Summary: This issue publishes General Secretary Xi Jinping's important article on upholding and implementing the political responsibility of the Party for governing itself and running it strictly, clarifying major questions about this responsibility and emphasizing that full and rigorous self-governance is the common responsibility of the entire Party. The issue includes accompanying interpretation articles from the journal's editorial department, Ju Li, and Wang Peng, along with commentator articles on correct views of political achievements and on strengthening high-quality development momentum by stimulating social vitality. Qu Qingshan's article explains Comrade Jiang Zemin's ideological character of advancing with the times, while Wang Xiaoping addresses solving structural employment contradictions through high-quality vocational skills training. The "Cultural China" column begins a series on the five outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization, with Zhong Jinshi interpreting its outstanding continuity. Wen Ping analyzes the essence and harm of historical nihilism in "pseudo-history theory."
Summary: This article is a compilation of excerpts from General Secretary Xi Jinping's speeches from June 2013 to July 2026 on persisting in fulfilling the political responsibility for governing the Party with strict discipline. Xi emphasizes that strict Party governance is essential for the Party's survival and governing qualification, warning against laxity in addressing prominent problems within the Party. He stresses that Party committees at all levels must assume primary responsibility, with secretaries as first responsible persons, and that responsibility must be transmitted layer by layer through a complete chain of accountability. Xi criticizes incorrect views that Party building is less tangible than development work or that strict governance creates dilemmas, insisting on a correct view of political achievements. He calls for strengthening Party building in state-owned enterprises, improving intra-Party supervision, and ensuring all responsible subjects know, assume, and fulfill their responsibilities, with the Political Bureau setting an example.
Summary: The Qiushi article emphasizes that implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision is key to full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, with General Secretary Xi Jinping's collected statements from 2013 to 2026 providing fundamental guidance. It argues that the responsibility system is the "ox nose" that must be firmly grasped, as failures to implement it historically led to lax Party governance and corruption, while its proper enforcement since the 18th National Congress has driven historic achievements. The piece clarifies that Party governance and self-supervision does not hinder but guarantees economic and social development, countering erroneous views that strict governance stifles cadre enthusiasm, and cites international praise for the Party's transformation of political advantages into governance effectiveness. It details the responsibility chain—primary responsibility of Party committees, oversight responsibility of discipline inspection commissions, the first responsible person, and "dual responsibilities for one post"—and stresses precise accountability to prevent "idle rotation" of responsibility. The article concludes that accountability must be fair and targeted, avoiding crude or misplaced blame, to motivate cadres and ensure all tasks of full and rigorous self-governance are implemented effectively.
Summary: The article argues that firmly implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-governance is the "ox nose ring" that must be grasped in full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. It cites General Secretary Xi Jinping's emphasis on establishing a clear, rigid, and closed-loop responsibility system, noting that "without clarifying responsibility, without implementing responsibility, and without pursuing accountability, strict Party governance cannot be achieved." The piece reviews progress since the 18th National Congress, including strengthened responsibility awareness, clarified responsibility systems, and improved institutional mechanisms, while also identifying lingering problems such as ineffective governance, lax accountability, and over-broad accountability in some localities. It calls for promoting responsibility implementation downward, solidifying supervision, scientifically assessing responsibility, and precisely pursuing accountability to ensure each responsible subject fulfills their duties.
Summary: Wang Peng, from the Publicity Department of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission, discusses improving the accountability mechanism to make it precise and science-based, emphasizing General Secretary Xi Jinping's guidance on unifying power and responsibility. The article traces the historical evolution of China's accountability system from ancient governance traditions through Party history, highlighting its development since the Eighteenth National Congress. It identifies current problems such as the generalization and simplification of accountability, including imprecise targets, nonstandard procedures, and using accountability to replace rectification. The piece calls for managing responsible subjects, ensuring precision in accountability targets, maintaining rigorous procedures, and completing the "second half of the article" of accountability to promote work improvement.
Summary: The article, a Qiushi Commentary, argues that stimulating social vitality is essential for strengthening the driving force of high-quality development, following a July 30 Political Bureau meeting that emphasized this need. It cites first-half economic data, including 4.7 percent GDP growth and the strong performance of new growth drivers, while acknowledging challenges such as weak demand and insufficient domestic demand. The commentary attributes some weakened vitality to institutional mechanisms that no longer match practical needs, including barriers to factor flow and issues in the private economy. It calls for further comprehensive deepening of reform to better coordinate the relationship between an effective market and a well-functioning government, remove obstacles to fair competition, safeguard people's livelihoods, and create a social environment that encourages exploration and innovation.
Summary: Qu Qingshan, Director of the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee, writes that advancing with the times was Comrade Jiang Zemin's distinctive intellectual character, as emphasized by General Secretary Xi Jinping in his speech at the conference commemorating the 110th anniversary of Comrade Jiang Zemin's birth. The article details how Jiang Zemin grasped the general trend of the era, promoted the Party's theoretical innovation by establishing the important thought of the Three Represents, advanced reform and opening up by establishing the socialist market economy system and joining the World Trade Organization, and promoted Party building through the new great project. It concludes that since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has continued this spirit by establishing Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and achieving historic accomplishments.
Summary: Wang Xiaoping, Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Minister of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security, authored this article on resolving structural employment contradictions through high-quality vocational skills training. The piece emphasizes General Secretary Xi Jinping's directives to carry out vocational skills training on a large scale and improve the lifelong vocational skills training system. It outlines China's progress, noting over 220 million skilled personnel, while identifying shortcomings such as insufficient marketization and training investment. The article calls for precise alignment with industrial needs, activating enterprises' main role in training, broadening career growth channels for skilled personnel, and fostering a societal culture that values skills and labor.
Summary: In an exclusive interview with Qiushi, Wang Yiming, former Deputy Director and Researcher of the Development Research Center of the State Council, discussed strategies to unblock sticking points restricting the domestic economic cycle. He emphasized that strengthening the domestic cycle is a strategic response to external uncertainties, including rising unilateralism and protectionism, and is not a retreat from opening up. Wang identified strong supply and weak demand as the main contradiction, attributing it to structural shifts, demographic aging, and real estate and local debt adjustments. He called for deepening supply-side reform, boosting domestic demand, and advancing a unified national market to counter local protectionism and "involution-style" competition. He also stressed enhancing independent innovation and industrial chain resilience amid global decoupling pressures, while maintaining that this does not mean closing the door to international cooperation.
Summary: This article reports on a joint research group's study of Guangdong's utilization of foreign capital amid global investment restructuring. It identifies four new features: tiered upgrading in industrial investment attraction, diversified foreign capital sources, new investment methods emphasizing deepening existing stock and localized R&D, and a spatial layout of full-region expansion with regional linkage. The piece details Guangdong's explorations in stabilizing foreign capital, including institutional opening up, precise industrial chain investment attraction, collaborative innovation ecosystems, and digital empowerment of services. It then proposes new paths for China's high-level opening up, such as building full industrial chain collaboration advantages, seizing the eastward shift of global innovation centers, consolidating intermediate goods trade hub advantages, and enhancing certainty in the development environment. The article notes that global foreign direct investment grew by 6% in 2025 but with a fragile recovery, and that Guangdong's cumulative actual use of foreign capital exceeded US$600 billion by the end of 2025.
Summary: The article argues that artificial intelligence is driving a transformation of the scientific research paradigm, reshaping research actors, tools, and mechanisms toward intelligent autonomy and human-machine collaboration. It notes that major scientific powers, including the United States, are competing to lead this shift, citing U.S. initiatives such as the "Genesis Plan" and the report *Science: A New Golden Age*. The author acknowledges China's advantages in data, scenarios, and the system of mobilizing all national resources for a single goal, but identifies gaps in algorithms, computing power, data sharing, and institutional mechanisms. The piece outlines policy steps, referencing the State Council's "AI+" action and the 15th Five-Year Plan recommendations, to accelerate China's paradigm transformation. It concludes by urging improvements in infrastructure, interdisciplinary integration, open collaboration, and governance to achieve leapfrog catch-up.
Summary: Cai Lidong, Executive Vice President and Professor of Jilin University, argues that law-abiding by the entire people is the foundational project for building a law-based country and society, citing General Secretary Xi Jinping's statement that only a rule of law engraved in people's hearts is truly unbreakable. The article outlines the scope of "the entire people" and "law," including both hard and soft law norms, and distinguishes between passive and active law-abiding. It reviews China's 40-year history of legal publicity since 1986, including the establishment of National Constitution Day, the constitutional oath system, and the training of over 4.4 million "legal knowledgeable persons." The author identifies ongoing challenges such as weak rule-of-law awareness among the public, reliance on personal connections, cyber violence, and insufficiently targeted legal education, and proposes solutions including upholding legal authority, cultivating the spirit of the rule of law, and resolving disputes according to law. The piece concludes that achieving law-abiding by the entire people is essential for Chinese modernization, requiring legal compliance across economic, political, cultural, social, and ecological fields.
Summary: The article, part of a "Cultural China" series, argues that the outstanding continuity of Chinese civilization is its defining characteristic, as first summarized by General Secretary Xi Jinping at the June 2, 2023 Symposium on Cultural Heritage Development and Transmission. It attributes this continuity to structural factors including geographical stability, the resilience of agricultural civilization, the institutional pattern of great unity, and the transmission of cultural traditions and values. The piece emphasizes that continuity is manifested in territorial maps, artifacts, the tradition of classics and histories, and language and calendrical systems. It rebuts Western claims of rupture at the Yuan and Qing transitions as "Western-centrism" and historical nihilism, citing Xi Jinping's warning that China cannot be understood without its long continuous history. The article concludes by calling for upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground to promote the creative transformation of traditional culture and the growth of a new cultural life-form.
Summary: Liu Chengji argues that China's agrarian tradition, rooted in a firm human-land relationship and a cosmology of vital life-breath, has shaped a distinctive aesthetic of natural authenticity and pastoral art that continues to resonate today. The article cites the launch of a mental-health therapy site at the Yuanyang terraces and the trend of urban youths becoming "new farmers" as contemporary echoes of this tradition. The author contends that these aesthetic endowments help anchor spiritual coordinates, overcome loneliness, resist sensory dulling, and supplement education in an era of mobility and digital abstraction. He concludes that the countryside's aesthetic value, now being rediscovered as urban and rural resources equalize, points toward the future.
Summary: The article, authored by Wen Ping, analyzes "pseudo-history theory" as a new form of historical nihilism spreading online through algorithms and "pan-entertainment" methods, citing claims like "the Tang Dynasty never existed." It argues that this trend abandons empirical research, targets youth with fragmented and extreme content, and poses risks to China's cultural security, including hidden tendencies toward ethnic separatism and alignment with overseas narratives deconstructing Chinese civilization. The piece warns that overseas forces may use AI to mass-produce false historical materials that could flow back into domestic cyberspace, creating a vicious cycle of algorithmic bias. It calls for coordinated responses through technological governance, educational guidance, and legal safeguards, citing General Secretary Xi Jinping's stress on opposing historical nihilism and upholding correct views of history, nation, state, and culture. The article concludes by urging the protection of public rationality and the resistance of historical nihilism through historical facts, the rule of law, and education.
Summary: The article analyzes how the US-Israel-Iran conflict has intensified Middle East geopolitical tensions and triggered a new round of global energy crisis, elevating energy security as a priority in policy-making and creating new opportunities for the energy transition. It argues that the conflict has accelerated the "politicization" and "securitization" of energy, with the US administration promoting "energy dominance" and weaponizing energy, including pushing for "de-Sinicization" of clean energy and strengthening sanctions against oil-producing countries. The authors note that the traditional energy supply-demand landscape is shifting "westward in supply and eastward in demand," with emerging economies in Asia becoming the main drivers of consumption growth, while new energy development shows a trend of "decline in the West and rise in the East." They conclude that the future global energy landscape will be shaped by countries mastering discourse power over transition-related technology, finance, and rules, and call for the international community to oppose the "politicization" and "securitization" of energy and promote a fairer global energy governance system. The authors are affiliated with the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations.
Summary: The article reflects on the historical example of Geng Yan, a Eastern Han general who defeated a powerful enemy at Linzi rather than waiting for Emperor Guangwu's reinforcements, embodying the principle of taking responsibility. It contrasts this with negative examples from the late Western Jin and Song dynasties, where officials avoided responsibility and shifted blame upward, leading to governance decline. The author argues that this "avoiding matters and shifting blame upward" tendency persists among some modern cadres, obstructing policy implementation, harming political atmosphere, and damaging Party-masses relations. The piece calls on leading cadres to cultivate responsibility-taking through strengthening resolve, capability, and institutional mechanisms, drawing on historical lessons to proactively solve problems. It concludes by urging cadres to take history as a mirror, never shirk responsibility, and continuously write qualified answers to fulfilling duties in the new era.
Summary: This article by Wang Weiguo, Executive Dean of the School of Marxism at the University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, explains why upholding Party political building as the overarching guide is the fundamental requirement of Party building in the new era. It argues that Party political building determines the direction and effectiveness of all other aspects of Party building, serving as the "fixed star" and "compass" for the Party. The article emphasizes that the primary task is to ensure the whole Party obeys the Central Committee and upholds the authority of the Party Central Committee, embodying the "Two Establishments" and the "Two Upholds." It also stresses that speaking politics is concrete and practical for all Party members and cadres, not just a matter for the Central Committee, and that political capability must match the duties of one's post. The piece concludes by invoking the Long March's legacy and Xi Jinping's "tick-tock" metaphor to call for unified action on the new Long March.
Summary: A party member's letter criticizes localities for making "zero public-opinion incidents" a hard target, arguing this breeds formalism and leads officials to prioritize deleting posts over solving problems. The author calls this approach "mistaking the fundamental for the incidental," asserting that different voices and questioning are normal in governance and that vitality lies in tolerating criticism. Officials should redirect energy from "guarding against public-opinion incidents" to solving actual problems and handling matters openly. The letter is signed by Cao Bin of the Organization Department of the Shenmu Municipal Party Committee, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province.
Summary: The article argues that "performance anxiety" is an unhealthy emotional tendency among some leading cadres, arising from excessive worry over performance evaluation, personal development, and accountability. It attributes this to factors such as neglecting Party-spirit tempering, treating promotion and personal gain as life goals, lacking competence to meet the times' demands, and pursuing lofty goals without regard for reality. To break free of this restlessness, it calls for strengthening ideological guidance on a correct view of political achievements, improving institutional mechanisms for accurate performance assessment, enhancing capabilities, and optimizing the social atmosphere for pragmatic action.
This issue publishes the important article by General Secretary Xi Jinping, "Upholding and Implementing the Political Responsibility of the Party for Governing Itself and Running It Strictly." This is an excerpt of important expositions by General Secretary Xi Jinping from June 2013 to July 2026. The article profoundly clarifies major questions such as what the political responsibility of the Party for governing itself and running it strictly is, why it is important, and how to implement it, and has important guiding significance for the entire Party to further strengthen its awareness of responsibility for governing itself and running it strictly and to implement the political responsibility of the Party for governing itself and running it strictly. The article emphasizes that full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is the common responsibility of the entire Party, and Party organizations at all levels and all Party members and cadres must truly regard the implementation of the political responsibility of the Party for governing itself and running it strictly as the most fundamental political commitment, knowing their responsibilities, assuming their responsibilities, and fulfilling their responsibilities; it is necessary to improve a responsibility system with clear subjects and clear requirements, in which primary responsibility, supervisory responsibility, the responsibility of the first person in charge, and the "dual responsibility for one post" together constitute a complete responsibility chain, and every kind of responsibility must be strictly implemented; it is necessary to improve a precise and scientific accountability mechanism, and promote the implementation of the responsibility of the Party for governing itself and running it strictly through the subject of responsibility being in place, the requirements of responsibility being in place, and assessment and accountability being in place. Through in-depth study and understanding, it is necessary to effectively strengthen the sense of responsibility and mission for governing the Party and running it strictly, to grasp implementation with higher standards and more practical measures, and to persisting with constancy (持之以恒, chi zhi yi heng - "hold, continue, with, constant") in advancing full and rigorous self-governance of the Party.
Centering on the study and implementation of the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important article, this issue is accompanied by an article from the editorial department of this journal, focusing on how to effectively implement the political responsibility of the Party for governing itself and running it strictly, providing interpretation and explanation from four aspects; an article by Ju Li, providing an interpretation of firmly grasping the "ox nose" of the political responsibility of the Party for governing itself and running it strictly; an article by Wang Peng, providing an interpretation of improving the precise and scientific accountability mechanism.
Establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements is a long-term task. The commentator's article of this journal, studying and implementing the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions, provides an interpretation of consolidating and expanding the achievements of learning and education, casting the correct view of political achievements into the soul, and vigorously practicing it in action.
When society is vibrant, development has momentum. 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 strengthen the momentum of high-quality development in stimulating social vitality.
The article by Qu Qingshan, studying and implementing the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the meeting commemorating the 100th anniversary of the birth of Comrade Jiang Zemin, explains Comrade Jiang Zemin's ideological character of advancing with the times.
The article by Wang Xiaoping provides an interpretation of solving structural employment contradictions through high-quality vocational skills training.
Starting from this issue, the "Cultural China" column will consecutively publish research results by experts and scholars on the five outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization. The article by Zhong Jinshi provides an interpretation of the outstanding continuity of Chinese civilization.
The article by Wen Ping analyzes the essence and harm of historical nihilism in "pseudo-history theory."
Return to TopBy: 习近平
Persist in Fulfilling the Political Responsibility for Governing the Party with Strict Discipline
※
Xi Jinping
I
Only when the Party exercises self-governance with strict discipline can it govern itself well; only when it enforces strict discipline can it govern itself effectively. For a party like ours, with more than 85 million members and a long-term ruling party in a country of 1.3 billion people, the task of governing the Party with strict discipline must never be relaxed for a single moment. If we fail to govern the Party effectively and enforce discipline strictly, and if the prominent problems within the Party that the people have strongly reflected remain unresolved, then our Party will inevitably lose its governing qualification and be eliminated by history. This is by no means exaggerating or making alarmist statements (危言耸听, wei yan song ting - "danger, words, loud, listen").
(Speech at the National Conference on Organizational Work, June 28, 2013)
II
To enforce strict Party discipline, we must strengthen our awareness of governing the Party and fulfill our responsibility for doing so. History and reality, especially this campaign, have all told us that without clarifying responsibility, without fulfilling responsibility, and without holding people accountable for responsibility, strict Party governance cannot be achieved. Through years of effort, Party building responsibility systems have been established at all levels, and a Party building work pattern has basically taken shape in which Party committees grasp it, secretaries grasp it, relevant departments at all levels grasp it, and each level grasps it for the level below, with implementation carried out layer by layer. However, have all Party committees at all levels and Party committees (Party leading groups) of all departments truly been concentrating their full attention (聚精会神, ju jing hui shen - "gather, essence, concentrate, spirit") on Party building? Have all Party committee secretaries at all levels and secretaries of Party committees (Party leading groups) of all departments become secretaries who enforce strict Party discipline? Have all members of Party committees (Party leading groups) at all levels and in all departments fulfilled their responsibility for strict Party discipline in the areas under their charge? Some localities and departments still find it difficult to give satisfactory answers.
In the eyes of some leading cadres, Party building, compared with development work, appears somewhat more intangible and less likely to produce conspicuous achievements; holding a few meetings a year to make arrangements is enough, and there is no need to devote so much effort and energy. There are also some who believe that under the conditions of developing the socialist market economy, strict Party governance faces a dilemma: if it is too lenient, it will lack deterrence, causing more and more people to cross the "red line," and ultimately the law cannot punish the multitude; if it is too strict, it will tie people's hands and feet, affect work vitality, make it impossible to accomplish things, and may even affect one's own votes. These views are all incorrect.
