itself as the "victim," smearing opponents as "thieves" and "plagiarists," and using this as a pretext for sanctions and suppression. One could say it is new pot holding old wine, with nothing new at all.
However, this time the United States has hit a wall. Unlike the "Prism" era more than 10 years ago, today's international community — especially the global technology community that has been baptized by the information network era — already possesses considerable discernment, and America's old playbook is doomed to fail. The most direct counter-evidence comes from within the United States itself. In July 2026, when the US government threatened to sanction Chinese AI enterprises and restrict American developers from using Chinese open-source models, Silicon Valley's reaction was unexpected. Nearly 200 Silicon Valley startups jointly wrote to the US government, explicitly opposing the cutting off of access to Chinese open-source AI models. The letter stated: "American leadership requires two things: world-leading American open-weight models, and the ability of American developers to continue using the open models available globally." NVIDIA founder Jensen Huang, together with more than 20 important American enterprises and institutions including Microsoft, Dell, and Hugging Face, issued a joint letter publicly supporting open-weight AI models. Huang stated, "Chinese models are excellent, and good open-source models deserve to be applied"; restricting open-source models on national security grounds "may instead make the United States more fragile." These opposing voices from Silicon Valley send a clear signal: in a technology ecosystem deeply intertwined in the era of economic globalization, hegemonic acts that attempt to cut off the flow of knowledge and monopolize technological advantages through political means will not only fail externally but will also meet opposition at home. When a technology has already become a driving element of global innovation, any attempt to privatize or weaponize it will ultimately backfire on its perpetrators.
On July 17, in his keynote speech at the opening ceremony of the 2026 World Artificial Intelligence Conference and High-Level Meeting on AI Global Governance, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out that "we should jointly oppose the practice of overstretching the concept of national security in the AI field and placing one's own security above that of other countries." General Secretary Xi Jinping's important statement struck at the heart of the hegemonic acts of a few countries in the AI field, and put forward four points of opinion: "uphold openness and win-win cooperation to drive innovative development," "strengthen risk awareness to ensure safety and controllability," "encourage inclusiveness to promote mutual learning among civilizations," and "advocate 和衷共济 (hé zhōng gòng jì - "with harmonious hearts, crossing the river together," to work together in solidarity) to improve global governance" — providing important guidance for breaking AI hegemony and jointly building a fair and reasonable global AI governance system. AI is a new engine of world economic growth and an accelerator of the transformation of old and new drivers of development. All countries in the world should seize this rare historical opportunity, encourage open-source, openness, cooperation, and sharing, comprehensively promote AI technological innovation, industrial development, and scenario application, let AI empower a thousand industries, and make it truly a powerful positive force for the progress of human civilization. It is necessary to practice true multilateralism, earnestly give play to the important role of multilateral platforms such as the United Nations and the World AI Cooperation Organization, draw in the extensive participation of developing countries in global AI governance, strengthen the alignment and coordination of AI development strategies, governance rules, and technical standards, break the pattern in which a few countries or enterprises monopolize technical standards, discard exclusive and bloc-based governance models, and form as early as possible a global governance framework with broad consensus. In view of the serious lag in the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals, it is necessary to persistently advance the implementation of the UN General Assembly resolution on "strengthening international cooperation on AI capacity building," help Global South countries strengthen technical capacity building, support countries in tapping their own potential and unique advantages, and strengthen the international forces of openness and shared governance.
A single string makes no music; a single tree makes no forest. AI development should not be a solo performance by one country, but a symphony of global cooperation. All countries should adhere to the principles of people-centeredness, AI for good, fairness and inclusiveness, and collaborative governance, discuss and resolve the major issues and urgent challenges facing humanity together in the intelligent era, join hands to oppose AI hegemonic acts, and ensure that AI promotes common development and truly benefits all of humanity.
The author is Director of the Institute of Science, Technology and Cyber Security (科技与网络安全研究所) of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations (中国现代国际关系研究院).