Party committees (Party leading groups) at all levels and in all departments must establish a correct view of political achievements and persist in viewing problems from the overall situation of consolidating the Party's governing position. If our Party becomes weak, divided, or collapses, what meaning would any other political achievements have? Party committees at all levels must properly assume and implement the responsibility for strict Party governance, persist in planning Party building work and central work together, deploying them together, and assessing them together, and make Party building work on every front, in every field, and at every link concrete and in-depth, resolutely preventing the phenomenon of "one hand hard, one hand soft." In assessing the persons in charge of Party organizations at all levels and in all departments, especially secretaries of Party committees (Party leading groups), the first thing to examine is the actual effectiveness of Party building; in assessing other Party member leading cadres' work, the weight of this aspect should also be increased.
(Speech at the Concluding Meeting of the Party's Mass Line Educational Practice Campaign, October 8, 2014)
III
Party organizations at all levels must assume the primary responsibility for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. The core of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is strengthening the Party's leadership; its foundation lies in comprehensiveness; its key lies in strictness; and its crux lies in governance. "Comprehensive" means governing the entire Party, covering all of its more than 87 million members and more than 4.3 million Party organizations, extending to every field, every aspect, and every department of Party building, with the focus on grasping the "key minority." "Strict" means truly governing with real strictness, daring to govern with strictness, and maintaining strict governance over the long term. "Governance" means that from the Party Central Committee to provincial, municipal, and county Party committees, and from central ministries and commissions and Party leading groups (Party committees) of state organs to grassroots Party branches, all must shoulder the primary responsibility; Party committee secretaries must regard doing Party building well as their own duty and a responsibility they must assume; discipline inspection commissions at all levels must assume supervisory responsibility, daring to glare and show a stern face, and daring to enforce discipline and hold people accountable. Over the past three years and more, the practice of strict Party governance has already tested where popular support lies, and we must persist in this endeavor without interruption, so that governing the Party truly moves from being lax, loose, and soft to being strict, firm, and hard.
Full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is the duty of Party organizations at all levels. The shift from the primary responsibility for Party conduct and clean government building to the primary responsibility for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is not merely a change in wording, but a development in practice and a deepening of understanding. Party conduct and clean government building and the fight against corruption are part of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party; Party building must be comprehensive and strict in every respect, and Party organizations at all levels and their persons in charge are all responsible subjects.
The key to fulfilling the primary responsibility is to truly implement the Party's leadership. Party organizations at all levels must firmly establish the concept that failing to govern the Party is a serious dereliction of duty, and embody the Party's leadership in every aspect of their work. The Party's leadership must be reflected in daily management and supervision, daring to take things seriously, paying attention to daily matters, grasping things early and at the small stage, nipping problems in the bud (防微杜渐, fang wei du jian - "prevent, tiny, block, gradual"), and embodying the organization's strict requirements and caring concern, never sitting by and watching one's comrades slide further and further down the wrong path. Party committee secretaries must be secretaries who govern the Party, serve as the first responsible person, be responsible to the Party, be responsible for the political ecology of their region or unit, and be responsible for the healthy growth of cadres. Responsibility must be transmitted to all members of the leading group and pressed onto the secretaries below, ensuring that responsibility is truly implemented.
(Speech at the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, January 12, 2016)
IV
Party committees at all levels must do well the Party building work of state-owned enterprises and truly implement the principle that the Party must govern itself with strict discipline. Local Party committees at all levels must incorporate the Party building of state-owned enterprises into their overall work arrangements and overall Party building plans. Party committees (Party leading groups) of state-owned enterprises must fulfill their primary responsibility. Party conduct and clean government building and the fight against corruption in state-owned enterprises must be strengthened, discipline and rules must be placed at the forefront, the spirit of the Eight-Point Regulation of the Central Committee must be implemented with perseverance, rectification of problems discovered through inspections must be done well, and problems such as embezzlement of state assets and transfer of benefits must be seriously investigated and dealt with.
(Speech at the National Conference on Party Building Work of State-Owned Enterprises, October 10, 2016)
V
Intra-Party supervision is the task of the entire Party; Party committees (Party leading groups) bear the primary responsibility, secretaries are the first responsible persons, and members of the standing committees of Party committees (members of Party leading groups) and members of Party committees perform supervisory duties within the scope of their responsibilities. Discipline inspection commissions at all levels are the specialized organs for intra-Party supervision and perform the duties of supervision, discipline enforcement, and accountability. The dual leadership system for discipline inspection work must be implemented, and the leadership of higher-level discipline inspection commissions over lower-level discipline inspection commissions must be strengthened; leadership over the work of dispatched discipline inspection groups must be strengthened, and Party organizations of supervised units and dispatched discipline inspection groups must be urged to fulfill their responsibility for governing the Party. Party work departments are the carriers and handles of the primary responsibility of Party committees (Party leading groups) in different fields, and they must also do well the intra-Party supervision work within the scope of their duties, both strengthening internal supervision over their own organs and units and strengthening daily supervision over their own systems.
(Speech at the Second Plenary Session of the Sixth Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Committee, October 27, 2016)
VI
Party organizations at all levels have pressed the primary responsibility layer by layer, carried the requirement of strictness through the entire process of governing the Party, based daily management and supervision on early and small matters, promptly reminded when signs appear, immediately dealt with when discipline is violated, accumulated achievements bit by bit, and frequently nipped problems in the bud. In enforcing discipline, work has been made more detailed, the "four forms" have been practiced, multiple methods have been comprehensively applied, defenses have been set up layer by layer, and reminders have been given at all times, so that Party members and cadres do not make mistakes or make fewer mistakes, reflecting that strict management is deep care and that treating the illness is for saving the patient.
(Speech at the Seventh Plenary Session of the 18th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, January 6, 2017)
VII
Since the 18th CPC National Congress, we have firmly grasped the "ox nose" of the responsibility for governing the Party, transmitted pressure layer by layer, carried the primary responsibility and supervisory responsibility through to the end, and formed a vivid situation in which the whole Party acts together to grasp this work. Party organizations at all levels and all Party members and cadres must truly regard the fulfillment of the political responsibility for governing the Party as the most fundamental political commitment, firmly bite on the word "responsibility," grasp the key point of "accountability," and embody the Party's leadership in all aspects of comprehensively advancing the Five-Sphere Integrated Plan and coordinately advancing the Four-Pronged Comprehensive Strategy.
(Speech at the Second Plenary Session of the 19th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, January 11, 2018)
VIII
Party committees (Party leading groups) at all levels must strengthen leadership over Party building, shoulder the primary responsibility, grasp the main business, and play the leading role, making Party building work on every front, in every field, and at every link concrete and in-depth. Secretaries of Party committees (Party leading groups), as first responsible persons, must firmly establish the concept that "doing Party building well is one's duty, not doing Party building is dereliction of duty, and doing Party building poorly is incompetence," promote the layer-by-layer implementation of Party building responsibility, and make Party building work solid, detailed, and fully implemented.
(Speech at the National Conference on Organizational Work, July 3, 2018)
IX
To strengthen and improve Party building in central and state organs, it is necessary to grasp the "ox nose" of the responsibility system. Party leading groups (Party committees) of all departments must strengthen leadership over Party building in their own units and fulfill the responsibility for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. Party leading groups (Party committees) of all departments must firmly establish the concept that grasping Party building in their organs is one's duty, not grasping it is dereliction of duty, and grasping it poorly is malfeasance, and persist in "secretaries grasping it and grasping secretaries." Members of leading groups and leading cadres at all levels must fulfill the "dual responsibilities for one post," and must not think that because they are engaged in professional work they need not exert effort in Party building; they must clarify responsibility, fulfill responsibility, and do their utmost to discharge responsibility. Secretaries of Party committees of organs must concentrate their full attention on Party building. Party committees of organs must focus on their primary responsibility and main business and truly play their functional role.
(Speech at the Conference on Party Building Work of Central and State Organs, July 9, 2019)
X
It is necessary to strengthen the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee over anti-corruption work, give play to the Party's political, organizational, and institutional advantages, press the primary responsibility of Party committees (Party leading groups) at all levels for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, especially the first responsible person responsibility of "top leaders," implement the supervisory duties of relevant functional departments throughout, and improve the responsibility pattern for governing the Party in which each bears its own responsibility and all coordinate as one.
(Speech at the 40th Group Study Session of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee, June 17, 2022)
XI
Persist in a complete chain of responsibility, press the primary responsibility of Party committees (Party leading groups) at all levels for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party and the supervisory responsibility of discipline inspection commissions at all levels, promote secretaries of Party committees (Party leading groups) at all levels to shoulder the first responsible person responsibility and other members of leading groups to truly assume the "dual responsibilities for one post," enable every Party member and cadre to exercise their due rights and fulfill their due responsibilities, achieve equality of power and responsibility, ensure that dereliction of duty is invariably investigated, transmit pressure layer by layer, link responsibility link by link, effectively strengthen the sense of responsibility and mission in governing the Party, and consolidate and develop the good situation in which the whole Party acts together to grasp this work.
(Speech at the Second Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, January 9, 2023)
XII
Improve the responsibility system with clear subjects and clear requirements. Full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is the common responsibility of the entire Party; it is necessary to establish and improve the responsibility system by category and level, and promote Party organizations at all levels and the broad masses of Party members and cadres to know responsibility, assume responsibility, and fulfill responsibility by clarifying and pressing responsibility.
It is necessary to clarify the primary responsibility of Party committees (Party leading groups) for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, centering on strengthening leadership over governing the Party, selecting and using cadres well, strengthening supervision and restraint over the exercise of power, and safeguarding the interests of the people; clarify the supervisory responsibility of discipline inspection commissions at all levels, centering on efficient supervision, strict discipline enforcement, and precise accountability; clarify the first responsible person responsibility of secretaries of Party committees (Party leading groups), centering on managing the leading group well, leading the team well, and promoting implementation; clarify the responsibility of other members of leading groups for governing the Party, in accordance with the division of duties and tasks and the requirements of the "dual responsibilities for one post"; and clarify the specific responsibilities of Party members and cadres, centering on strict self-discipline and mutual supervision, mutual reminding, and mutual help, in light of the post characteristics and work reality of Party members and cadres. It is necessary to improve the precise and scientific accountability mechanism, transmit pressure layer by layer, and promote the implementation of the responsibility for governing the Party through the proper positioning of responsible subjects, the proper meeting of responsibility requirements, and the proper conduct of assessment and accountability.
(Speech at the 15th Group Study Session of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee, June 27, 2024)
XIII
Strengthen the primary responsibility and supervisory responsibility for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. The state of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party in a locality or department depends on whether Party organizations and leading cadres, especially "top leaders," have fulfilled their responsibility. I have emphasized this issue many times, but some people still do not take it to heart. Some express verbal support for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party but take little initiative to grasp it, and are fully aware of certain problems yet play dumb or feigning ignorance (装聋作哑, zhuang long zuo ya - "pretend, deaf, act, mute"). Some members of leading groups and functional departments believe that the "two responsibilities" are solely the business of the Party committee secretary and the discipline inspection commission secretary, not being concerned with matters that do not affect oneself (事不关己, shi bu guan ji - "matter, not, relate, self") and shirking responsibility or staying aloof from matters (高高挂起, gao gao gua qi - "high, high, hang, up"). The responsibility for governing the Party is weighty, and no Party organization or leading cadre can stay aloof from a situation or avoid involvement (置身事外, zhi shen shi wai - "place, body, matter, outside"). Party committees must grasp and manage proactively, and must not use the supervisory responsibility of discipline inspection commissions to replace their own primary responsibility, still less abandon responsibility and simply push it aside. Discipline inspection commissions must fulfill their specialized supervisory duties well, focus on their primary responsibility and main business, and must neither exercise the powers of Party committees and governments nor replace functional departments in carrying out supervision. All responsible subjects must know responsibility, assume responsibility, and fulfill responsibility, and must not act as "goody-goodies," allowing the Party's image and the people's interests to be harmed for the sake of so-called personal image. It is necessary to optimize the assessment mechanism for responsibility implementation, conduct precise and scientific accountability for dereliction of duty, and make everyone completely convinced or satisfied (心服口服, xin fu kou fu - "heart, obey, mouth, submit").
(Speech at the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, January 6, 2025)
XIV
The implementation of the responsibility for governing the Party must be further improved. I have said before that doing Party building well is one's duty, not doing Party building is dereliction of duty, and doing Party building poorly is incompetence; now it appears that this needs to be reiterated.
The responsibility for governing the Party includes the primary responsibility, the supervisory responsibility, the first responsible person responsibility, the "dual responsibilities for one post," and so on; these constitute a complete chain of responsibility. Every kind of responsibility is important and must be strictly implemented, and none can be done perfunctorily or half-heartedly (敷衍应付, fu yan ying fu - "perfunctory, gloss over, respond, cope"). When we speak of strengthening the political functions of Party organizations, fulfilling the primary responsibility for governing the Party is an important connotation of this. Leading cadres at all levels, as the "key minority," must, with the political loyalty of loving the Party, worrying about the Party, protecting the Party, and revitalizing the Party, resolutely shoulder the responsibility for governing the Party, be strict with themselves, strictly bear their own responsibilities, strictly manage what is under their jurisdiction, transmit pressure layer by layer, and effectively create a strict atmosphere and establish a correct ethos. Comrades of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee must set an example and serve as a model for the entire Party in fulfilling the responsibility for governing the Party.
(Speech at the 21st Group Study Session of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee, June 30, 2025)
XV
To strengthen confidence and continue the struggle, we must persevering with constancy and determination (持之以恒, chi zhi yi heng - "hold, with, continuously, persistent") advance full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. Full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is always on the way. On the new journey, we must fully implement the Party's thinking on Party building in the new era, implement the general requirements for Party building in the new era, focus on improving the Party's long-term governing capacity, maintaining the Party's advanced nature and purity, and maintaining the Party's flesh-and-blood ties with the people, improve the system for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, strengthen all aspects of Party building with the Party's political construction as the lead, resolutely fight the tough, protracted, and overall battle against corruption, continuously enhance the Party's political leadership, ideological guidance, mass organization, and social appeal, and ensure that the Party always remains the strong leading core in the historical process of upholding and developing socialism with Chinese characteristics in the new era.
(Speech at the Celebration of the 105th Anniversary of the Founding of the Communist Party of China, July 1, 2026)
※This is an excerpt from General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses from June 2013 to July 2026 on persisting in fulfilling the political responsibility for governing the Party with strict discipline.
Return to TopBy: 《求是》杂志编辑部
Earnestly Implement the Political Responsibility for Party Governance and Self-Supervision
Qiushi Magazine Editorial Department
The word "responsibility" carries the weight of a thousand jun. In governing the Party and running it strictly, responsibility is the key. Our Party is the world's largest Marxist governing party, with over 100 million Party members and more than 5.4 million primary-level Party organizations. If every Party organization and every Party member knows its or his responsibility, shoulders it, and fulfills it, the Party can be governed well and built strong. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, General Secretary Xi Jinping has attached great importance to the implementation of the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision, delivered a series of important statements and made major arrangements, leading and promoting the deepening of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party in an all-round way, and providing a fundamental guarantee for historic achievements and historic changes in the cause of the Party and the state.
The article "Persist in Implementing the Political Responsibility for Party Governance and Self-Supervision" collects important statements made by General Secretary Xi Jinping from June 2013 to July 2026, answering major questions such as what the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision is, why it is important, and how to implement it. It has important guiding significance for the whole Party to further enhance its sense of responsibility and implement the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision. It is necessary to study and implement Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and the spirit of this important article by the General Secretary in depth, deepen the understanding of the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision, truly grasp Party building work in a solid, meticulous, and thorough manner, comprehensively improve the quality of Party building, and continuously open up new realms of Party governance and self-supervision, and of revitalizing and strengthening the Party.
Why is it said that the responsibility system is the "ox nose" that must be firmly grasped in full and rigorous self-governance of the Party
"To lead an ox, grasp its nose" is a common saying often on people's lips. An ox is strong, but as long as you tie a rope around its nose and pull gently, the ox will obediently follow. This shows that no matter what one does, one must be good at grasping the key and crucial point in order to achieve the effect of using a small amount of force to achieve a significant result (四两拨千斤, si liang bo qian jin - "four ounces push a thousand jin"). The same logic applies to implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision in relation to full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. In this important article, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "without clarifying responsibility, without implementing responsibility, and without holding people accountable for responsibility, strict Party governance cannot be achieved," and that "the responsibility system, this 'ox nose,' must be firmly grasped." Using the vivid metaphor of the "ox nose," the General Secretary profoundly elucidated the leading role of implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision in full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, and pointed out the key and crucial point that must be firmly grasped in Party governance and self-supervision.
Why is the implementation of the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision regarded as so important? Fundamentally, this is determined by the political nature of a Marxist party. The power entrusted by the Party and the people is not a "private instrument" to be disposed of at will, but a means and tool for realizing the Party's mission and serving the interests of the people. Where there is power, there is responsibility; where there is responsibility, there must be accountability; where responsibility is lost, there must be investigation. For Party organizations at all levels and leading cadres, the process of exercising power is the process of shouldering responsibility and fulfilling the mission. Reviewing the Party's history, whenever the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision was well implemented, the Party's cause flourished; whenever the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision was weakened or hollowed out, the Party's cause suffered setbacks. Shouldering the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision is an important guarantee for our Party to grow stronger through a hundred years of storms.
In a period before the 18th National Congress of the Party, some localities and units showed a tendency to emphasize economic development over Party building, and to emphasize professional work over Party governance and self-supervision, and the problem of lax, loose, and soft Party governance and self-supervision was relatively prominent. At one time, "several hundred documents could not control one mouth," the practice of public funds for dining and drinking was repeatedly prohibited but never stopped, and "corruption on the wheels" and "the unhealthy trend in clubs" became deep-rooted maladies. Why? The root lay in the fact that the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision was not truly implemented. An important reason why the Central Committee's Eight-Point Regulation was able to effectively curb these prominent problems, promote a completely new look in Party conduct, government conduct, and social atmosphere, and thereby profoundly change China, lies in the courage to deal with problems directly and tackle them head-on (动真碰硬, dong zhen peng ying - "move true, hit hard") and in truly making the responsibility system solid. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has adhered to the principle that the Party must govern itself with strict discipline and has pursued full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, being as good as one's word and following through with actions (言必信, 行必果, yan bi xin, xing bi guo - "speech must be trusted; action must bear fruit"), setting an example with one's own conduct (以身作则, yi shen zuo ze - "take one's body as the rule") and leading by example from above, and has vigorously grasped the implementation of responsibility with the determination and will to show great determination and leave a lasting impact through hard work (抓铁有痕, 踏石留印, zhua tie you hen, ta shi liu yin - "grasp iron and leave a trace; step on stone and leave a print"), grasping with force and grasping with results. From the Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee in 2013, which proposed "implementing the responsibility system for building a clean and honest Party and government, with Party committees bearing primary responsibility and discipline inspection commissions bearing oversight responsibility," to the Party Constitution adopted at the 19th National Congress in 2017, which clearly stipulated "strengthening the primary responsibility and oversight responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision," and then to the promulgation of the "Regulations on Party Committees (Party Groups) Implementing the Primary Responsibility for Full and Rigorous Self-Governance of the Party" in 2020, the responsibility system extending vertically to the bottom and horizontally to all sides has been continuously improved. Practice has proven that as long as the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision is truly shouldered, and the responsibility subjects are in place, the responsibility requirements are in place, and assessment and accountability are in place, there is no problem that cannot be solved.