Return to TopBy: 于会文
切实解决好干部“能下”的问题
于会文
领导干部只能上不能下、只能进不能出，是长期困扰干部队伍建设的一个难点问题。习近平总书记深刻指出，要推动干部能上能下、能进能出，形成能者上、优者奖、庸者下、劣者汰的良好局面。领导班子职数有限额，庸者、劣者多一个，能者、优者就会少一个。推进领导干部能上能下常态化，关键在“能下”，必须着力破解“上去下不来、谁下难考准、下后怎么办”三大难题。
干部能上能下是让想干事、能干事的干部有机会晋升，同时把不胜任现职的干部及时调整下来的选人用人机制。但长期以来，少数干部存在一种错觉，认为一旦提拔就进了“保险箱”，只要不触碰纪法红线，即使平庸与懒惰，也都不会“下”。有的党组织特别是“一把手”奉行好人主义，只愿干搭梯子做人情的事，不愿碰唱黑脸得罪人的事，认为干部向“下”调整可能造成人心浮动，挫伤干事热情，甚至担心因此惹上麻烦。同时，不少单位“下”的“出口”不够畅通，对不适宜担任现职的干部，处置方式有限，“下”了之后无处可接。这些问题导致干部易上难下、易进难出、易任难免。
有为才有位。向无为者传导压力，这是对干部、对事业真正负责。应深刻认识到，推进领导干部能上能下常态化，不是简单的人员调整，而是事关干部队伍建设的长久之策。2021年呼和浩特市党政领导班子换届以来，因群众工作能力、处理急难险重任务和复杂局面能力不强等原因，共将11名干部调整出了领导班子。比如，某县政府副职责任心不强、工作态度不积极，面对棘手问题存在畏难情绪、不敢动真碰硬，对分管的养老金缴纳等历史遗留问题不研究、不解决、不推动，被免职处理；市政府某部门“一把手”由于人岗不适被调整到群团组织担任正职，到新岗位后进入角色缓慢、工作成效不明显，所在班子年度考核被评为“一般”等次，我们再次对其进行调整，免去正处级领导职务。今年以来，从基层一线、重大项目重点任务一线提拔重用处级干部83名，占提拔重用总数的63%，调整不适宜担任现职处级干部14名，着力让实干者受重用、让平庸者挪位子。要进一步打破只能上不能下的思维定势，树立干多干少不一样、干好干坏不一样、干与不干不一样的鲜明导向，对政治坚定、实绩突出、群众认可的干部及时任用，放到关键岗位压担子；对政治能力不足、担当精神不强、作风不实、政绩观出现偏差、群众反映较大的干部，及时进行调整、该下即下，有效防止干部队伍惰性化、庸常化，始终保持干事创业精气神。
推进干部能上能下，核心是把干部政绩考全评准，让干部“下”得有理有据、心服口服。相比于违纪违法的“硬伤”，庸懒浮散是难以界定的“软疾”。许多干部之所以“下不来”，是因为考评缺乏精准量化的刚性标尺，让“南郭先生”得以藏身。特别是对干部不担当、不作为、慢作为等情形界定比较模糊，诸如“事业心和责任感不强”、“决策论证不充分、不慎重”等标准很难判断，定性要求多、定量要求少，导致对“下”的干部定性评论“公说公有理、婆说婆有理”，缺乏明确具体的认定依据。
针对这些问题，我们持续优化政绩考核，不断提升识别干部的精准度。一方面，将考人与考事紧密结合，坚持“六个维度”识别法，即听取单位同事、当地群众、干部分管领导、组织部门、党委一班人以及党委主要负责同志的意见，深化对领导干部的日常了解，定期分析研判干部日常管理监督、考核考察、巡视巡察、审计、统计等情况，全面动态掌握领导干部德才状况和现实表现，多维度真实反映干部干得如何。同时，变“相马”为“赛马”，建立重点工作月度总结机制，围绕经济运行、项目建设、安全生产、环境保护、城市治理等重点工作，突出问题导向，按照“以天保月、以月保季、以季保年”的理念强化动态跟踪、实时对比，并将完成情况作为年底考核重要依据，论能庸、识优劣、辨高低，真正把那些敷衍塞责、工作不认真的人筛出来、调下去。在今年旗县区领导班子换届工作中，我们充分听取干部群众意见建议，对4名不适宜担任现职的班子成员进行调整。另一方面，将考评显绩与潜绩紧密结合，构建“看显绩+看潜绩+看担当+听政声”的政绩考核评价机制，根据不同主体设置评价指标和权重，中心城区突出项目建设和创新驱动，生态功能区突出绿色发展和环境保护，开发区、市属国企突出经济增长、效率效益，市直部门侧重围绕中心、服务发展、履职尽责，学校、医院侧重核心业务、公共服务。比如，我们在巡察中发现，市委某职能部门下属事业单位领导班子履职意识淡薄，矛盾纠纷化解走过场，后续跟踪督导不到位，于是对该单位班子成员全部进行了调整。在政绩考核评价机制牵引带动下，各地各部门更加注重多做打基础利长远的工作，深耕潜绩的内生动力不断增强。
推动干部能上能下，还要解决好“下后还能再上”的问题，让“下者仍有为、再上劲更足”。现实中，有的地方和部门重“下”不重“管”、重约束轻激励，对具体怎么“下”、“下”到哪里去、“下”后怎么办等问题，工作中仍存在盲区和死角，导致有的干部“一下了之”甚至无人问津。这不仅不利于干部卸下包袱、重新出发，也可能使其他干部产生不求有功、但求无过的思想。