At present, changes unseen in a century are accelerating, and the great cause of comprehensively building a strong country and realizing national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization has entered a critical period. The "four major tests" and "four dangers" facing the Party are long-term, complex, and severe. The more complex the situation and the more arduous the tasks, the more necessary it is to build our Party into a stronger and more powerful one. The 20th National Congress of the Party and the Third and Fourth Plenary Sessions of the 20th Central Committee have all made a series of major arrangements for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, and the Fifth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee will also study several major issues concerning persistently advancing full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. Through sustained efforts, the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision has been continuously consolidated, and a Party building work pattern in which each level grasps the next and implementation is carried out layer by layer has basically taken shape. However, there are still some deep-seated problems and weak links that cannot be ignored. Among them, there are problems of pressure transmission diminishing layer by layer and blockages in the "last kilometer" of responsibility implementation; problems of equating the implementation of responsibility with holding meetings to convey, issuing documents to deploy, and signing letters of commitment, being satisfied with "having done it" rather than "doing it well"; problems of being a "good old fellow" who dares not grasp or manage; and problems of managing work but not people, managing people but not their thinking, with blind spots and vacuums in management and oversight. To solve these problems, the key is to grasp the responsibility system, this "ox nose," make efforts to improve the responsibility system and perfect institutional mechanisms, further clarify the content of responsibility, delineate the boundaries of responsibility, strengthen responsibility assessment, and strictly pursue responsibility for dereliction, ensuring that all tasks of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party are implemented and produce results.
How to Understand the Relationship between Party Governance and Self-Supervision and Economic and Social Development
With the deepening of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, the awareness of the vast number of Party members and cadres in implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision has been continuously enhanced, and their capabilities have been continuously improved. However, there are also some erroneous understandings that need to be clarified. For example, some people believe that "full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is too tight, grasping dining and drinking has gone too far, and the fight against corruption has been too forceful, affecting economic and social development"; some believe that "Party governance and self-supervision is too strict, binding the hands and feet of Party members and cadres, and affecting their enthusiasm for work and entrepreneurship." The root of these erroneous understandings lies in a deviation in understanding the relationship between Party governance and self-supervision and economic and social development. Only by correctly understanding and grasping the dialectical relationship between the two and implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision can a strong guarantee be provided for economic and social development.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "The more effective Party governance and self-supervision is, the stronger the guarantee for economic and social development." This important statement profoundly reveals the internal logic between Party governance and self-supervision and economic and social development. Our Party has been governing long-term in a large country with a population of over 1.4 billion. Party governance and self-supervision and economic and social development are not "two separate skins," nor are they a contradictory relationship in which one rises as the other falls, but rather they are closely linked, mutually reinforcing, and mutually beneficial. Whether the development environment of a locality is good and whether the work style of cadres is solid is often closely related to whether the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision is implemented. When responsibility is implemented, the political ecosystem is clear, capital, projects, talent, and technology can be attracted and retained, and development has support and momentum; when responsibility is not implemented, discipline is lax, work style is slack, and corruption spreads, no matter how good the policies are, they will be distorted, and development opportunities will be missed. At the level of the whole Party and the whole country, we have corrected conduct, enforced discipline, and fought corruption with a zero-tolerance attitude, cracked down on privilege, broken up monopolies, cut off interest transmission chains, and punished "flies and ants" of corruption, allowing all types of business entities to share a good development environment, and continuously transforming the results of Party governance and self-supervision into the effectiveness of economic and social development. In recent years, many localities have undergone remarkable changes—some had lax, loose, and soft Party governance and self-supervision, leading to a deteriorating political ecosystem and development falling into difficulty; later, by consolidating responsibility and correcting conduct and discipline, the business environment was continuously optimized, and economic and social development returned to the right track. Facts have proven that Party governance and self-supervision has never been a rope binding development, but a powerful weapon guaranteeing development; strict Party governance not only does not weaken the enthusiasm of cadres for work and entrepreneurship, but can dispel unhealthy trends and inspire righteous spirit, giving those who want to do things a stage, those who can do things respect, and those who accomplish things recognition. In short, the more solidly the responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision is pressed, the stronger the confidence and positive energy for economic and social development.
The achievements of our Party in promoting economic and social development through Party governance and self-supervision have been praised by many international figures: "Full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is crucial because the CPC is the ruling party and is directly related to the whole society and the country"; "The CPC's advancement of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party has not only made the Party stronger and more vigorous, but also made national governance more stable, efficient, and sustainable." In contrast, many countries in the world are trapped in partisan strife and internal friction, with policies flipping back and forth like "turning pancakes," making it difficult to build social consensus; others are trapped in the spread of corruption, and economic and social development is struggling. Through Party governance and self-supervision, the CPC has transformed political advantages into governance effectiveness, created the two miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stability, and also contributed Chinese wisdom to the governance of political parties in the world.
At present, China's development environment is undergoing profound and complex changes. International geopolitical conflicts are frequent and prone to occur, global economic growth momentum is insufficient, and their impact on China's development is deepening. In China's economic development, there are still many old problems and new challenges. The contradiction of strong supply and weak demand domestically is prominent, and there are many hidden dangers in key areas such as energy security, the stability of industrial and supply chains, and the financial and real estate markets. In particular, artificial intelligence, as a strategic technology leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, is rapidly and extensively penetrating all fields and aspects of the economy and society, profoundly reshaping scientific research paradigms, industrial forms, and economic patterns. Whether one can effectively manage complex situations and promote sustained and healthy economic and social development places higher demands on the competence and governance level of leading cadres at all levels. Facing these new situations and new problems, the problem of "capability panic" in the cadre ranks cannot be avoided. There are also some cadres who are timid in the face of complex contradictions, muddle along in the face of difficulties, and turn a blind eye to risks and hidden dangers. What should be done? The answer is still to seek solutions and methods from strict Party governance and self-supervision. Party organizations at all levels and leading cadres should consciously study and implement Xi Jinping's thought on Party building, fully implement the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision, persistently advance full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, and improve their ability and level in leading economic and social development. Through solid and effective Party building work, it is necessary to stimulate the endogenous motivation and overall vitality of the cadre ranks, educate and guide the vast number of Party members and cadres to continuously update their knowledge structures, enhance professional capabilities, carry forward the spirit of struggle, improve their ability to advance modernization, and more effectively respond to various risks and challenges.
How to Understand and Grasp the Responsibility System for Full and Rigorous Self-Governance of the Party
Improving a responsibility system with clear subjects and clear requirements is an inevitable requirement for implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision. In this important article, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision includes primary responsibility, oversight responsibility, the responsibility of the first responsible person, and 'dual responsibilities for one post,' etc. These constitute a complete responsibility chain. Every kind of responsibility is important and must be strictly implemented; one cannot deal with it perfunctorily." Only when each responsible subject fulfills its own responsibility, so that every arrangement of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is truly grasped, managed, and taken charge of by someone, can a strong political guarantee be provided for the development of the cause of the Party and the state.
Party committees (Party groups) occupy a dominant position in full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. Whether they can implement the primary responsibility well directly affects the effectiveness of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. What is the primary responsibility of Party committees (Party groups)? It mainly includes strengthening leadership over Party governance and self-supervision, selecting and using cadres well, strengthening oversight and restraint on the exercise of power, and safeguarding the interests of the masses. Judging from the cases investigated and publicly reported in recent years, the reason why serious problems have arisen in some localities and units is that Party committees (Party groups) have failed to implement the primary responsibility. Some regard Party building as a soft indicator, and even push anti-corruption work entirely onto discipline inspection commissions; some fail to strictly vet the selection and appointment of cadres, engaging in "small circles"; some let oversight and restraint on the exercise of power become a mere formality, with matters requiring collective decision-making being decided by one person and matters that should be made public being hidden; some passively deal with prominent problems strongly reflected by the masses. The primary responsibility of Party committees (Party groups) is not empty. They should persist in planning, deploying, advancing, and assessing Party building work together with central work, open their eyes wide to discover problems, deal with problems directly and tackle them head-on in solving them, and truly make Party governance and self-supervision a visible and tangible practical action.
Discipline inspection commissions must fulfill their oversight responsibility. The "Regulations on Intra-Party Oversight of the Communist Party of China" stipulates that Party discipline inspection commissions at all levels are the specialized organs for intra-Party oversight. From the former "specialized organ" to "organ with specialized responsibility," the change of one character highlights responsibility. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that discipline inspection commissions should fulfill their specialized oversight responsibility well, focus on their main responsibility and do their main work well, neither exercising the functions and powers of Party committees and governments nor replacing functional departments in carrying out supervision. Discipline inspection commissions at all levels should grasp their functional positioning well, take safeguarding the Party Constitution and other intra-Party regulations as their primary task, seriously investigate and deal with violations of the Party Constitution, Party regulations, and Party discipline, assist Party committees in advancing full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, strengthening Party conduct building, and organizing and coordinating anti-corruption work, ensuring that every kind of responsibility on the responsibility chain is strictly implemented.
The overall situation of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party in a locality or department mainly depends on whether the "top leader" of the Party organization and leading group fulfills his or her responsibility. The reason is simple: in pressing and consolidating the responsibility chain for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, the "top leader" has the greatest power and the heaviest responsibility. Judging from a large number of cases, the reason why systemic and collapse-style corruption has occurred in some localities and units is that the "top leader" did not truly shoulder the responsibility as the first responsible person for Party governance and self-supervision. In recent years, many localities have actively explored, through measures such as individual talks, special reports, reports on work and integrity, reminder interviews, and regular or irregular "look-back" reviews, effectively promoting "top leaders" to raise their awareness and shoulder their responsibility. Secretaries of Party committees (Party groups) should be secretaries who govern the Party, firmly establish the concept that "grasping Party building is one's duty, not grasping Party building is dereliction of duty, and grasping Party building poorly is incompetence," act as the first responsible person, and transmit responsibility to all members of the leading group, manage the group well, lead the team well, and grasp implementation well, personally deploying important work, personally inquiring about major issues, personally coordinating important links, and personally supervising important cases, ensuring that the political responsibility for Party governance and self-supervision can be truly implemented.
Other members of the Party committee (Party group) leading group must fulfill the "dual responsibilities for one post." The "one post" is the official position of a leading cadre, and the "dual responsibilities" require leading cadres to bear dual responsibility for both professional work and Party building work in the areas under their charge. In actual performance of duties, some members of the leading group separate managing work from managing the team, failing to educate, manage, or supervise Party members and cadres in the areas under their charge; some avoid contradictions, engage in unprincipled harmony, and push problems onto the "top leader" or the discipline inspection commission when problems arise. To fulfill the "dual responsibilities for one post," one must never "have one end light and the other heavy," but rather "carry both ends with one shoulder pole," correctly handle the relationship between Party building and professional work, regard Party governance and self-supervision as one's own duty, and promote mutual reinforcement between Party building and professional work through integrated development.
Party governance and self-supervision is the common responsibility of the whole Party. In the face of responsibility, there are no bystanders or outsiders. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that it is necessary to clarify the specific responsibilities of Party members and cadres around strict self-discipline and mutual oversight, mutual reminders, and mutual help, in light of the job characteristics and actual work of Party members and cadres. Some Party members and cadres believe that Party governance and self-supervision is the business of leaders and discipline inspection commissions and has nothing to do with themselves; some do not remind or report the budding and tendentious problems of comrades around them, acting as "good old fellows" and looking on from the sidelines. All of these are wrong. Every Party member and cadre should not only manage himself well and strictly observe discipline and rules, but also dare to "pull ears and tug sleeves" and "redden faces and sweat," converging individual responsibility implementation into the overall synergy of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party.
How to Prevent the "Idle Rotation" of the Political Responsibility for Party Governance and Self-Supervision
As full and rigorous self-governance of the Party continues to deepen and the responsibility system for Party governance and self-supervision becomes increasingly complete, the effectiveness of promoting the implementation of Party governance and self-supervision tasks through the fulfillment of responsibility has become increasingly prominent. At the same time, the problem of responsibility "idle rotation" still exists to varying degrees. In some localities, departments, and units, when deploying Party governance and self-supervision tasks, no fewer meetings are held and no fewer responsibility letters are signed. It seems that no link or procedure is missed, but in reality it is "loud thunder with little rain," or even "thunder without rain." In implementation, either no one is truly responsible or there is no actual effect. The reason, to a large extent, lies in the fact that accountability is not precise and powerful enough, and a real deterrent has not been formed.
Mobilizing a thousand times is not as good as holding accountable once. To prevent responsibility from "idle rotation," the key is to use accountability as a sharp weapon. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that it is necessary to firmly bite on the word "responsibility," grasp the key point of "accountability," and carry out precise and scientific accountability for dereliction of duty and failure to fulfill responsibility. In 2016, the "Regulations of the Communist Party of China on Accountability" were promulgated, the first basic intra-Party regulation on accountability work, providing institutional guidance for accountability work. With the development of the situation and tasks and the deepening of accountability practice, in 2019 the Party Central Committee revised the accountability regulations, further clarifying the principles of accountability, refining the division of responsibility, and improving accountability procedures. Judging from the typical accountability cases publicly reported in recent years, some leading cadres have been held accountable for failing to fulfill the responsibility for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party and for serious violations of discipline and law occurring within the scope of their jurisdiction; in some state-owned enterprises, multiple subordinate units had not established Party organizations, and dozens of Party members in subordinate units were in a state of being out of management, and the relevant leading cadres were held accountable; some units were held accountable for failing to handle cases harming the interests of the masses in accordance with legal procedures; some departments were held accountable for problems such as inadequate investigation of petition reports; and so on. These cases involve different regions, fields, and levels, holding accountable both matters and persons, both direct responsibility and leadership responsibility, both primary responsibility and oversight responsibility. Every link on the responsibility chain has situations where dereliction of duty and failure to fulfill responsibility are pursued, sending a strong signal to the whole Party and the whole society that dereliction of responsibility must be investigated and accountability must be strict.
At the same time, it should also be noted that there are still some problems and deviations in current accountability work, affecting the political, disciplinary and legal, and social effects of accountability. Among them, there are problems of lax accountability and avoiding the heavy and taking the light, as well as problems of over-generalized and crude accountability; problems of non-standard accountability procedures, as well as problems of inconsistent standards in accountability; problems of substituting specific responsibility for primary responsibility, as well as problems of using the "collective responsibility" of Party organizations to cover up the "leadership responsibility" of leading group members. Behind these problems, some shortcomings and weaknesses are exposed, such as some leading cadres' understanding of accountability not being in place and their accountability capability, especially their level of discipline and legal capability, not being high enough. A phenomenon particularly worthy of vigilance is that some units and leading cadres turn accountability into a "panacea" for "shifting responsibility." No matter what happens, they must find a responsible person, letting ordinary cadres "take the fall" for leading cadres, while those who should bear the primary responsibility remain safe and sound. Some grassroots cadres lament that they are not afraid of bearing responsibility, not afraid of risks in doing things, but are afraid that unfair accountability will chill people's hearts. This kind of accountability with "mismatched power and responsibility" can easily dampen the enthusiasm and entrepreneurial spirit of grassroots cadres.
Accountability is a very serious political task, not simply a matter of "dealing with a few cadres." It is necessary to improve a precise and scientific accountability mechanism, organically combine oversight and inspection, target assessment, and responsibility investigation, and realize the institutionalization and proceduralization of the content, objects, matters, subjects, procedures, and methods of accountability. Accountability should be aiming at a specific target or acting with a clear purpose (有的放矢, you de fang shi - "have a target, shoot an arrow"), neither wronging the innocent nor letting the guilty off. It is necessary to adhere to seeking truth from facts, be precise and standardized, hold accountable whoever's responsibility it is, hold accountable to whatever level the responsibility should be pursued, hold accountable to whatever degree it should be pursued, and adopt whatever accountability method should be adopted. The purpose of accountability is not to bind the hands and feet of cadres, but to urge Party organizations and leading cadres to strengthen their sense of responsibility and stimulate their spirit of responsibility. It is necessary to accurately grasp policies, distinguish different situations, and make appropriate handling, so that those who dare to take responsibility can put down their burdens and set out with light baggage or proceed without unnecessary burdens (轻装上阵, qing zhuang shang zhen - "light equipment, go up to battle"), maximizing the positive effect of accountability.
Return to TopBy: 巨力
Firmly Grasp the "Ox Nose Ring" of Political Responsibility for Party Governance and Self-Governance
Ju Li
In handling China's affairs, the Party is the key; the key lies in the Party governing itself with strict discipline and in full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. How should it govern? How should it exercise self-governance? Persisting in implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-governance is the "ox nose ring" that must be firmly grasped in full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. Party governance and self-governance is a systematic project, with a long chain of tasks and a wide coverage; it can by no means be accomplished by the sole efforts of a single level or a single functional line. It is necessary to establish a clear, rigid, and closed-loop responsibility system. Only by firmly seizing the word "responsibility," and clarifying what roles Party organizations at all levels and the broad masses of Party members and cadres should play, what duties they should perform, and what standards they should meet, can Party governance and self-governance be internalized into concrete actions and become "hard constraints."
"Persisting in implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-governance" is one of the scientific connotations of the Fourteen Commitments of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has made a series of important expositions on implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-governance, pointing out that "those with power must bear responsibility, those with responsibility must take on the burden, and those who fail in their duties must be held accountable," and that "without clarifying responsibility, without implementing responsibility, and without pursuing accountability, strict Party governance cannot be achieved." He emphasized that full and rigorous self-governance of the Party is the common responsibility of the entire Party, and that it is necessary to establish and improve a responsibility system by level and by category, so as to promote Party organizations at all levels and the broad masses of Party members and cadres to know their responsibilities, shoulder their responsibilities, and fulfill their responsibilities by clarifying and consolidating responsibilities. He required Party organizations at all levels to firmly establish the concept that failing to govern the Party is a serious dereliction of duty, to truly take up the burden, and to tend well their own "responsibility fields." The General Secretary's important expositions systematically answer the fundamental questions of who governs the Party, what to govern, and how to govern, providing fundamental guidance for Party governance and self-governance to truly become strict, tight, and substantive.
Since the new era, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has always regarded the implementation of the political responsibility for Party governance and self-governance as the most fundamental political commitment. Starting from the central leadership and being strict with senior cadres first, grasping the "key minority" to lead by example from above, with one level leading the next in work and one level setting an example for the next, a sound political situation has been fostered in which the entire Party mobilizes to jointly work on Party governance and self-governance. First, the sense of responsibility has been further strengthened. In the past, some Party organizations and Party members and cadres understood the responsibility for Party governance and self-governance in a narrow sense, believing that this was solely the business of the discipline inspection commissions, and were indifferent to matters that do not concern oneself (事不关己、高高挂起, shi bu guan ji, gao gao gua qi - "matter, not, relate, self; high, high, hang, up"). Today, "doing Party building well is one's duty, failing to do Party building is dereliction of duty, and doing Party building poorly is incompetence" has become an ideological consensus, and Party organizations at all levels and the broad masses of Party members and cadres more consciously know their responsibilities in their hearts, shoulder them on their bodies, and fulfill them in their actions. Second, the responsibility system has been further clarified. Centering on strengthening the Party's leadership over Party governance and self-governance, selecting and using good cadres, strengthening supervision and restraint over the exercise of power, and safeguarding the interests of the masses, the primary responsibility of Party committees (Party leadership groups) for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party has been clarified; centering on efficient supervision, strict discipline enforcement, and precise accountability, the supervisory responsibility of discipline inspection commissions at all levels has been clarified; centering on leading the team well, managing the ranks well, and promoting implementation, the responsibility of the first responsible person of Party committees (Party leadership groups) — the secretary — has been clarified; in conjunction with the division of duties and tasks, and in accordance with the requirement of "one post with dual responsibilities," the responsibility for Party governance and self-governance of other members of the leadership team has been clarified; centering on strict self-discipline and mutual supervision, mutual reminding, and mutual assistance, and in light of the post characteristics and actual work of Party members and cadres, the specific responsibilities of Party members and cadres have been clarified. Each level is interlocked, forming a complete responsibility chain. Through years of effort, a responsibility system for Party building work has been established at all levels, and a Party building work pattern has basically taken shape in which Party committees grasp it, secretaries grasp it, relevant departments grasp it, and each level grasps it level by level, with implementation carried out at every level. Third, institutional mechanisms have been further improved. The Party Central Committee has formulated and revised a series of intra-Party regulations and institutions, including the Regulations of the Communist Party of China on Disciplinary Actions, the Regulations of the Communist Party of China on Accountability, and the Provisions on Party Committees (Party Leadership Groups) Implementing the Primary Responsibility for Full and Rigorous Self-Governance of the Party, further clarifying the list of responsibilities for Party governance and self-governance. Through the simultaneous exertion of education and guidance, institutional constraints, and supervision and discipline enforcement, the responsibility chain for Party governance and self-governance has been continuously tightened, the level of institutionalization, standardization, and scientific rigor of work has been continuously raised, and Party governance and self-governance has been pushed from lax, soft, and loose to strict, tight, and hard.
Looking back at the magnificent practice since the new era, the historic and pioneering achievements in Party governance and self-governance are evident to all. However, it must also be soberly recognized that there is still a considerable gap from the requirement of "comprehensive strictness" and from the goal of "responsibility in place." In actual work, the problems of ineffective Party governance and lax Party self-governance in some localities and departments still exist to varying degrees.
For example, in terms of ideological understanding, some Party organizations and leading cadres are still absent-minded or preoccupied (心不在焉, xin bu zai yan - "heart, not, at, eye") about Party governance and self-governance, failing to shoulder the political responsibilities they should bear. Some believe that economic work is visible, tangible, and easy to produce results, while Party building work is low-profile or inconspicuous (不显山、不露水, bu xian shan, bu lu shui - "not, show, mountain; not, reveal, water"), difficult to make outstanding or add to political achievements. They therefore habitually treat professional work as a "hard task" and Party building work as a "soft indicator." Some are fully aware of the problems existing in their units and departments, but because they fear offending people or losing votes, they pretend to be ignorant or indifferent (装聋作哑, zhuang long zuo ya - "act, deaf; act, mute"), turning a blind eye, and even suppressing and covering up problems wherever possible. At bottom, this mentality reflects a failure to place the Party in the highest position in their hearts — an irresponsibility toward the Party and the Party's cause.
For example, in terms of responsibility implementation, although the responsibility chain for Party governance and self-governance is clear and definite, problems such as weak enforcement and insufficient binding force still exist. Some Party organizations and Party members and cadres hang responsibility on the wall and write it on paper, but do not carry it on their shoulders or put it into action; some are satisfied with holding meetings and issuing documents, having only general requirements but lacking targeted measures; some only manage those over whom they have appointment authority, and take no care at all of those appointed by higher-level Party organizations, believing that even if such persons have problems, they have nothing to do with the Party organization at their own level; some manage work but not people, or manage people but not their thinking, and do not pay attention to pulling ears and tugging sleeves [to give timely warnings]; some turn a deaf ear to the budding and tendency problems of cadres in the fields under their charge, allowing "minor ailments" to drag into "major calamities"; some only manage the eight hours within work and not the eight hours outside; and so on. All these phenomena of responsibility not being implemented in place will inevitably lead to the progressive attenuation of the intensity of Party governance and self-governance at each level and the progressive diminution of results at each level.
Furthermore, in terms of assessment and accountability, phenomena such as failure to investigate dereliction of duty, lax accountability, and over-broad accountability still exist. In some places, there is little accountability on decision-making issues but much accountability on specific matters; in some localities, whenever a problem occurs, regardless of its size, accountability is pursued to close the matter. This appears swift and vigorous in execution (雷厉风行, lei li feng xing - "thunder, fierce, wind, walk"), but is in fact simplistic and crude, and instead disrupts the rhythm and order of existing work, with the effect producing the exact opposite effect (适得其反, shi de qi fan - "get, obtain, its, reverse"). Some use accountability to replace management, abusing the instrument of accountability to push work forward, only setting goals and imposing tasks on subordinates without teaching methods or providing corresponding assistance and guarantees, and holding people accountable when tasks are not completed — this leads to accountability breeding resentment and inertia, with those held accountable submitting verbally but not accepting it in their hearts. Others, under the banner of "implementing higher-level instructions," mechanically and mechanically one-sidedly pursue "strictness, severity, and swiftness," giving rise to undesirable tendencies such as "accountability to make up numbers" and "accountability to take the blame." In fact, whether it is to give an explanation to superiors as quickly as possible or to hastily quell the clamor of public opinion, at bottom this is all about playing "petty calculations," worrying that one's own interests will be affected. Such behavior deviates from the original intent of accountability and instead easily produces the negative consequence of "holding one person accountable, dampening the spirits of a whole group, and leaving behind a chain of problems."
Phenomena such as these are all typical manifestations of the political responsibility for Party governance and self-governance being trodden empty and drifting away. If allowed to spread, they will not only erode the achievements of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party made over the years, but also weaken the Party's creativity, cohesion, and combat effectiveness, and undermine the Party's cause and its foundation for governance. Party governance and self-governance admits of no slackness or superficiality whatsoever; it must be grasped firmly and well with greater resolve, greater effort, and greater courage, and a responsibility pattern in which each bears his own responsibility and all coordinate as one must be improved.
Know responsibility and shoulder responsibility, promoting "responsibility to be implemented downward."
The primary responsibility, supervisory responsibility, first-responsible-person responsibility, and "one post with dual responsibilities" for Party governance and self-governance together constitute a complete responsibility chain. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "every kind of responsibility is very important, and all must be strictly implemented; they cannot be dealt with perfunctorily." Party committees (Party leadership groups) must shoulder the primary responsibility, grasp the primary business, and play the primary role, taking the initiative to grasp and manage; they must not use the supervisory responsibility of the discipline inspection commissions to replace their own primary responsibility, still less may they abandon responsibility and simply push it away. Discipline inspection and supervision organs must give play to their role as specialized supervision organs, conscientiously assisting Party committees (Party leadership groups) in advancing full and rigorous self-governance of the Party; they must neither exercise the powers of Party committees and governments nor replace functional departments in carrying out supervision. Secretaries of Party committees (Party leadership groups) must be secretaries who govern the Party, managing the team well, leading the ranks well, and grasping implementation, supporting, guiding, and supervising other members of the leadership team and secretaries of lower-level Party organizations in fulfilling their responsibility for Party governance and self-governance, promptly reminding and correcting problems when discovered, and must never become a someone who avoids responsibility and leaves everything to others (甩手掌柜, shuai shou zhang gui - "throw, hand, shopkeeper"). Other members of the leadership team must strengthen their Party consciousness, and in accordance with the requirement of "one post with dual responsibilities," lead, inspect, and supervise the work of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party in the departments and units under their charge, and conduct strict education, management, and supervision over the Party members and cadres in the departments and units under their charge. Every Party member and cadre must be a participant, not a bystander, always remembering that their first identity is that of a Communist Party member, their first duty is to work for the Party, and never forgetting the obligations and responsibilities they should fulfill.
Strictly supervise responsibility, ensuring "responsibility is implemented solidly."
Supervision occupies an important position in Party governance and self-governance and is an important guarantee for promoting the implementation of responsibility. It is necessary to give full play to the functions of supervision in discovery, correction, deterrence, and governance, and to force the level-by-level implementation of the responsibility for Party governance and self-governance through the level-by-level transmission of supervisory pressure. The daily supervision responsibility of Party organizations at all levels should be further consolidated and tightened, comprehensively employing forms such as heart-to-heart talks, inspections and spot checks, guiding democratic life meetings, accepting letters and visits and reports, and supervising the rectification of problems found in inspections and tours, so as to promote each responsible subject to truly assume the corresponding duties. Higher-level Party organizations should strengthen supervision, inspection, and inspection tours over the implementation of primary responsibility by Party committees (Party leadership groups), regularly conduct talks with the "top leaders" of lower-level Party organizations regarding their performance of the duties of the first responsible person for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, and supervise and urge the implementation of the responsibility for Party governance and self-governance. Party work departments, as the specific executive organs through which Party committees grasp full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, should do well the work of intra-Party supervision within the scope of their duties, both strengthening internal supervision over their own organs and units and strengthening daily supervision over their own systems. Functional departments in all industries and fields must adhere to the principle that "those who manage the industry must also manage Party building," resolutely preventing and correcting the problems of missing and absent supervision and weak Party governance and self-governance. When all levels, all functional lines, and all sectors are mobilized, the net of supervision will be woven tightly and densely, so that every Party organization and every Party member and cadre feels that responsibility is always present and supervision is always present.
Scientifically assess responsibility, testing "how well responsibility is shouldered."
In evaluating the actual effectiveness of implementing the responsibility for Party governance and self-governance, one cannot simply score by impression or draw conclusions by feeling; a scientific assessment and evaluation system must be established. It is necessary to further optimize the assessment mechanism for implementing the responsibility for Party governance and self-governance. Centering on questions such as what to assess, how to assess, who assesses, and how to use the results, the assessment indicators should be rationally designed and assessment methods improved, reflecting the clear orientation that implementing the responsibility for Party governance and self-governance is one's own duty and an obligation to be fulfilled. Attention should be paid to coordinating assessments of Party conduct and clean government building, ideological work, and grassroots Party building work, and, in conjunction with the assessment of leading bodies and leading cadres, an assessment system for implementing the political responsibility for Party governance and self-governance should be established and improved, with understanding of the implementation of the responsibility for Party governance and self-governance highlighted in annual assessments and related assessment work. Methods such as listening to reports, work reports and integrity statements, democratic evaluation, reviewing materials, individual discussions, and visits and research should be comprehensively employed to make assessment results more scientific and precise. The application of assessment results should be strengthened, organically integrating them with cadre selection and appointment, rank promotion, education and training, management and supervision, and accountability, so as to guide each responsible subject to consciously achieve the goals of being responsible for one's post, answerable for one's post, and diligent in one's post.
Precisely pursue accountability, resolving "what to do when responsibility is lost."
Pursuing accountability is a powerful lever for forcing the implementation of responsibility and stimulating the assumption of duties. Without a spirit of "taking things seriously" and "challenging head-on," the deterrent effect of accountability cannot be fully brought into play, and the implementation of responsibility will easily become hollow. It is necessary to improve the precise and scientific accountability mechanism, transmit pressure level by level, and promote the implementation of the responsibility for Party governance and self-governance in place through the in-place assumption of responsibility by responsible subjects, the in-place meeting of responsibility requirements, and the in-place assessment and accountability. The purpose of accountability is not to beat the object of accountability to death with one blow, but to better advance the Party's various undertakings. It is necessary to adhere to the consistency of power and responsibility and the commensurability of fault and responsibility. In accordance with the cadre management authority, the primary responsibility, direct responsibility, and supporting responsibility for managing each cadre should be clearly divided; whoever should bear the primary responsibility bears the primary responsibility, and whichever link has a problem, the responsibility of the management subject of that link is pursued. The work of accountability should be improved and standardized, the system for circulating notices on typical accountability cases should be improved, and in-depth analysis of typical cases of dereliction of duty should be conducted to dig out the root causes, achieving the effect of holding one person accountable, alerting a whole group, and promoting work in one area. Correctly treat cadres who have been held accountable: for those whose impact period has expired and who have performed well, if they meet the conditions, they should be normally used in accordance with the relevant provisions on cadre selection and appointment, so as to better bring into play the positive guiding role of accountability.
By: 王鹏
Improving the Accountability Mechanism to Make It Precise and Science-Based
Wang Peng
To fulfill the political responsibility of governing the Party with strict discipline, the key lies in rigor and the crux lies in substance. Responsibility is a military pledge; without accountability, responsibility is difficult to enforce, commitment easily falls short, and the exercise of power may lose proper standards. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, "Those who hold power must bear responsibility, those who bear responsibility must fulfill it, and those who fail in their responsibility must be held to account," and "We must uphold the unity of exercising power and bearing responsibility, truly treat the fulfillment of the political responsibility of governing the Party with strict discipline as the most fundamental political commitment, firmly grasp the word 'responsibility,' and seize the key link of 'accountability.'" As a sharp instrument of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, accountability serves the important function of using forceful investigation of responsibility to urge Party organizations at all levels and leading officials to know their responsibilities in their hearts, bear them on their shoulders, and fulfill them through action, so that the political responsibility of governing the Party with strict discipline is truly implemented, and the whole Party's ensuring orders are strictly obeyed and implemented (令行禁止, ling xing jin zhi - "command, follow; prohibit") and the smooth flow of policies and decrees are guaranteed.
Since ancient times, China has had the political tradition that "an enlightened ruler governs officials rather than the people," and the investigation of responsibility of officials has always been an important part of state governance. Ancient Chinese texts are replete with records such as "if the people are not close to one another and the five cardinal relationships are not observed, then the Minister of Education is held responsible," "if the barbarians disturb the Central Plains and bandits and thieves commit crimes, then the Minister of War is held responsible," and "if ditches and waterways are blocked, water harms the people, and vast fields lie unreclaimed, then the Minister of Works is held responsible," requiring officials at all levels to bear corresponding responsibility for dereliction of duty within the scope of their duties. Thereafter, from the gradually becoming more mature or complete (日臻成熟, ri zhen cheng shu - "day, approach; mature") of the supervisory system, to the continuous improvement of the remonstrance and censorial system, to the strict implementation of the assessment law, the governance philosophy that dereliction of duty must be questioned and abuse of power must be investigated ran through thousands of years of state governance practice, accumulating into a profound institutional and cultural gene.
A Marxist political party is an advanced political party shouldering lofty missions. The Marxist view of power can be summarized as "power is conferred by the people and power is exercised for the people." All power of Party leading officials is conferred by the people, and its essence is responsibility rather than privilege. This determines that the exercise of power must serve the interests of the people and submit to the Party's goals of struggle. For leading officials at all levels, the greater the power, the heavier the responsibility, and the greater the commitment required. Accountability is an effective means and important safeguard for confining power within the cage of institutions and ensuring that the power conferred by the Party and the people is always used to seek happiness for the people.
Looking back over the Party's more than one hundred years of struggle, the accountability system has always developed and improved alongside the advancement of the practice of governing the Party with strict discipline. The provisions of the Party Constitution adopted at the Sixth National Congress in 1928 regarding "criticism" of Party organizations and Party members, and the clauses of the Party Constitution adopted at the Seventh National Congress in 1945 regarding the removal of individual Central Committee members and alternate members who failed to fulfill their responsibilities, already contained early elements of accountability. After the founding of New China, regulations related to intra-Party disciplinary action were promulgated, establishing the initial framework of the accountability and responsibility-investigation system. The five forms of disciplinary action established in the Party Constitution adopted at the Eighth National Congress laid the basic pattern of the subsequent Party disciplinary system. The Party Constitution adopted at the Twelfth National Congress in 1982 explicitly put forward the concept of investigation of responsibility. Thereafter, the Trial Regulations of the Communist Party of China on Disciplinary Action of 1997 clarified the methods of investigating responsibility, and the Regulations on the Implementation of the Responsibility System for Party Conduct and Integrity Building of 1998 listed seven circumstances for investigating responsibility. In 2004, the expression "accountability system" appeared for the first time in Party documents. In 2009, the Interim Provisions on Accountability of Party and Government Leading Officials were promulgated, marking the first time intra-Party regulations explicitly defined the concept, circumstances, methods, and procedures of accountability. By the time of the Eighteenth National Congress of the Party, there were already many intra-Party regulations and normative documents concerning accountability, but there were also problems such as unfocused content, inconsistent formulations, and divergent standards, and the effectiveness of the system still needed further integration and improvement.
Entering the new era, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has placed accountability work in a prominent position in governing the Party with strict discipline. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, "We must adhere to the principle that where there is responsibility there must be accountability, and where there is accountability it must be strict, organically combining supervision and inspection, target assessment, and investigation of responsibility to form a powerful driving force for the implementation of laws and regulations. The content, objects, matters, subjects, procedures, and methods of accountability must all be institutionalized and proceduralized. Accountability must address both matters and individuals, and must be pursued to specific persons"; he stressed "improving the accountability mechanism to make it precise and science-based, transmitting pressure layer by layer, and promoting the implementation of the responsibility of governing the Party with strict discipline through the proper positioning of responsible subjects, the proper specification of responsibility requirements, and the proper conduct of assessment and accountability"; and he stressed "keeping a close watch on typical problems of dereliction of duty and failure to fulfill responsibility, so that holding one person accountable awakens a group and promotes work in one area." These important expositions profoundly answer a series of major questions concerning accountability, clarifying both principles and directions and specifying practical requirements. They are an important component of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and provide the fundamental guidance for accountability work.
Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Party, the pace of building the accountability system has accelerated markedly. The Third Plenary Session of the Eighteenth Central Committee explicitly proposed "formulating and implementing practical and feasible responsibility-investigation systems"; in 2016, the Regulations of the Communist Party of China on Accountability were issued, becoming the first foundational intra-Party regulation regulating the Party's accountability work; the Nineteenth National Congress of the Party formally wrote "accountability" into the Party Constitution; after the revision of the accountability regulations in 2019, responsibility was further tightened, circumstances were further specified, and procedures were further standardized; thereafter, supporting systems such as the Regulations on the Implementation of the Primary Responsibility of Party Committees (Party Groups) for Full and Rigorous Self-Governance of the Party in 2020 and the newly revised Regulations of the Communist Party of China on Disciplinary Action in 2023 were successively promulgated, forming a complete set of accountability systems with comprehensive coverage, orderly articulation, and effective operation. Under the centralized, unified leadership of the Party Central Committee, Party organizations at all levels have adhered to putting strictness first and unifying power and responsibility, making it the norm that dereliction of duty must be questioned and accountability must be strict.
At the same time, it must also be recognized that there are still many problems in current accountability work, the most prominent being the generalization and simplification of accountability, which to a certain extent affects the authority and credibility of accountability. Some responsible subjects of accountability fail to fulfill their responsibilities, are absent or misplaced, regard accountability as solely the business of the discipline inspection commission, engage in more passive than active accountability, and even resort to "making up the numbers in accountability" or having members of the leadership team "take turns sitting in the position"; some have imprecise targets of accountability, failing to focus on the "key minority," equating accountability with "finding someone to take the blame," questioning those below rather than those above, questioning the minor rather than the major, picking on the "soft persimmons," and even making grassroots cadres "carry the blame"; some have nonstandard accountability procedures, emphasizing quantity over quality, "seeking speed rather than accuracy," and hastily reaching conclusions without full investigation and verification; some use accountability to replace rectification, "closing the matter once accountability is imposed," failing to supervise the implementation of accountability decisions, failing to promote rectification and remediation, and leaving the "second half of the article" of accountability missing; and so on. These problems reflect that some Party organizations and Party leading officials are unwilling, dare not, or do not know how to assume responsibility in accountability. On the surface, these are problems of work style, capability, and method; at a deeper level, the root lies in a distorted view of power and a misplaced view of political achievements. Whether it is treating the quantity of accountability as a "political achievement" and using "volume" to demonstrate "performance," or using accountability as a "shield" to shirk one's own responsibility and simply applying "one-size-fits-all" solutions to complex problems, all of these are perfunctory responses to the political responsibility of governing the Party with strict discipline, running counter to or contrary to (背道而驰, bei dao er chi - "back, road, and; run") the requirements of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party in the new era, fundamentally deviating from the principles of Party spirit, and ultimately inevitably seriously harming the Party's image and prestige.