对调整下来的干部，我们不贴“标签”、不扣“帽子”、不放任不管，而是更加注重加强日常教育管理。一方面，指定专人与“下”的干部结成对子，帮助其主动适应新的岗位和环境。另一方面，建立“下”的干部台账，对“下”后干部进行为期1年的全程跟踪教育管理，表现优秀或称职的，可以安排回原岗位或调整到新岗位上工作。2021年以来，全市共有49名“下”的干部因表现突出被重新任职、提拔使用或晋升职级。比如，市属某金融企业原副总经理由于不善于处理上下级关系，导致分管部门不配合、打不开工作局面，调整任市属某大数据产业发展公司副总经理后，注重转变沟通方式方法，充分发挥金融专业优势，积极拓展经营业务，推动公司营收大幅增长。我们根据干部调整后的现实表现，提拔任用其为该企业总经理。“下”只是手段，不是最终目的。下一步，我们要坚决贯彻党中央决策部署，认真落实自治区党委工作安排，坚持做好“下”后的“文章”，坚持严管厚爱结合、激励约束并重，强化“有下有上”的动态机制，让“下”的干部改有机会、干有动力、心有盼头，把“下”的压力转化为进的动力。
作者：内蒙古自治区党委常委、呼和浩特市委书记
Return to TopBy: 张镭宝
Study Q&A
How to Understand That Upholding Full and Rigorous Party Self-Governance Is the Strategic Policy for Party Building in the New Era
Zhang Leibao (张镭宝)
To govern the country, one must first govern the Party; to govern the Party, one must be strict. As one of the "Fourteen Perseverances" (十四个坚持) of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building, upholding full and rigorous Party self-governance is a major strategic deployment made by the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core in grasping the historical orientation of the new era, a strategic policy that Party building in the new era must firmly uphold, and the only path for the Party to forever maintain its vigor and vitality and to walk well the new road of taking the examination.
Why must we emphasize that the Party should govern itself and govern itself strictly? Fundamentally, this is determined by the political character and lofty pursuit of our Party as a Marxist political party, and is an inevitable requirement for maintaining the Party's advanced nature and purity. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, "We Communists are most serious about things; to be serious means to put strictness first." From the revolutionary war era's emphasis that "the Communist Party and the Red Army cannot but enforce stricter discipline on their own Party members and Red Army members than on ordinary civilians," to the "Three-Anti" campaign (三反运动) in the early days of the founding of New China, especially the strict handling of the Liu Qingshan (刘青山) and Zhang Zishan (张子善) case, and then to the post-reform-and-opening-up emphasis that "this Party must be grasped; if not grasped, it will not do," placing the construction of Party conduct and clean government and the fight against corruption in a prominent position — strict governance and management of the Party has run through the entire process of revolution, construction, and reform.