At present, the changes unseen in a century in the world are accelerating, and the great cause of comprehensively building a strong country and realizing national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization has entered a critical period. The more glorious the mission and the more arduous the task, the more the governance of the Party cannot be relaxed for a single moment, and the more necessary it is to make good use of the sharp instrument of accountability to rectify conduct and discipline, transmit pressure, and stimulate motivation. This requires us to take Xi Jinping's thought on Party building as the guide, take the Two Upholds (两个维护) as the fundamental principle and primary task, closely focus on prominent problems such as the weakening of Party leadership, the deficiency of Party building, and the ineffective implementation of the Party Central Committee's decisions and arrangements, and focus on improving the accountability mechanism to make it precise and science-based, so as to promote Party organizations and leading officials at all levels to work and start businesses while knowing, bearing, and fulfilling their responsibilities.
To improve the accountability mechanism to make it precise and science-based, the first step is to manage all types of responsible subjects of accountability well. Party committees (Party groups) should fulfill the primary responsibility for full and rigorous self-governance of the Party and strengthen leadership over accountability work in their own regions, departments, and units; discipline inspection commissions should fulfill their special supervisory responsibilities and assist Party committees at the same level in carrying out accountability work, and discipline inspection commissions' dispatched (stationed) agencies should carry out accountability work in accordance with their duties and authority; Party work organs should perform supervisory duties in accordance with their functions and implement accountability work in their own organs, systems, and fields. Looking at the actual situation, the role of various responsible subjects of accountability is still unbalanced, with some lacking a strong sense of proactive commitment and some lacking close coordination and cooperation. Party committees (Party groups), discipline inspection commissions, and Party work organs at all levels must resolutely shoulder the political responsibility of governing the Party with strict discipline, put themselves into the picture, put their duties into the picture, and put their work into the picture, dare to confront problems head-on, hold accountable whoever fails to fulfill responsibility, pursue accountability to whatever level it should reach, resolutely oppose formalism and bureaucratism, promote the fulfillment of duties through the normalization of accountability, and effectively create a strict atmosphere and establish a sound ethos.
Precision in the targets of accountability is the prerequisite for precise accountability. The accountability regulations explicitly stipulate that the targets of accountability are Party organizations and Party leading officials, with the focus on Party committees (Party groups), Party work organs and their leading members, and discipline inspection commissions, their dispatched (stationed) agencies, and their leading members. The reason for focusing on these key targets is determined by the special position of leading organs and leading officials in governing the Party with strict discipline. Only when leading organs and leading officials are properly managed can they set an example for those below, transmit pressure layer by layer, and make accountability more authoritative and persuasive. It is necessary to clarify the boundaries of power and responsibility of key targets, adhere to the unity of power and responsibility and the proportionality of fault and responsibility, hold accountable whoever bears the responsibility, treat problems according to the nature of the problem, and adopt whatever accountability method should be adopted, so that people are convinced in both mind and heart and the organic unity of political effect, disciplinary and legal effect, and social effect is achieved. In particular, it is necessary to prevent the improper extension of accountability targets to ordinary cadres, resolutely correct deviations such as "serving different dishes according to the guest" and avoiding the important while dwelling on the trivial in accountability, and ensure that accountability is impartial, neither wronging anyone nor letting anyone off.
Rigorous procedures and science-based standards are important guarantees for improving the quality of accountability work. Accountability is a very serious political task that cannot be based on subjective assumptions and cannot tolerate the slightest falsehood; it must be strictly conducted in accordance with regulations and discipline. This is responsible to the Party organizations and Party leading officials being held accountable, and even more so to the cause of the Party and the people. The newly revised Regulations of the Communist Party of China on Disciplinary Action of 2023, in articulation with the accountability regulations, added provisions for imposing corresponding disciplinary action on those who abuse accountability or are seriously irresponsible in accountability work, with the aim of preventing the generalization and abuse of accountability. It is necessary to firmly establish awareness of discipline and law, procedures, and evidence, specify the circumstances of accountability in detail, standardize accountability procedures, improve internal control mechanisms, and confine the power of accountability within the cage of institutions. It should be recognized that the purpose of accountability is not to bind the hands and feet of cadres or to control people to death, but to correct inaction, slow action, arbitrary action, and false action, and to encourage loyalty, willingness to take responsibility, courage to assume responsibility, and good performance. It is necessary to adhere to the combination of strict management and care, promote cadres to better assume responsibility and act through precise and standardized accountability, and maximize the release of the positive effect of the system.
The effect of accountability must ultimately be reflected in promoting the improvement and enhancement of work. Making an accountability decision only completes the "first half of the article"; promoting the implementation of the accountability decision, urging the accountable subjects to deeply learn lessons and carry out rectification and remediation, and doing the ideological and political work of the accountable subjects well constitute the "second half of the article" of accountability. Only by deepening and substantiating the "second half of the article" can we avoid "closing the matter once accountability is imposed" and achieve the effect of using past punishments as a warning for the future (惩前毖后, cheng qian bi hou - "punish, before, caution, after") and correcting mistakes to help people improve (治病救人, zhi bing jiu ren - "treat, disease, save, person"). It is necessary to improve the system for publicizing and exposing typical accountability problems, improve the mechanism of promoting rectification through case analysis, and strive to achieve the goal of holding one subject accountable, analyzing one type of problem, plugging a series of loopholes, and educating a group of cadres. It is necessary to do a good job of follow-up visits with accountable cadres, both helping them recognize their mistakes and learn lessons and educating and guiding them to let go of their burdens and set out with fewer burdens or lighter responsibilities (轻装上阵, qing zhuang shang zhen - "light, equipment, mount, battle"). It is necessary to strengthen supervision and inspection, promptly correct problems of abuse of accountability and improper accountability, and continuously improve the level of precision and scientific rigor of accountability work.
Author's affiliation: Publicity Department of the CPC Central Commission for Discipline Inspection and the National Supervisory Commission
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Enhancing the Driving Force of High-Quality Development by Stimulating Social Vitality
Qiushi Commentary
Social vitality is a window through which to observe the driving force of a country's development. The meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee held on July 30 emphasized the need to "strengthen the driving force of development and stimulate social vitality" and made important arrangements, fully demonstrating the high importance the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core attaches to the issue of social vitality, and carrying strong practical pertinence and long-term guiding significance. We must deeply grasp the intrinsic connection between development momentum and social vitality, fully stimulate the vitality of the whole society in undertaking endeavors, innovating, and creating, inject stronger endogenous momentum into high-quality development, and promote the sustained progress of our country's economy toward new, superior, and better development.
In the first half of this year, China's economy pressed forward despite pressure, with GDP growing 4.7 percent year on year, continuing to rank among the forefront of major global economies. The development trend of the economy's momentum turning toward the new and its structure turning toward the superior has become more evident, with new drivers of growth represented by high-end manufacturing contributing more than 40 percent to economic growth, and chain-leading innovative enterprises with core technologies and specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative small and medium-sized enterprises focusing on niche sectors emerging at an accelerated pace and growing robustly. The demand potential of the super-large market continues to be released, with service consumption, green consumption, and new types of consumption in particular presenting a variety of brilliant features or highlights (亮点纷呈, liang dian fen cheng - "bright, highlight, abundant"), and tourism, performing arts, and sports events enjoying great popularity, often making tickets extremely difficult to obtain (一票难求, yi piao nan qiu - "one ticket, difficult, seek"). The flows of people, goods, information, and capital are highly active, with the daily volume of express deliveries exceeding 550 million items, more than the total of all other countries combined. Facing the complex situation of a complex situation of changes and chaos intertwined (变乱交织, bian luan jiao zhi - "change, chaos, interweave") in the external environment and the superimposition of new situations and old problems domestically, an important reason our economy has been able to demonstrate strong resilience lies in our solid advancement of reforms in key areas, in-depth promotion of the construction of the unified national market, focus on enhancing the adaptability and balance between supply and demand, more comprehensive improvement of the institutional system, more effective smoothing of economic circulation, and the powerful stimulation of the surging momentum and innovative vitality of high-quality development.
When society is vibrant, development has momentum. Practice has fully demonstrated that the endogenous momentum of economic development is closely related or intimately connected (息息相关, xi xi xiang guan - "breath, breath, relate") to social vitality. Only by allowing the vitality of all factors such as labor, knowledge, technology, management, and capital to burst forth in competition, and by allowing all sources of social wealth to flow fully, can development momentum be enduring, robust, and continuous and unending (源源不断, yuan yuan bu duan - "source, source, not, stop"). Conversely, if social vitality is insufficient, overly cautious and stability-seeking sentiments will be transmitted, social expectations may change accordingly, good policies may also be attenuated in transmission, resource factors will find it difficult to be effectively allocated, and development momentum may thereby weaken. Since the reform and opening up, and especially since the 18th National Congress of the Party, an important reason our country has maintained full of vitality and vigor (勃勃生机, bo bo sheng ji - "vigorous, vigorous, life, energy") and created the two miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stability that are unprecedented in the world (世所罕见, shi suo han jian - "world, what, rare, see") lies to a large extent in our resolute removal of ideological concepts and institutional and mechanistic drawbacks that hinder development, and the stimulation of the enormous vitality hidden in various social resources, various types of organizations, and various subjects.
At present, China's economy is in a critical period of accelerating the conversion of old and new drivers and the transformation of the development model, and economic operations face some difficulties and challenges. The problems of strong supply and weak demand and insufficient domestic demand remain prominent, downward pressure on consumption and investment growth is relatively large, and some industries and enterprises are encountering difficulties and experiencing divergence in production and operations. On the surface, these phenomena are issues of development momentum; at a deeper level, they reflect that the expectations, confidence, and behavioral choices of some micro-level subjects are changing, and vitality in some areas has weakened to a certain extent. On the one hand, with the adjustment and transformation of the economic development model, familiar production methods, profit models, and employment forms are changing, and some enterprises and workers find it difficult to adapt for a time. On the other hand, the world is experiencing intensified changes and turmoil, with more uncertain and unpredictable factors, and "black swan" and "gray rhino" events occur from time to time, with violent fluctuations in the external environment constantly impacting people's existing perceptions and psychological expectations. Under the superimposed influence of complex domestic and international factors, some enterprises tend to hold cash and wait, not daring to expand investment or increase employment, and some workers tend to seek stability and avoid risk, not daring to easily switch tracks or venture into entrepreneurship, resulting in a slowdown in the flow of resource factors, obstructions in the linkage of production, distribution, circulation, and consumption links, making economic circulation unsmooth and increasing pressure on economic growth.
The strength of social vitality fundamentally depends on whether the relations of production and productive forces, the superstructure and the economic base, and national governance and social development are mutually compatible. The deep-seated reason for the weakening of vitality in some areas at present is that, as China's economic development stage, environment, and conditions have changed, the institutional mechanisms in some areas no longer match practical needs and development requirements and need to be improved in step with the times. In recent years, new quality productive forces have developed at an accelerated pace, and the relations of production compatible with them have also been improved more quickly, but the chain of transformation of scientific and technological achievements still needs to be further smoothed, mechanisms for intellectual property protection and the distribution of innovation returns need to be improved, and the flow of resource factors across regions, across industries, and across forms of ownership still faces some visible or invisible barriers. The development environment for the private economy has continued to optimize, but long-term mechanisms for regulating law enforcement involving enterprises and resolving the problem of overdue payments of enterprise accounts need to be continuously improved, mechanisms for the coordinated and integrated development of large, medium, and small enterprises need to be improved, and the relationship between platform enterprises and operators and workers within platforms needs to be further straightened out. The new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is reshaping employment forms and skill demands, placing new and higher requirements on the institutional mechanisms for promoting high-quality and full employment. In addition, the supply of public services such as medical care, elderly care, and childcare still falls short of the people's expectations, and the living costs and risks of some families have increased, which to a certain extent also affects the ability and willingness to consume, invest, and undertake endeavors.
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "to advance Chinese modernization, it is necessary to further comprehensively deepen reform and opening up, continuously liberate and develop the social productive forces, and liberate and enhance social vitality." It should be recognized that our country has a population of more than 1.4 billion, the world's largest middle-income group, and abundant talent resources, with the advantage of human resources rapidly shifting from a quantity dividend to a quality dividend, new types of production factors such as data continuously empowering traditional industries, and obvious advantages in the super-large market and strong production capacity. Relying on further comprehensively deepening reform to fully leverage advantages and tap potential will surely open up broader space for the high-quality development of our country's economy. In the current and coming period, in the face of the bottlenecks and obstacles restricting the construction of the new development pattern and the promotion of high-quality development, as well as the difficult and painful issues in people's livelihoods, greater attention should be paid to using reform methods to solve development problems, accelerating the construction of a high-level socialist market economy system, striving to promote better compatibility between the relations of production and productive forces, the superstructure and the economic base, and national governance and social development, fully mobilizing and bringing into play the enthusiasm, initiative, and creativity of the hundreds of millions of people, and continuously enhancing the driving force of high-quality development in the process of stimulating social vitality.
Coordinate the relationship between an effective market and a well-functioning government to form an economic order that is both "vibrant" and "well-managed." Handling the relationship between the government and the market is a major issue that must be properly resolved to stimulate market vitality. At present, problems of government absence and overreach still exist to varying degrees. The key to coordinating the relationship between an effective market and a well-functioning government lies in regulating government behavior and effectively accelerating the transformation of government functions. Only when the government better plays its role in its own areas of responsibility can the market play a decisive role in resource allocation. Solidly promote the construction of a law-based economy and a credit-based economy, take the lead in abiding by market rules, maintain good market order, and focus on correcting market failures. Respect and bring into play the decisive role of the market, leave economic activities that the market mechanism can effectively regulate to the market, prevent improper intervention in the activities of micro-level subjects, refrain from protectionism and self-enclosed small cycles, further amplify the scale effect and agglomeration effect of our market, and give all types of business entities greater space to develop the economy and create wealth.
Resolutely remove various obstacles and barriers to create a fair and orderly market competition environment. A fair and orderly market competition environment is the basic guarantee for promoting the smooth flow of goods, factors, and resources, allowing the vitality of all types of production factors to burst forth in competition, and promoting the efficient allocation of resources. Persist in advancing in depth the construction of the unified national market, unify basic market institutions, unify market infrastructure, unify the standards of government conduct, unify market supervision and law enforcement, and unify factor and resource markets, continuously expand opening up to the outside world and internally, form a development situation in which every person making full use of their talents (人尽其才, ren jin qi cai - "people, all, their, talent"), making full use of all resources (物尽其用, wu jin qi yong - "things, all, their, use"), making full use of all land resources (地尽其力, di jin qi li - "land, all, its, strength"), and goods flow freely, promote the survival of the fittest among enterprises, and enable more innovative enterprises to stand out. Continuously optimize the economic development environment, regulate local investment promotion and enterprise competition behavior, continue comprehensive rectification of "involution-style" competition, and guide relevant industries to return to value competition and rational competition. Improve the governance mechanism for platform enterprises and promote the standardized and healthy development of the platform economy. In recent years, enterprise accounts receivable have continued to grow rapidly, with the average collection period lengthening and the difficulty of clearing arrears increasing, becoming a chronic and stubborn disease troubling enterprises. Normalize the resolution of the problem of overdue enterprise accounts and resolutely clean up and rectify malicious arrears.
Take multiple measures to safeguard and improve people's livelihoods and promote social fairness and justice. Solving the urgent difficulties and concerns of the people is an important way to stimulate social vitality. We should adhere to the employment-first strategy, improve the employment support system for key groups, strengthen vocational skills training, promote effective linkage between educational supply and industrial demand, and enable more workers to achieve stable employment and career development through their own efforts. Optimize the pattern of primary distribution, increase the intensity of income distribution adjustment, focus on raising the share of resident income in the national income distribution, raise the share of labor remuneration in primary distribution, and steadily expand the size of the middle-income group. Accelerate the improvement of public service and social security systems for medical care, elderly care, and childcare, strengthen the protection of the rights and interests of flexible employment personnel and workers in new forms of employment, and effectively reduce the people's worries about the future. Continuously improve the institutional mechanisms for orderly public participation in social governance, smooth and regulate channels for expressing demands, coordinating interests, and safeguarding rights, and enhance social identity and consolidate development consensus through joint construction, joint governance, and shared benefits.
Create a social environment that encourages exploration and make respecting innovation and creation a social norm. The full flow of social vitality cannot be separated from institutional guarantees and a social environment that tolerate exploration, support innovation, and encourage responsibility. We should adhere to unifying strict management and supervision with encouraging responsibility, establish and practice a correct view of political achievements, improve the differentiated assessment and evaluation system, and encourage the vast number of Party members and cadres to combine the decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee with the actual conditions of their own regions and departments and carry out work creatively. Improve the talent evaluation and incentive mechanisms, make good use of and activate all types of talent, and form a favorable environment in which everyone is willing to innovate, dares to innovate, and is able to innovate. Respect the pioneering spirit of the grassroots and the masses, show more patience and tolerance toward new things and new explorations, and let the spirit of daring to think, dare to act, and dare to be first prevail throughout society. Vigorously promote the good social trend of labor creating wealth, practical work creating achievements, and struggle creating happiness, and prevent the breeding and spread of undesirable ideas such as contempt for labor, getting something for nothing, reaping the fruits of others' labor, and passively lying flat.
Return to TopBy: 曲青山
Advancing with the times was Comrade Jiang Zemin's distinctive intellectual character
Qu Qingshan
General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the conference commemorating the 110th anniversary of Comrade Jiang Zemin's birth, emphasizing the need to earnestly study Comrade Jiang Zemin's rock-solid political conviction, his sincere and profound devotion to the people, his innovative spirit of advancing with the times, his strategic thinking marked by deep foresight, and his resolute and courageous extraordinary boldness. Among these, advancing with the times was Comrade Jiang Zemin's highly condensed summation of the theoretical character of Marxism, and it was also his distinctive intellectual character as a great Marxist. Comrade Jiang Zemin, concise and to the point (言简意赅, yan jian yi gai - "words, concise, meaning, succinct"), elucidated the core essence and spiritual substance of advancing with the times: "To advance with the times means that all of the Party's theory and work must embody the character of the times, grasp the laws of development, and be rich in creativity." Studying in depth Comrade Jiang Zemin's innovative spirit of advancing with the times and drawing wisdom and strength from it is of great significance for continuously creating new achievements worthy of the times and the people.
Advancing with the times to grasp the general trend of the era
Advancing in the logic of historical progress and developing in the currents of the times is a valuable experience of our Party in governing and rejuvenating the country. Being adept at observing the general trend of the world and correctly grasping the requirements of the times is the basic prerequisite for making good use of this important experience. Comrade Jiang Zemin emphasized: "Only by understanding the general trend of the world can we plan well the overall domestic situation and concentrate our strength on running our own affairs well." Standing at the strategic height of historical progress and the development of the times, with profound historical thinking and a broad world perspective, he grasped the general trend of the era by advancing with the times, and always insisted on promoting the development of the cause by proceeding from the ever-changing reality.
For example, regarding the multipolarization of the world, Comrade Jiang Zemin believed that the dissolution of the Soviet Union "was the most significant change in the international situation since the end of the Second World War. It marked the end of the bipolar structure and the entry of the world into a transitional period of development toward multipolarization." In April 1997, Comrade Jiang Zemin pointed out in a speech at the Russian State Duma that "the world is moving toward multipolarization, and this is a prominent feature of the current international situation." Comrade Jiang Zemin accurately grasped the historical trend of world multipolarization, and proceeding from consolidating and developing a peaceful international environment favorable to our country, he led us in pursuing an independent foreign policy of peace and actively promoted the establishment of a just and rational new international political and economic order.
For example, regarding economic globalization, Comrade Jiang Zemin believed that "economic globalization is an objective trend that emerges along with the development of social productive forces" and that "no country can place itself outside the international community or detach itself from the great world market." In December 2000, at an enlarged meeting of the Central Military Commission, Comrade Jiang Zemin keenly pointed out that "economic globalization is a double-edged sword," and that Western developed countries "attempt to achieve a unified capitalist world through economic globalization, which poses severe challenges and threats to the economic sovereignty and national security of the vast number of developing countries." He repeatedly emphasized that in the tide of economic globalization, it is necessary to "seek advantage and avoid harm, and grasp the initiative."
For example, regarding the new scientific and technological revolution, Comrade Jiang Zemin believed that "in the twenty-first century, world science, technology, and productive forces will surely achieve new revolutionary breakthroughs." He enriched and developed Comrade Deng Xiaoping's thinking that science and technology constitute a primary productive force, and promptly put forward far-sighted major decisions such as implementing the strategy of rejuvenating the country through science and education and raising the scientific quality of the entire nation, emphasizing that "we must seize the opportunity of the new scientific and technological revolution" and that "scientific and technological progress and innovation must always become a powerful driving force for the cause of building socialism with Chinese characteristics and a solid foundation for the Chinese nation to stand proudly among the world's advanced nations."
It was precisely on the basis of in-depth analysis and correct assessment of the general trend of the era that Comrade Jiang Zemin, assessing the situation to decide on appropriate action (审时度势, shen shi du shi - "examine, time, measure, situation"), made two major strategic judgments of far-reaching significance: first, the judgment on the theme of the era. In October 1992, at the Fourteenth National Congress of the Party, he clearly stated: "Peace and development remain the two major themes of the world today." Thereafter, on a series of important domestic and international occasions, including the Fifteenth National Congress of the Party, the United Nations Millennium Summit, and the Sixteenth National Congress of the Party, he repeatedly expounded this important judgment. Second, the judgment on the important period of strategic opportunity. In May 2002, Comrade Jiang Zemin clearly stated: "Having a holistic view of the overall situation (纵观全局, zong guan ju bu - "vertical, view, whole, pattern"), the first one or two decades of the twenty-first century constitute an important period of strategic opportunity for our country that we must firmly grasp and in which we can accomplish great things." Shortly thereafter, this major judgment was written into the report of the Sixteenth National Congress of the Party. Comrade Jiang Zemin firmly grasped the pulse and opportunities of the development of the times and led our Party to stand firmly at the forefront of the tide of the times.
Understanding the general trend of world development and keeping up with the tide of the times is an extremely important subject that requires constant renewal. Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has advanced with the times in observing the era, grasping the era, and leading the era, coordinating the overall strategic situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation with changes unseen in a century, profoundly understanding the new features and new requirements brought by the development and changes in the principal contradiction of our society, calmly responding to the new contradictions and new challenges brought by the complex and volatile international environment, both strengthening confidence and resolve that the path must not change and the will must not waver, and accurately identifying changes, scientifically responding to changes, and actively seeking change, firmly grasping the historical initiative in the development of the Party and the country's cause.
Advancing with the times to promote the Party's theoretical innovation
The history of the Sinicization of Marxism is a history of our Party's theoretical innovation carried out by advancing with the times. Comrade Jiang Zemin attached great importance to theoretical innovation, pooled the wisdom of the entire Party to establish the important thought of the Three Represents, further answered the questions of what socialism is and how to build socialism, creatively answered the questions of what kind of Party to build and how to build it, deepened our understanding of the laws governing the advancement of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics and the strengthening of Party building under new conditions of the times, and, with new ideas, viewpoints, and conclusions, inherited, enriched, and developed Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought, and Deng Xiaoping Theory.
Regarding why theoretical innovation should be promoted, Comrade Jiang Zemin, based on the theoretical character of Marxism, emphasized that "the application of the basic principles of Marxism must shift with changes in historical conditions; this is also a basic principle of Marxism"; based on the historical experience accumulated by the Party through long-term struggle, he emphasized that "whenever we closely combine practice and continuously promote theoretical innovation, the Party's cause is full of vitality and vigor; whenever the development of theory lags behind practice, the Party's cause will suffer damage, or even encounter setbacks"; based on the urgent requirements of advancing reform and opening up and socialist modernization, he emphasized that "whether viewed from the international or the domestic perspective, we face many new situations and new problems that must be answered and resolved theoretically and practically; otherwise, we cannot advance better."
Regarding how to promote theoretical innovation, Comrade Jiang Zemin emphasized that theoretical innovation must embody the character of the times, holding that "studying Marxism in a static and isolated manner, separating Marxism from its vivid development in real life and setting them in opposition to each other, leads nowhere"; emphasized that theoretical innovation must grasp the laws of development, requiring that we "be adept at using the world outlook and methodology of dialectical materialism and historical materialism to find, from the continuous understanding and grasp of historical laws, the correct direction, path, and experience that guide us forward, and continuously open up new realms for future development"; emphasized that theoretical innovation must be rich in creativity, holding that "promoting institutional innovation, scientific and technological innovation, cultural innovation, and innovation in all other aspects through theoretical innovation, continuously exploring and advancing in practice, never being complacent, and never slackening, is the way of governing the Party and the country that we must uphold for a long time."
The formation and deepening of the important thought of the Three Represents is a vivid manifestation of advancing with the times in promoting the Party's theoretical innovation. In February 2000, Comrade Jiang Zemin first proposed the important thought of the Three Represents during an inspection tour in Guangdong. From May 2000 to June 2001, he conducted inspections in Beijing, Jilin, Heilongjiang, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Zhejiang, Anhui, Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hainan, Gansu, Ningxia, and other places, and presided over nearly 30 symposiums on Party building work. During this period, he also discussed, from different angles, issues of strengthening and improving the Party's leadership under the new situation at the Central Economic Work Conference, the National United Front Work Conference, and plenary sessions of the Central Commission for Discipline Inspection, continuously enriching and perfecting the important thought of the Three Represents. In July 2001, at the conference celebrating the 80th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, Comrade Jiang Zemin comprehensively and systematically expounded the scientific connotation, spiritual essence, and practical requirements of the important thought of the Three Represents, forming a complete theoretical system. It was precisely by upholding the scientific attitude and theoretical courage of advancing with the times that Comrade Jiang Zemin, through long-term investigation, reflection, and exploration, was able to pool the wisdom of the entire Party and establish the important thought of the Three Represents, which is the most precious legacy Comrade Jiang Zemin left us.
Practice has no end, and theoretical innovation likewise has no end. Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Party, Chinese Communists with Comrade Xi Jinping as their chief representative have adhered to combining the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific realities and with China's fine traditional culture, advanced with the times in promoting the Party's theoretical innovation, scientifically answered major questions of the era such as what kind of socialism with Chinese characteristics to uphold and develop and how to uphold and develop it in the new era, what kind of socialist modernized country to build and how to build it, and what kind of long-term governing Marxist party to build and how to build it, established Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, achieved a new leap in the Sinicization and modernization of Marxism, and provided a powerful ideological weapon and scientific guide to action for advancing the great cause of building a strong country and the great rejuvenation of the nation.
Advancing with the times to promote reform and opening up
As reform deepened, how to accelerate the pace of reform and opening up and modernization under new historical conditions was a major question that the entire Party needed to answer. Through long-term reflection, Comrade Jiang Zemin clearly recognized that the original highly centralized planned economy system was no longer suited to the needs of the development of real productive forces, and that a new economic system full of vitality and vigor had to be established.
In June 1992, Comrade Jiang Zemin made a concentrated exposition on accelerating economic system reform and establishing a new economic system, clearly proposing the use of the formulation "socialist market economy system." This formulation was endorsed by Comrade Deng Xiaoping, accepted by the entire Party, and made important ideological and theoretical preparations for the successful convening of the Fourteenth National Congress of the Party. At the Fourteenth National Congress of the Party, Comrade Jiang Zemin clearly stated that "the goal of our country's economic system reform is to establish a socialist market economy system," and further systematically explained its connotation. Comrade Jiang Zemin emphasized that establishing and perfecting the socialist market economy system "will be a long-term development process and an arduous and complex social systems project."
To smoothly advance this arduous and complex social systems project, Comrade Jiang Zemin focused on two things: first, on the basis of in-depth investigation and research, "promptly formulate an overall plan and implement it in a planned and step-by-step manner"; second, "rapidly popularize basic knowledge of the socialist market economy among the broad ranks of cadres." He not only devoted tremendous effort to drafting the documents of the Third Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee of the Party, but also suggested that relevant departments compile the book What Is the Socialist Market Economy. In the preface he personally wrote for the book, Comrade Jiang Zemin pointed out: "The socialist market economy is a great school, and everyone should consciously enter this school to study." In November 1993, the Third Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee of the Party concretized the goals and basic principles of economic system reform proposed at the Fourteenth National Congress of the Party and formulated the overall plan for the socialist market economy system. In September 1997, the Fifteenth National Congress of the Party established the basic economic system with public ownership as the mainstay and diverse forms of ownership developing together, and the distribution system with distribution according to work as the mainstay and multiple modes of distribution coexisting, pushing the reform aimed at establishing the socialist market economy system to develop further in depth.
Reform and opening up are intrinsically unified. The deeper the reform, the higher the requirements for the level of opening up; the higher the level of opening up, the greater the promoting effect on reform. Comrade Jiang Zemin repeatedly emphasized: "Implementing opening up to the outside world is a major decision for China to advance modernization and also a long-term basic state policy of China." He proposed adhering to the combination of "bringing in" and "going out," emphasizing that these "are two complementary aspects of the opening-up policy, and neither can be dispensed with."
To adapt to the new situation of economic globalization, deeply integrate into the world economic system, and expand the space for opening up, Comrade Jiang Zemin led us through long, arduous, and complex negotiations and struggles to formally join the World Trade Organization in December 2001. This marked the entry of our country's opening up into a new stage. Comrade Jiang Zemin pointed out: "We expended great effort to join the WTO, and we must expend even greater effort to do all the response work well." In February 2002, at the special research class for principal leading cadres at the provincial and ministerial level on "The International Situation and the World Trade Organization," Comrade Jiang Zemin emphasized that "continuing to advance reform and opening up and socialist modernization under the new situation after joining the WTO" "will be a very practical and concrete test of the wisdom and strength of all Party comrades. This is a rather difficult threshold placed before all Party comrades, but this threshold must be crossed; there can only be success, no failure."
Establishing the socialist market economy system and joining the World Trade Organization were two major events of great historical significance in the course of our country's reform and opening up. They promoted the historic transformation of our country from a highly centralized planned economy system to a vibrant socialist market economy system, and from a closed and semi-closed state to all-round opening up. They not only opened up a new situation for reform and opening up and provided new powerful momentum for our country's economy, but also laid a solid foundation for the long-term development of the cause of the Party and the country.
Reform and opening up is an important magic weapon for the cause of the Party and the people to catch up with the times in great strides, and it is also the fundamental driving force for advancing Chinese modernization. Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has comprehensively deepened reform and promoted high-level opening up with unprecedented resolve and force. General Secretary Xi Jinping creatively put forward a series of new ideas, new viewpoints, and new conclusions, scientifically answering major theoretical and practical questions such as why and how to comprehensively deepen reform in the new era, and promoting historic achievements in comprehensively deepening reform in the new era.
Advancing with the times to promote Party building
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, drastic changes occurred in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union dissolved, plunging the world socialist movement into a low ebb. Facing the major test of "whether the red banner of Chinese socialism can be carried forward," Comrade Jiang Zemin emphasized that "how things are done in China today depends critically on our Party." He profoundly summarized the historical experience of Party building, deeply analyzed the new situation facing Party building, and on the one hand reaffirmed the policy of the Party governing the Party and governing it strictly, repeatedly emphasizing that "to govern the country well, the Party must first be governed well; to govern the Party well, it must be governed strictly"; on the other hand, he emphasized that Party building must advance with the times, "continuously striving to solve new situations and new problems that arise within the Party in accordance with the development of the situation and tasks."
In June 1989, in his first important speech after being elected General Secretary of the Central Committee, Comrade Jiang Zemin emphasized: "The situation and tasks are constantly changing, and the Party's line, principles, and policies, as well as its struggle strategies, modes of activity, and working methods, must also change accordingly, but the nature of the Party cannot change, and the highest goal of communism cannot change." One is "constantly changing," the other is "cannot change" — these were precisely the two basic starting points of Comrade Jiang Zemin's approach to Party building.
Proceeding from this, Comrade Jiang Zemin clearly put forward the major proposition of advancing the new great project of Party building, promoting the display of a new atmosphere in the Party's leadership and Party building. In September 1994, the Fourth Plenary Session of the Fourteenth Central Committee of the Party elevated Party building to the height of a new great project and put forward clear goals and tasks. At this plenary session, Comrade Jiang Zemin reviewed the history of our Party's consistent strengthening of Party building and profoundly pointed out: "In the new historical period, our Party shoulders the great task of leading the people of the whole country in carrying out reform and opening up and realizing socialist modernization; this is a new revolution." For our Party to lead and advance this revolution, it must "regard advancing the new great project as its sacred responsibility." In September 1997, "the new great project of Party building" was written into the report of the Fifteenth National Congress of the Party, and the overall goal of Party building was further clarified.
How to build the Party well under new historical conditions was a brand-new subject and also an extremely arduous task. Comrade Jiang Zemin emphasized that we must not only "persist in carrying forward the Party's fine traditions and work style," but also "persist in examining ourselves with the requirements of the development of the times and strengthening and perfecting ourselves with a spirit of reform." The reason for adding the word "new" before "great project" was precisely that Party building at the time faced "new historical conditions" and "the requirements of the development of the times." In February 2000, when first proposing the important thought of the Three Represents, Comrade Jiang Zemin made a comprehensive summary of the "new historical conditions," highlighting four aspects: first, "changes in the domestic and international situation"; second, "the reality of the latest development of our country's productive forces and the profound changes in the economic system"; third, "the new development requirements put forward by the people for material and cultural life"; and fourth, "the major changes that have occurred in our Party's ranks of cadres and Party members." In May of the same year, he again emphasized the need to closely combine the new changes and new requirements in the above four aspects, "seize the major theoretical and practical issues that must be studied and resolved for strengthening and improving Party building, conduct in-depth reflection and investigation, and strive to find correct answers to problems from the combination of theory and practice."
The major theoretical and practical issues that must be studied and resolved for strengthening and improving Party building ultimately boil down to the basic question of what kind of Party to build and how to build it under new historical conditions. Comrade Jiang Zemin firmly grasped this basic question, and centering on "the two major historical subjects of improving the Party's leadership level and governance level and improving the ability to resist corruption, prevent degeneration, and withstand risks," he persevered with unremitting effort (锲而不舍, qie er bu she - "carve, and, not, give up") in advancing the new great project of Party building. For example, he carried out the "Three Emphases" education, advanced institutional building with upholding and improving democratic centralism as the main content, strengthened Party building in rural areas and enterprises, and launched the anti-corruption struggle starting from issues strongly reflected by the masses, among other measures. These major measures promoted the new great project of Party building to achieve notable results.
The most essential feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics is the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and upholding the Party's overall leadership is the only way to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics. Since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has unswervingly promoted full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, deeply advanced the new great project of Party building in the new era, and, centering on the major questions of the era of what kind of long-term governing Marxist party to build and how to build it, put forward a series of new concepts, new ideas, and new strategies for governing and managing the Party and for invigorating and strengthening the Party, forming Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and leading the way in opening up a new realm of self-revolution for a century-old major party.
The tremendous achievements made by the Party and the country in the 13 years after the Fourth Plenary Session of the Thirteenth Central Committee of the Party are inseparable from Comrade Jiang Zemin's great talent and strategic vision (雄才大略, xiong cai da lüe - "heroic, talent, great, strategy"), his key role, and his superb political leadership artistry, and are inseparable from Comrade Jiang Zemin's innovative spirit of advancing with the times. At the Sixteenth National Congress of the Party, our Party formally wrote advancing with the times, together with emancipating the mind and seeking truth from facts, into the Party Constitution as the basic connotation of the Party's ideological line. Our Party has led the people in continuously promoting theoretical and practical innovation, and after long-term efforts, since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Party, socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered the new era. In the new era, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has united and led the people of all ethnic groups across the country, with confidence and self-reliance, upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, promoting historic achievements and historic changes in the cause of the Party and the country, making the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation enter an irreversible historical process and display unprecedented bright prospects. On the new journey of the new era, the best commemoration of Comrade Jiang Zemin is to unite more closely around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, fully implement Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, deeply comprehend the decisive significance of the Two Establishments (两个确立), resolutely achieve the Two Upholds (两个维护), and, with one heart and one mind, forge ahead with determination, striving to comprehensively advance the building of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization.
Author: Director of the Institute of Party History and Literature of the CPC Central Committee, President of the Chinese Society for the History of the CPC
Return to TopBy: 王晓萍
Resolving Structural Employment Contradictions through High-Quality Vocational Skills Training
Wang Xiaoping
Employment is the foundation of people's livelihood, and skills are the foundation of employment. Vocational skills training connects workers' employment and income growth on one side and industrial transformation and upgrading on the other; it is an important measure for unblocking bottlenecks between labor supply and demand and resolving structural employment contradictions. General Secretary Xi Jinping attaches great importance to vocational skills training, emphasizing the need to "carry out vocational skills training on a large scale and accelerate the cultivation of large numbers of high-quality workers and technical and skilled personnel," and to "improve the lifelong vocational skills training system and promote the resolution of structural employment contradictions." The "15th Five-Year Plan for Implementing the Employment Priority Strategy," released in June this year, is a strategic measure for implementing the spirit of the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Party and the outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, making specific arrangements for vocational skills training. We must adhere to the close integration of investment in things and investment in people, continuously promote the high-quality development of vocational skills training, accelerate the building of a workforce of knowledge-based, skilled, and innovative workers, and provide solid skills support for promoting full and high-quality employment.
Vocational skills training is a skill-upgrading activity carried out around the actual needs of workers in employment and entrepreneurship, job performance, and career transition. It is the "recharging station" of a worker's career and a common policy tool used by countries around the world to respond to industrial change and stabilize the basic employment picture. Compared with other countries, China's vocational skills training has always adhered to a people-centered value orientation, possessing the dual attributes of livelihood security and industrial support, covering a broader range of groups with more solid policy underpinnings, demonstrating a unique institutional advantage. In the early days of the founding of New China, a technical worker training system was built on the basis of technical schools, supplying large numbers of backbone personnel for the establishment of an independent and complete industrial system. After reform and opening up, in response to the needs of market economy development and industrial structure adjustment, the cultivation of skilled personnel accelerated its transformation toward marketization and socialization, strongly supporting the rise of manufacturing and the transfer employment of rural labor. Entering the new era, the Party Central Committee, based on the overall situation of high-quality development, has deeply implemented the strategy of revitalizing the country through science and education, the strategy of strengthening the country through talent, and the innovation-driven development strategy, established and promoted a lifelong vocational skills training system, carried out large-scale vocational skills training on a regular basis, continuously improved the mechanisms for cultivating, using, evaluating, and incentivizing skilled personnel, and promoted the continuous expansion of the scale, continuous optimization of the structure, and steady improvement of the quality of skilled personnel. At present, the total number of skilled personnel in the country exceeds 220 million, accounting for about 30 percent of total employed persons, of whom more than 72 million are highly skilled personnel. This not only provides solid talent support for high-quality economic and social development but also allows more and more workers to change their life destinies by virtue of a unique skill or specialty (一技之长, yi ji zhi chang - "one skill, one specialty").