Entering the new era, what major significance and strategic considerations does the shift from "strict Party governance" to "full and rigorous Party self-governance" carry? It should be seen that this is by no means a simple adjustment of wording, but rather embodies rich connotations of the times and a distinct problem orientation. It is a major strategic deployment made by our Party through deeply summarizing the experience and lessons of Party governance since reform and opening up and scientifically analyzing the new situation and new requirements facing Party building. Since reform and opening up, the great new project of Party building has achieved remarkable results; at the same time, there have been many problems within the Party such as vague understanding and weak action regarding upholding Party leadership, many problems of weakened, hollowed-out, and diluted implementation of Party leadership, some Party members and cadres have wavered in their political beliefs, formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance have been repeatedly prohibited but persist in some localities and departments, privileged thinking and privileged phenomena are relatively serious, and some corruption problems are shocking to the eye and heart (触目惊心 - chù mù jīng xīn - "strikes the eye, shocks the heart," shocking and appalling). In response to this situation, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out with a voice that startles the deaf and awakens the dull (振聋发聩 - zhèn lóng fā kuì - "startle the deaf, awaken the dull," to rouse people from ignorance): "If the Party is not governed well and not governed strictly, and the prominent problems within the Party that the masses strongly resent are not resolved, then our Party will sooner or later lose its governing qualification and will inevitably be eliminated by history. This is by no means alarmist talk (危言耸听 - wēi yán sǒng tīng - "alarming words to shock the ear," exaggeration to frighten people)." Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has promoted full and rigorous Party self-governance with firm determination, tenacious will, and unprecedented intensity, starting with the formulation and implementation of the Central Eight-Point Regulations (中央八项规定) as the breakthrough, taking political construction as the lead, using theoretical arming to gather hearts and forge souls, using rectification of work style to wash away the turbid and raise the clear (激浊扬清 - jī zhuó yáng qīng - "beat the turbid, raise the clear," to eliminate evil and promote good), using strict discipline to strengthen constraints, using strict governance of officials to correct the orientation of personnel selection, using "hunting tigers," "swatting flies," and "chasing foxes" to punish corruption, curbing unhealthy tendencies that had long gone unchecked, rectifying chronic maladies that had persisted for many years, fundamentally reversing the loose and soft situation in Party governance, and opening up a new realm of self-revolution for a century-old major party. Looking at the whole world, no political party can promote full and rigorous Party self-governance with the determination and courage of turning the blade inward and using severe punishment to bring order like the Chinese Communist Party — this is a major advantage and the code of victory of our Party.
How should we grasp the scientific connotation of full and rigorous Party self-governance? General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that full and rigorous Party self-governance has as its core the strengthening of Party leadership, its foundation in comprehensiveness, its key in strictness, and its crux in governance. Strengthening Party leadership is the fundamental guarantee for Party building to always advance along the correct political track; the purpose of full and rigorous Party self-governance is to govern our Party well, build it strong, better promote the development of the cause, and win the historical initiative of strengthening the Party and the country. Comprehensiveness means governing the entire Party, facing more than 100 million Party members and more than 5.43 million primary-level Party organizations, covering all fields, aspects, and departments of Party building, with emphasis on grasping the "key minority" of leading cadres. Strictness means adhering to strictness in thought, strictness in supervision, strictness in discipline enforcement, strictness in governing officials, strictness in work style, and strictness in anti-corruption, achieving true governance with true strictness, daring governance with daring strictness, and long-term governance with long-term strictness. Governance means that from the Party Central Committee to provincial, municipal, and county Party committees, from central ministries and commissions and Party groups (Party committees) of state organs to primary-level Party branches, all must shoulder their main responsibilities; Party secretaries must regard doing Party building well as their own duty and a responsibility they must undertake; discipline inspection commissions at all levels must bear supervisory responsibility, forming a powerful joint force of upper-lower linkage and coordinated management.