The "15th Five-Year Plan" period is a critical stage in the transformation of China's vocational skills training from scale expansion to simultaneous improvement in quantity and quality. At present, with the rapid iteration of artificial intelligence technology, the acceleration of industrial transformation and upgrading, and the growing needs of the people for a better life, a large number of new industries, new business forms, and new occupations are emerging, which not only harbors enormous employment growth potential but also places higher demands on the skill quality of workers. For example, the gap for highly skilled personnel in emerging industries such as artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing, and the digital economy continues to widen; the demand for quality and refined services in livelihood fields such as elderly care, childcare, and health care continues to be released; and the ratio of job vacancies to jobseekers in the labor market for skilled positions in key fields has remained above 2 for years. Compared with the market's refined, dynamic, and diversified skill demands, China's vocational skills training still has some shortcomings and challenges, mainly including a relatively low degree of marketization, insufficient investment in high-level training, career development channels for skilled personnel that are not yet smooth enough, and a social atmosphere that still does not strongly advocate skills and respect labor. These problems are essentially caused by the lack of synchronization between technological iteration, industrial change, and the updating and upgrading of the human resources development system, and they are also the focal points and breakthroughs for improving the quality and effectiveness of vocational skills training and resolving structural employment contradictions. Strengthening vocational skills training and comprehensively improving the skill quality of workers is not only a livelihood project for implementing the employment priority strategy and safeguarding the livelihoods of countless families (千家万户, qian jia wan hu - "thousand families, ten thousand households"), but also a development project for empowering industrial transformation and upgrading and consolidating national competitiveness. We must adhere to a systematic perspective and follow the laws of development, promote the relevant departments, business entities, and social forces to find their proper positions and coordinate their efforts, and accelerate the fundamental transformation of vocational skills training from "whether it exists" to "whether it is good."
Vocational skills training must first precisely align with industrial development and employment needs, so that whatever the market lacks and whatever workers need, training teaches, helping workers learn real skills and secure stable employment. In the past period, some localities were accustomed to "the government serving the dishes" when carrying out training, and some training content was not closely connected with market demand, so the pertinence and effectiveness of training still needed further enhancement. In recent years, we have deeply implemented the "Skills Illuminate the Future" training action, the core of which is to firmly establish a demand orientation, changing from "the government serving the dishes" to "industry and the masses ordering the dishes," with the aim of making training hit the mark and warm the heart, helping workers achieve skills-based employment and skills-based income growth, and making skills truly a light that illuminates life and creates a better life. All regions and relevant industry authorities, based on their own actual conditions and on the basis of in-depth investigation of market labor demand and public demands, have strengthened the supply of training resources in a targeted manner, and the overall quality and effectiveness of training have continued to improve. In the next step, we should focus on the needs of industrial development and livelihood service fields, center on the employment needs of key groups such as college graduates, migrant workers, and unemployed persons, and make every effort to strengthen the supply of high-quality training. In response to the rapid development of new occupations and new business forms, we should continue to improve the dynamic development mechanism for new occupations, accelerate the development and construction of new occupation standards and training courses, and fill the shortcomings in skills training in emerging fields. In addition, we should actively promote the application and empowerment of new technologies such as artificial intelligence, running through all links including demand research and judgment, occupation development, training standard construction, skills evaluation, and employment matching, promote the iterative upgrading of traditional training models toward digitalization, intelligence, personalization, and scenario-based approaches, and continuously improve the effectiveness of skills training in adapting to industrial development and serving the employment of the masses.
To do vocational skills training well, it will not do for the government to perform a "one-man show"; it requires a "chorus" of multiple parties, and activating the main role of enterprises in training is particularly critical. As the main users of skilled personnel, most new processes, new technologies, and new standards are first born in enterprise production scenarios, so enterprises have the most say in what kind of skilled personnel are needed and how to cultivate them. In recent years, with the implementation and landing of skills-strengthening enterprise policies such as the new enterprise apprenticeship system, industry-education integration and school-enterprise cooperation have continued to deepen, the industry-education-evaluation skills ecosystem chain has been improved and promoted, and the scale and quality of enterprise skilled personnel cultivation have been steadily improving, but the overall effectiveness has not yet been fully released. Some enterprises have a tendency to "emphasize use over cultivation," with insufficient investment in training funds; some enterprises, limited by conditions such as funds, venues, and teachers, have weak capacity to carry out training independently; some enterprises have insufficient linkage between training and skills evaluation, salary, and promotion, resulting in insufficient internal motivation for employees to participate in training. Tracing the roots, there is the externality problem of training caused by labor mobility, which makes enterprises worry about working hard only to benefit someone else (为他人作嫁衣, wei ta ren zuo jia yi - "for others, make wedding clothes"), so their willingness to invest long-term is not strong; there is also the lag and uncertainty of training returns, which makes it difficult for enterprises to balance short-term costs and long-term dividends, with the weight of skill factors in salary distribution being relatively low; and there is also the objective bottleneck of an imperfect industry collaborative talent cultivation mechanism, making it difficult for enterprises alone to support systematic and regular training. To solve these problems, we cannot address symptoms rather than the root cause (头痛医头、脚痛医脚, tou tong yi tou, jiao tong yi jiao - "head hurts, treat head; foot hurts, treat foot"); we must enhance the creativity of our work, build an integrated training system linking government and enterprises, industry and enterprises, and schools and enterprises, and open up all the bottlenecks and difficulties in enterprise talent cultivation in an all-round way. We should increase the intensity of expansion and promotion, provide comprehensive empowerment in subsidies, credit, tax and fee preferences, and other aspects, support more leading enterprises in taking the lead in forming industry-education-evaluation skills ecosystem chains, guide technical colleges to actively integrate and deepen the teaching reform of integrating work and study, and promote the sharing and exchange of resources and factors between schools and enterprises and the resonance of talent cultivation with industrial demand. It needs to be emphasized that giving play to the main role of enterprises in training does not mean the government lets go and does not manage. We must handle the relationship between the government and the market, better play the government's role in areas of market failure, focus on key groups that are not yet employed, and around general basic skills and rigid public service job types, carry out free bottom-line training through government purchase of services and other means, and firmly hold the bottom line of people's livelihood and employment.
The value of vocational skills training is not merely to impart a unique skill or specialty, but also to build a growth channel for workers, enabling them to stand on their own with ability and have prospects for development. In our research, we sometimes hear concerns from workers, such as "after learning skills and being rated at a level, how wide can the path of career development go?" These concerns reflect that workers' growth aspirations are continuously upgrading with economic and social development, and the growth channels for skilled personnel also need to be broadened and improved keeping pace with the times (与时俱进, yu shi ju jin - "with time, go forward"). Objectively speaking, the growth channels for skilled personnel in China have gone through different stages such as the worker technical grade system, the vocational qualification system, and the vocational skill level system. Each step of exploration has been devoted to building a solid institutional ladder for the growth and success of skilled workers, but there are still problems such as vertical promotion needing to be unblocked and horizontal conversion needing to be expanded, which to a certain extent affect the enthusiasm of workers to learn skills. Vertically, the traditional five-level skill level system has both the structural shortcomings of too few promotion levels and limited career space, and faces the practical constraints of insufficient authority, circulation, and recognition of skills evaluation. Horizontally, there are still implicit identity boundaries between skilled personnel and professional and technical personnel; the mutual recognition and conversion mechanism for various learning outcomes such as vocational training, academic education, job practice, and skills competitions is not yet sound; and skills training experience is difficult to incorporate into the formal qualification system. To further break the "single-plank bridge" of career development for skilled personnel, we need to closely follow the growth expectations of workers and make the road to skills-based success wider and smoother. On the one hand, on the basis of carrying out vocational skill level evaluation with high quality, we should deeply implement the "new eight-level worker" vocational skill level system, guide enterprises to establish skill-oriented salary distribution systems, and continuously broaden the coverage of the system. On the other hand, we should steadily expand the coverage of two-way integration of evaluation for skilled personnel and professional and technical personnel, and encourage enterprises to establish two-way mobility mechanisms between skill positions and management positions and R&D positions. Looking further ahead, we should also accelerate the construction of a national qualification framework system, incorporate skills training experience into the formal qualification system, and build an "overpass" where various learning outcomes can be accumulated, converted, and promoted, so that every learning investment of workers can be transformed into a growth ladder and accumulated into career capital.
Skill improvement is not a one-time training or a short-term or temporary achievement (一时之功, yi shi zhi gong - "one time's achievement"), but a continuous need accompanying the entire career of a worker. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, "We must build a learning society and a learning nation where lifelong learning is pursued by all." At present, new technologies such as artificial intelligence are developing rapidly, profoundly reshaping the employment structure, shortening the "shelf life" of workers' skills, accelerating the frequency of cross-field and cross-industry career transitions, and making the demand for personalized and lifelong skill improvement increasingly urgent. Responding to industrial change, safeguarding the full-career development of workers, and cultivating human capital advantages cannot be separated from the support of a lifelong and systematic training system. In doing vocational skills training, we must both base ourselves on the present, continuously strengthen the supply of training that is quality-oriented, precise, and effective, and solve the most urgent practical problems of workers in job seeking and employment; and also look to the future, calmly do more work that lays the foundation and benefits the long term in policy mechanisms, carrier platforms, service guarantees, and other aspects, improve the lifelong vocational skills training system keeping pace with the times, guide workers to establish the concept of lifelong learning, accelerate the construction of a lifelong skills learning ecosystem in which everyone can learn, learning can happen everywhere, and learning can happen at any time, and better meet the skill improvement needs of different groups of workers at different stages of development.
The sustained and healthy development of vocational skills training cannot be separated from broad recognition and support from the whole society. Labor has never been divided into high and low, and skills naturally have myriad glories. From the precise polishing of major national equipment to the bit-by-bit guarantee of livelihood services, skilled workers in all walks of life are using their skills to support industrial development and safeguard the livelihood of the people, and they are an indispensable and important force in advancing Chinese modernization. However, for a long time, the traditional concepts of "valuing academic qualifications over skills" and "valuing management over operations" have not been fundamentally reversed, and society's understanding of the value of skills is still biased. This bias lowers the social attractiveness of skills training and has become a deep-seated cultural obstacle restricting the growth of the skilled personnel workforce. The whole society's concept of success is the result of the intertwined influence of multiple factors, and its transformation is by no means a one-day achievement. While gradually unblocking growth channels and realizing the value of skills, we should make strengthening publicity and guidance a key lever for breaking down cognitive barriers and consolidating social consensus, improve the commendation and reward system for highly skilled personnel, implement well the selection and commendation of the China Skills Award and National Technical Experts, tell well the struggle stories of achieving success through skills and serving the country through skills, extensively promote the spirit of model workers, the spirit of labor, and the spirit of craftsmanship, and continuously cultivate the social trend of honoring labor, valuing skills, and cherishing creativity. We should encourage all localities to provide convenience and guarantees for highly skilled personnel in areas such as settlement and housing, children's education, medical services, and vacation and recuperation, and continuously enhance the professional honor and sense of gain of skilled personnel. Vocational skills competitions are an important stage for skilled personnel to exchange skills and showcase their style, and also an important platform for making the value of skills seen and respected. We should improve the vocational skills competition system led by the WorldSkills Competition and headed by the National Vocational Skills Competition, adhere to promoting learning through competition, promoting training through competition, and promoting construction through competition, and promote the formation of a strong atmosphere in which the broad masses of workers, especially young people, pay attention to skills, love skills, and devote themselves to skills.
Author: Secretary of the Party Leadership Group and Minister of the Ministry of Human Resources and Social Security
Return to TopBy: 《求是》杂志记者 侯亚景
Qiushi Exclusive Interview
Striving to Unblock the Sticking Points and Obstacles Restricting the Domestic Economic Cycle
Qiushi reporter: Hou Yajing
Editor's Note:
Strengthening the domestic economic cycle is the foundation for accelerating the construction of the new development pattern and firmly grasping the initiative in development. Striving to unblock the sticking points and obstacles restricting the domestic economic cycle, and enhancing the endogenous driving force and reliability of the domestic economic cycle, are of great significance for expanding new space for domestic demand growth and promoting high-quality development. Focusing on deeply understanding and striving to unblock the sticking points and obstacles restricting the domestic economic cycle, our journal's reporter conducted an exclusive interview with Wang Yiming, former Deputy Director and Researcher of the Development Research Center of the State Council.
Reporter:
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "To construct the new development pattern, we must adhere to making the domestic economic cycle the mainstay, making domestic demand the primary driving force of our country's economic development." Currently, around accelerating the construction of the new development pattern, the Party Central Committee has placed the strengthening of the domestic economic cycle in a more prominent position. What is the strategic significance of this arrangement?
Wang Yiming:
Different stages of economic development correspond to different internal and external environments and conditions, requiring the formation of a development pattern that adapts to them, to ensure the smooth and unimpeded operation of the economic cycle and its dynamic balance. After the reform and opening up, especially after joining the World Trade Organization, our country deeply participated in the international division of labor, forming a development pattern with both markets and resources "external-oriented," which played an important role in rapidly enhancing economic strength. After the 2008 international financial crisis, anti-globalization, protectionism, and unilateralism rose, the driving force of world economic development and the driving force of the international economic cycle noticeably weakened. Our country's economic development shifted to being dominated by domestic demand, the foreign trade dependence ratio declined year by year, the supporting role of the domestic economic cycle in the economy rose significantly, and objectively, the international economic cycle and the domestic economic cycle presented a situation where one thing declines as another increases (此消彼长, ci xiao bi chang - "this, diminish; that, grow"). At the same time, the structure of production factors supporting our country's economic development underwent profound changes, and the previous conditions of "large-scale import and export" became difficult to sustain. These changes objectively require our country to accelerate the construction of a new development pattern with the domestic economic cycle as the mainstay.
The characteristic of the economies of major countries is that domestic demand is the leading force and the internal cycle is self-sustaining. Currently, the Party Central Committee has placed the strengthening of the domestic economic cycle in a more prominent position, further strengthening the mainstay status and leading role of the domestic economic cycle in the new development pattern. This is both a strategic choice to better leverage our country's advantage of a super-large market and a proactive change in response to profound changes in the external environment.
On the one hand, the mainstay status of the domestic economic cycle is continuously strengthening. Our country has a population of over 1.4 billion, the scale of the middle-income group continues to expand, and it remains firmly the world's second-largest commodity consumer market and the largest online retail market, with the advantage of the super-large market further manifesting itself; it has the world's largest, most complete, and most well-equipped industrial system and continuously enhancing scientific and technological innovation capabilities, with the quality and efficiency of the supply system continuously improving, making its position in the global industrial chain and supply chain difficult to replace. Strengthening the domestic economic cycle and accelerating the formation of a strong domestic economic circulation system is the confidence and foundation for our country's economy to achieve endogenous growth and independent development.
On the other hand, the uncertainty of the international economic cycle has increased significantly. Currently, major-country relations affect the international situation, geopolitical conflicts are characterized by ups and downs or dramatic fluctuations (跌宕起伏, die dang qi fu - "rise and fall; fluctuate"), unilateralism and protectionism are heating up, the international economic and trade order faces severe challenges, and the driving force of world economic growth is relatively weak. In contrast, in the first half of this year, our country's GDP grew by 4.7% year-on-year, continuing to maintain a leading position among the world's major economies, serving as the anchor of stability for global economic growth. Strengthening the domestic economic cycle is by no means passive defense, but rather placing more of the foothold of development domestically, using the stability of the domestic cycle to hedge against the uncertainty of the international cycle, and firmly grasping the initiative in development amid more intense international competition.
It must be recognized that strengthening the domestic economic cycle does not mean closing the door and operating in a sealed manner. In today's world of deepening economic globalization, the domestic cycle and the international cycle are things that complement and support each other (相辅相成, xiang fu xiang cheng - "mutually, assist; each other, complete") and are inseparable. Our country has deeply integrated into the world economy and the international division of labor system, and is a major trading partner of more than 160 countries and regions worldwide. On the basis of consolidating the mainstay status of the domestic economic cycle, we must be unswerving and determined in purpose (坚定不移, jian ding bu yi - "firm, steady; not, move") in expanding high-level opening up, better utilizing both domestic and international markets and resources, improving the ability to allocate global resources, and truly achieving connectivity and mutual promotion between the internal and external cycles.
Reporter:
Whether the domestic economic cycle can be smooth mainly depends on whether the supply and demand ends are generally matched and coordinated in linkage. Currently, the most prominent contradiction in the relationship between supply and demand in our country is strong supply and weak demand. How can we unblock the sticking points and obstacles to the benign interaction between supply and demand, and promote the two to achieve dynamic balance at a higher level?
Wang Yiming:
We just discussed the economic operation situation in the first half of this year. Our country's economy withstood pressure, showing a development trend of new momentum and optimized structure, but at the same time, the contradiction of strong supply and weak demand remains prominent. On the supply side, in the first half of the year, the added value of industries above designated size and the service industry grew by 5.4% and 5.2% year-on-year respectively, both higher than the GDP growth rate, with high-tech manufacturing, especially fields such as artificial intelligence and robotics, showing even stronger growth momentum; on the demand side, in the first half of the year, fixed asset investment fell by 5.7% year-on-year, and total retail sales of consumer goods grew by 1.3% year-on-year, with the overall trend clearly weaker than the supply side.
An important sign of a smooth economic cycle is that supply and demand must be balanced not only in total volume and structure, but also dynamically. Strong supply and weak demand is actually a manifestation of imbalance in the supply-demand relationship, indicating insufficient effective domestic demand. From the perspective of total volume, insufficient domestic demand has become a prominent crux affecting the national economic cycle; from the perspective of structure, the mismatch between supply and demand structures still exists, and the supply system cannot promptly and effectively adapt to changes in the demand structure. In addition, the contradiction of strong supply and weak demand is also a process of dynamic evolution, and we can examine the main causes of strong supply and weak demand from a longer time span.
Strong supply and weak demand is a structural problem formed during the process of our country's economic stage transition. Since the reform and opening up, our country's supply-demand relationship has undergone multiple rounds of changes, and economic policy has also been making decisions based on the specific circumstances (相机抉择, xiang ji jue ze - "opportunistically, choose; situation, decide") between focusing on the supply side or the demand side. In recent years, in our country's economic operation, not only has the speed of supply-side expansion slowed, but demand-side expansion has also decelerated. Changes in population structure and the acceleration of the aging process are fundamental factors triggering the slowdown in demand expansion; the deep adjustment of the real estate market has formed a demand contraction effect, thereby suppressing the expansion of consumer demand in the household sector; local government debt has gradually accumulated, debt repayment pressure has continued to increase, suppressing the expansion of investment demand. These factors have caused the speed of effective demand expansion to fail to keep up with the speed of supply expansion, and the demand side has gradually become the main constraint on economic operation.
The formation of strong supply and weak demand is also related to the development model of a long period in the past. After the reform and opening up, in order to solve the problems of shortage and insufficient supply, our country formed a development model mainly driven by investment and exports, with resource allocation and policy orientation clearly tilted toward the production field. As our country's economic development underwent a stage shift and the development model transformed to mainly relying on innovation-driven and demand-driven growth, the limitations of the traditional development model gradually emerged. While the production capacity formed by investment continued to accumulate, household consumption faced the "hard constraints" of limited growth in disposable income and insufficient social security supply, ultimately forming the unbalanced situation of strong supply and weak demand.