How should we understand that full and rigorous Party self-governance is always on the road? As the strategic policy for Party building in the new era, full and rigorous Party self-governance is not an expedient measure (权宜之计 - quán yí zhī jì - "expedient measure," a temporary stopgap) that can be tightened or relaxed from time to time, but a long-term plan that must be persistently pursued without slackening. Through sustained efforts, full and rigorous Party self-governance has achieved historic and pioneering achievements and produced all-round, deep-level impacts. At the same time, we must clearly see that in the face of the lofty missions and tasks shouldered by the Party on the new journey, and in the face of the long-standing "Four Tests" (四大考验) and "Four Dangers" (四种危险), full and rigorous Party self-governance cannot be relaxed for a single moment. At present, some Party members and cadres still harbor erroneous ideas or even resistance toward full and rigorous Party self-governance, believing that the crackdown on eating and drinking has gone too far, that anti-corruption has been overdone, affecting cadres' enthusiasm and also affecting economic and social development; some Party members and cadres act as "good old fellows," "peace officials," and "weathervanes," worrying that "the more bowls one washes, the more bowls one breaks," and "would rather do nothing than make mistakes"; the "Four Winds" (四风) problem has its tree fallen but roots remaining, its soil still present, with hidden mutations growing stealthily (潜滋暗长 - qián zī àn zhǎng - "grow secretly and stealthily"), and the task of eradicating the chronic ills of formalism and bureaucratism remains a heavy burden and a long road (任重道远 - rèn zhòng dào yuǎn - "heavy burden, long road," a heavy responsibility and a long way to go); the anti-corruption situation remains severe and complex, and the task of eradicating the soil and conditions for corruption remains arduous and heavy; and so on. In response to this, we must treat full and rigorous Party self-governance as the Party's long-term strategy and eternal subject, resolutely abandon the idea of expedient and temporary measures, resolutely overcome the mood of slackening, resting, fatigue, and war-weariness, resolutely prevent erroneous expectations of changing direction and lowering the tone, always adhere to problem orientation, maintain strategic resolve, forever sound the charge, and persist in maintaining the strict tone, strict measures, and strict atmosphere for the long term.
How should we grasp the practical requirements for deepening full and rigorous Party self-governance in depth? The most crucial thing is to make efforts in improving the system of full and rigorous Party self-governance. Practice has proven that only by carrying out full and rigorous Party self-governance holistically rather than partially, systematically rather than fragmentarily, persistently rather than briefly, and to high standards rather than in a general way, making full and rigorous Party self-governance more systematic, can our Party be forged into a more powerful and strong Marxist governing party. We must use systematic thinking and scientific methods to promote full coverage of content, full coverage of objects, full chain of responsibilities, and full connection of systems in Party governance, improve the organizational system of upper-lower connection and effective execution, improve the education system of consolidating the foundation and cultivating the origin (固本培元 - gù běn péi yuán - "consolidate the foundation, cultivate the origin," to strengthen the root), gathering hearts and forging souls, improve the supervision system of precise force and treating both symptoms and root causes (标本兼治 - biāo běn jiān zhì - "treat both the symptoms and the root," to address both surface and root causes), improve the system of scientific, complete, effective, and useful institutions, and improve the responsibility system with clear subjects and clear requirements. By further improving the system of full and rigorous Party self-governance with complete elements, complete functions, scientific standards, and efficient operation, we will comprehensively promote the Party's self-purification, self-improvement, self-innovation, and self-enhancement.
"Perfect oneself and the world is perfected; govern oneself and the world is governed." Looking back at history, the Chinese Communist Party has traversed a century of glory through strict Party governance; looking forward to the future, it will inevitably create an even better tomorrow through full and rigorous Party self-governance. By persistently advancing full and rigorous Party self-governance and continuously enhancing the Party's political leadership, ideological guidance, mass organization, and social appeal, our Party will surely be able to always remain a strong leading core in the historical process of upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.
Author's affiliation: School of Marxism, Wuhan University (武汉大学马克思主义学院)
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