Overall, resolving the contradiction of strong supply and weak demand requires simultaneous efforts and coordinated cooperation from both the supply and demand ends. This is the basic requirement for enhancing the endogenous driving force and reliability of the domestic economic cycle. We must both adhere to the strategic basis of expanding domestic demand, deeply implement the special action to boost consumption, and accelerate the construction of an endogenous growth mechanism for effective investment; we must also continue to deepen supply-side structural reform, break through the sticking points and obstacles of supply constraints, use new demand to lead new supply, use new supply to create new demand, and achieve a higher level of dynamic balance between supply and demand.
Reporter:
Looking at a deeper level, the construction of the new development pattern is based on the domestic economic cycle on the basis of the unified national market, not each locality engaging in its own small cycle. How can we focus on the key points and difficulties of building the unified national market, and promote the smooth flow and efficient allocation of resources and factors in a larger scope?
Wang Yiming:
In today's world, the market is the scarcest resource. The core of deeply advancing the construction of the unified national market lies in unblocking the sticking points and obstacles restricting the economic cycle, reducing institutional transaction costs, and promoting the smooth flow of resources and factors in a larger scope. Looking further, strengthening the domestic economic cycle is aimed at the whole country, not requiring each locality to engage in its own small cycle within provinces, cities, or counties. We cannot engage in "small and complete" self-sufficiency, and certainly cannot engage in regional blockades in the name of the "internal cycle."
Currently, the construction of the unified national market has achieved positive results. The number of items on the negative list for market access has been reduced from 151 items in the 2018 version to 106 items in the 2025 version. Market-based foundational systems such as property rights protection and fair competition have been further improved, and the scale effect and agglomeration effect of the unified market have been continuously demonstrated. However, in the process of advancing the construction of the unified national market, problems still exist such as poor coordination or implementation deviations in institutional rules, relatively lagging development of factor resource markets, the occasional occurrence of "involution-style" competition, and repeated prohibitions against local protectionism and market segmentation. These sticking points and obstacles are both "growing pains" and breakthroughs for comprehensively deepening reform, involving a series of complex issues such as central-local relations, the relationship between government and market, and the transformation of local economic development models, requiring focused efforts and sustained momentum on key and difficult issues.
First, implement a unified market access system. Strictly implement the "one national list" management model, eliminate various explicit and implicit market barriers, break down local protectionism and market segmentation, and ensure equal access for all types of business entities. At the same time, improve the regulatory mechanism for fair market access and perfect the legal environment for fair market access.
Second, govern enterprises' "involution-style" competition in accordance with laws and regulations. To govern "involution-style" competition, we must guide enterprises to enhance their innovation capabilities and compete in scientific and technological innovation, product and service quality. Promote the orderly exit of outdated production capacity and achieve dynamic market clearing. Better leverage the self-regulatory role of industry associations, standardize enterprise competition behavior, and effectively curb disorderly low-price competition.
Third, regulate bidding and government procurement. Accelerate the revision of the Bidding Law, the Government Procurement Law, and related implementing regulations. Implement the fair competition review rules in the bidding field, and improve the complaint, handling, and response mechanisms for bidding transaction barriers. Establish and improve a unified, standardized, and information-sharing bidding and procurement platform system, and accelerate the improvement of electronic bidding and procurement institutional rules and technical standards.
Fourth, regulate local investment attraction. Formulate a nationally unified list of local investment attraction behaviors, and establish and improve a standardized fiscal subsidy policy system. Carry out investment attraction activities in accordance with the law, and strictly prohibit granting policy preferences in violation of laws and regulations. Strengthen information disclosure in investment attraction to prevent excessive competition in investment attraction.
Reporter:
Scientific and technological innovation is the core element for developing new quality productive forces and also the key engine for enhancing the endogenous driving force and reliability of the domestic economic cycle. How can we enhance independent innovation capabilities, break through bottlenecks in key core technologies, and provide lasting momentum for strengthening the domestic economic cycle?
Wang Yiming:
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Vigorously enhance independent innovation capabilities and break through key core technologies as soon as possible. This is a major issue related to the overall development of our country and also the key to forming a domestic economic cycle as the mainstay." Achieving a high level of self-reliance and strength in science and technology is the most essential feature of constructing the new development pattern and the key variable for strengthening the domestic economic cycle and gaining the initiative in the international cycle. In the past, during the technology catch-up stage, the main path of our country's technological progress was introduction, digestion, absorption, and re-innovation, with the source of technology abroad and innovation mainly focused on integrated innovation of terminal products. Today, the world is undergoing a new round of scientific and technological revolution represented by artificial intelligence, quantum technology, and others. This is an important opportunity period for our country to achieve leapfrog development in science and technology, and enhancing independent innovation capabilities is particularly urgent.
Currently, our country's scientific and technological innovation capabilities continue to leap forward, with R&D investment and the scale of the scientific research workforce ranking among the forefront of the world, but there are still some prominent shortcomings that form bottleneck constraints on the economic cycle. For example, the supply capacity of original innovation and underlying technology is insufficient, major original and disruptive innovation achievements are relatively few, and the "bottleneck" problems of key core technologies such as high-end chips and core components still exist; the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation is insufficient, the conversion rate of scientific and technological achievements is relatively low, and a system for converting scientific and technological achievements highly matched with frontier technology is not yet well established; the mainstay status of enterprises in scientific and technological innovation is not yet solid, and their voice in innovation decision-making, resource allocation, and achievement conversion still needs improvement. These problems do not exist in isolation, but are the result of intertwined factors such as scientific and technological investment, institutional mechanisms, and the external environment. Enhancing independent innovation capabilities and accelerating a high level of self-reliance and strength in science and technology can be approached from the following aspects.
Strengthen the original innovation orientation of scientific and technological innovation. Currently, competition for the commanding heights of science and technology is becoming increasingly fierce globally, and scientific and technological innovation has become the main battlefield of international competition. It is urgently required that we strengthen the original innovation orientation of scientific research and technology development, optimize the environment conducive to original and disruptive innovation, take key common technologies, frontier leading technologies, and disruptive technology innovation as breakthroughs, fight the tough battle of key core technologies, and achieve more breakthroughs "from 0 to 1."
Promote industrial innovation through scientific and technological innovation. The enormous value contained in scientific and technological achievements can only be transformed into real productive forces when converted into products and implemented in industrial development. We must deploy scientific and technological innovation around the overall situation of industrial development and the major needs of industrial innovation, target frontier fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum technology, integrated circuits, and advanced manufacturing, increase the construction and opening of application scenarios, and enable more scientific and technological achievements to be transformed into real productive forces as soon as possible.
Strengthen the mainstay status of enterprises in scientific and technological innovation. The most important measure to promote the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into real productive forces is to strengthen the mainstay status of enterprises in scientific and technological innovation. We must promote the agglomeration of innovation resources toward enterprises, support enterprises in taking the lead in forming innovation consortia and undertaking more national scientific and technological research tasks. Cultivate and strengthen leading science and technology enterprises, and encourage enterprises to increase investment in basic research. Raise the additional deduction ratio for enterprise R&D expenses, and support the development of high-tech enterprises and technology-based small and medium-sized enterprises.
Reporter:
Strengthening the domestic economic cycle objectively requires orderly linkage and efficient smooth flow among various industries. How can we enhance the independent and controllable level of the industrial chain and continuously strengthen the resilience of industrial development by shoring up weaknesses and strengthening strengths?
Wang Yiming:
The industrial chain and supply chain must not fail at critical moments; this is an important characteristic that a major country's economy must possess. Improving the independent and controllable level of the industrial chain is an inherent requirement for strengthening the domestic economic cycle and expanding the maneuvering space of the international cycle. In recent years, our country's position in the global industrial chain system has significantly improved, and the degree of localization of the industrial chain has increased, but some industries are still at the middle and low end of the international division of labor and the global value chain, with a relatively high degree of external dependence on intermediate goods carrying key core technologies. Some industries with international competitiveness are still in a state of incomplete industrial chains, with insufficient ability to integrate global resources. The potential risks of an unstable, weak, and unsafe industrial chain still exist, urgently requiring us to strengthen and extend the chain and enhance the ability to resist risks.
Currently, the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating the reshaping of the global industrial division of labor, the global industrial chain and supply chain are accelerating their restructuring, geopolitical conflicts are impacting the stability of the global supply chain, and some countries have obvious inward-looking tendencies, engaging in so-called "decoupling and breaking chains," bringing new challenges to the security and stability of our country's industrial chain and supply chain. International experience shows that the more internationally competitive a country's industries are, the more they depend on trade in intermediate goods with foreign countries. Therefore, improving the independent and controllable level of the industrial chain does not mean closing the door and doing everything ourselves, but rather seeking a reasonable balance between security and competitiveness.
To strengthen the domestic economic cycle, we must deeply grasp the development trends of the global industrial system and industrial chain, place greater importance on enhancing the resilience and competitiveness of the industrial chain, and strive to build a modern industrial system that is independent and controllable, safe and efficient, and highly competitive. First, promote the strengthening and extension of the industrial chain. Based on our country's advantages in industrial scale, supporting capabilities, and first-mover advantages in some fields, cultivate an independent and controllable industrial chain system, rely on leading enterprises to improve the localization level of the industrial chain, and enhance security and risk resistance capabilities. Second, implement the industrial foundation reengineering project, promote the advancement of basic components, basic components, basic materials, basic software, basic processes, and industrial technology foundations, improve the application policies for first (set), first batch, and first version, and create a good environment for the market application of independent innovation products. Third, promote the deep integration of digital intelligence technology and manufacturing, promote the empowerment of industrial transformation and upgrading by artificial intelligence, promote the "intelligent transformation, digital transformation, and network connectivity" of enterprises, and promote the transition from "Made in China" to "Intelligently Made in China."
Reporter:
Thank you for accepting the interview.
By: 求是杂志社经济编辑部、广东省社会科学院联合课题组
In-depth Research
New Features of Guangdong's Utilization of Foreign Capital and New Explorations in High-Level Opening Up
Joint Research Group of the Qiushi Magazine Economic Editorial Department and the Guangdong Provincial Academy of Social Sciences
At present, under the influence of multiple factors such as trade protectionism, the global investment landscape is undergoing profound adjustment. Global foreign direct investment declined for two consecutive years in 2023 and 2024, rebounded somewhat in 2025 but with a fragile recovery foundation, competition among major economies to attract investment has become intense or reaching a fever pitch (白热化, bai re hua - "white, hot, ize"), and international capital flows have shifted from incremental expansion to stock optimization, with systematic changes occurring in the logic of global capital flows and resource allocation. As the pacesetter, pioneer, and experimental zone of reform and opening up, Guangdong has accounted for more than one-fifth of the country's cumulative actual utilization of foreign capital since reform and opening up, making it an important window for the international community to observe China's utilization of foreign capital and open development. Facing the profound adjustment of the global investment landscape, what is the situation of Guangdong's utilization of foreign capital? What new features have emerged? What development logic and practical experience lie behind them? How can China continue to utilize foreign capital with high quality in the future? With these questions, we conducted research on some foreign-funded enterprises in Guangdong and relevant functional departments.
I. Four New Features of Guangdong's Utilization of Foreign Capital at the Current Stage
Over more than 40 years of reform and opening up, Guangdong's utilization of foreign capital has completed three historic leaps. From the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, relying on its geographical advantage of being adjacent to Hong Kong and Macao and the policy dividends of pioneering opening up, it used "three supplies and one compensation" as the breakthrough for attracting investment, and the three places of Guangdong, Hong Kong, and Macao formed an industrial model with assembly plants located near sales hubs (前店后厂, qian dian hou chang - "front shop, back factory") industrial collaboration model, attracting a large amount of labor-intensive industrial capital from Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan, laying the foundation for an export-oriented economy. From the mid-to-late 1990s to the end of 2012, with the establishment and gradual improvement of the socialist market economy system, especially after China's accession to the World Trade Organization, Guangdong introduced on a large scale technology-intensive and capital-intensive projects from developed economies, with the investment focus shifting to heavy chemical industry and high-end manufacturing, and the degree of supporting linkage between foreign capital and local industries continued to increase. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, as China's opening up has advanced in depth, Guangdong's introduction of foreign capital has been more directed toward advanced manufacturing and modern service industries, transforming from a pure production investor into a deep participant in the local industrial chain, innovation chain, and market ecosystem. As of the end of 2025, Guangdong's cumulative actual use of foreign capital exceeded US$600 billion, and more than 350 of the world's top 500 enterprises have invested in Guangdong. The industrial structure, source structure, investment methods, and spatial layout of Guangdong's utilization of foreign capital have undergone profound changes, presenting four distinct features.
The feature of tiered upgrading in industrial investment attraction is particularly evident. Foreign capital in the advanced manufacturing sector continues to expand, and during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the proportion of actual utilized foreign capital in Guangdong's manufacturing sector rose from 16.9% in 2021 to 25.9% in 2025, with foreign capital in high-tech manufacturing accounting for 32.8% of foreign capital in the manufacturing sector; modern services serve as the main force in attracting investment, with actual utilized foreign capital in the service sector reaching 78.35 billion yuan in 2025, accounting for 69.5% of the province's total. In Shenzhen Qianhai alone, more than 13,000 foreign-funded enterprises have gathered, and the knowledge-intensive service ecosystem is rapidly taking shape. In recent years, affected by rising factor costs and changes in competitiveness, some labor-intensive foreign capital has withdrawn in an orderly manner, but during the 14th Five-Year Plan period, a cumulative total of 113,800 new foreign-funded enterprises were established, an increase of 31.3% over the 13th Five-Year Plan period. Foreign capital has generally maintained net inflows, with the orderly exit of low-end production capacity and the continuous introduction of high-end increments occurring simultaneously, and the dynamic adjustment of the foreign capital structure has become the norm.
The feature of diversified and complementary foreign capital sources has become more prominent. Hong Kong and Macao capital, relying on the unique advantages of geographical proximity and institutional connectivity, focuses on modern services and supporting links in advanced manufacturing, and remains the basic foundation of investment attraction, with its share stably maintained at over 70%. As of the end of 2025, the Qianhai Shenzhen-Hong Kong Modern Service Industry Cooperation Zone has gathered more than 11,000 Hong Kong-funded enterprises, and the Hengqin Guangdong-Macao Deep Cooperation Zone has seen Macao-funded enterprises exceed 8,000. European and American capital, on the other hand, is concentrated in high-end manufacturing, R&D centers, and functional headquarters. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, the share of investment from developed countries steadily increased, with investment from Singapore and Germany in Guangdong growing by 1.5 times and 2.3 times respectively compared with the 13th Five-Year Plan period. Research found that in recent years, investment from emerging markets has grown rapidly. Emerging market capital from the Middle East, ASEAN, and other regions is focusing more on new tracks such as energy cooperation, the digital economy, and cross-border e-commerce. Middle Eastern sovereign funds such as the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority of the United Arab Emirates have begun to deeply participate in Guangdong's new energy, financial, and technology enterprises in a "capital + industry" manner.
Foreign investment methods have shown new characteristics of deepening existing stock, asset-light operations, and localized R&D. "Driving increments with existing stock" has become the mainstream. The latest survey by the American Chamber of Commerce in South China this year shows that 95% of surveyed enterprises said they would continue to deepen their presence in the Chinese market. We learned at Andritz (China) Co., Ltd. of Austria that this enterprise has been rooted in Foshan for nearly 30 years, upgrading from a joint venture factory to a China headquarters, making it a typical sample of foreign capital continuously increasing its presence in the existing stock market. Multinational enterprises currently prefer light layouts with low fixed asset investment, carrying out cooperation through technology and brand exports. France's Veolia exports environmental protection technology and services, Japan's Aeon promotes the standardized export of brand and operating systems, and foreign retailers such as Costco and Aldi have generally shifted their entry strategies into China toward asset-light operations. By the end of the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Guangdong had cumulatively introduced 540 foreign-funded R&D institutions with total R&D investment of US$15 billion. ZF Guangzhou Technology Center, BASF Integrated Technology Center, Siemens Energy Shenzhen Innovation Center, Intel Greater Bay Area Science and Technology Innovation Center, ExxonMobil Daya Bay R&D Center, and others have been successively established, and localized R&D is becoming the norm.
The spatial layout of foreign capital has presented a new pattern of full-region expansion and regional linkage. The Pearl River Delta region has always been the main battlefield and strong magnet for foreign capital, with actual utilized foreign capital accounting for about 93.9% of the province's total in 2025. The three free trade zones of Nansha, Qianhai-Shekou, and Hengqin, with an area of six ten-thousandths of the province, contributed nearly one-quarter of the total foreign capital. Research found that the globally rare collaborative efficiency of Shenzhen's Huaqiangbei, where "design in the morning, prototype in the afternoon, mass production the next day, and overseas shipping within a week" can produce a prototype within one or two days, has become an irreplaceable ecological support for attracting foreign capital. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, Shantou added 285 new foreign-funded enterprises, an increase of 10.5% over the 13th Five-Year Plan period, with actual utilized foreign capital growing at an average annual rate of 25.4%, and overseas Chinese capital accounting for as much as 80% of total foreign investment. Relying on the leading effect of BYD, the Shenzhen-Shanwei Special Cooperation Zone has attracted global auto parts enterprises such as France's Faurecia and the United States' Lear to provide nearby supporting services, achieving the same-park layout and linked development of complete vehicles and parts. Driven by the development of foreign capital in the Pearl River Delta, investment attraction in eastern, western, and northern Guangdong has accelerated noticeably, and the layout of foreign capital has shown clear functional differentiation. The Pearl River Delta mainly carries high-energy, asset-light R&D-oriented, headquarters-oriented, and service-oriented foreign capital, while eastern, western, and northern Guangdong mainly carries asset-heavy production and manufacturing-oriented and industrial supporting foreign capital, conforming to the needs of foreign capital for cost optimization and production capacity backup, with the feature of industrial gradient transfer becoming more evident.
II. Beneficial Explorations by Guangdong to Stabilize and Optimize Foreign Capital Utilization under the New Situation
As the wave of global industrial chain restructuring crashes ashore, the selection criteria of multinational capital are undergoing fundamental changes, with supply chain stability, policy predictability, and market accessibility becoming the core considerations in investment decisions. Our research on German enterprises investing in Guangdong found that 70% of surveyed enterprises chose to expand investment, with the primary reason being that Guangdong has a complete manufacturing system and supporting capabilities, a reserve of more than one million high-skilled talents, and efficient infrastructure, with supply chain efficiency more than twice that of Southeast Asia. At the same time, Guangdong itself is also at a critical stage of industrial upgrading. The dividends of traditional factors such as land and labor are gradually fading, the competition model of relying on tax reductions and exemptions and low-priced land supply is difficult to sustain, and there is an urgent need to use high-end foreign capital to supplement, strengthen, and extend the industrial chain. The logic of investment attraction is inevitably shifting from policy preferences to ecological optimization. Against the backdrop of global industrial chain restructuring, Guangdong has deeply implemented the Party Central Committee's decisions and arrangements for high-level opening up, continuously promoted systematic and open innovation, and explored and formed a set of effective practices for utilizing foreign capital to promote high-quality development.
Building a stable and predictable business environment through institutional opening up. From removing hidden barriers, to reengineering approval processes, to broadening the boundaries of market access, what Guangdong's institutional opening up reduces is not only the visible transaction costs for enterprises, but also the invisible uncertainty expectations. It took the lead in issuing the "Regulations of Guangdong Province on the Protection of Foreign Investment Rights and Interests," better implementing "pre-establishment national treatment" in the form of local legislation, and cumulatively revised or abolished 133 regulatory documents that were inconsistent between domestic and foreign investment, dismantling hidden thresholds at the institutional source. To address the problem of slow project implementation, Guangdong has comprehensively promoted "parallel approval" and "start construction upon land acquisition." Zhanjiang has established a multi-level special task force service mechanism for the BASF investment project, innovating the "commitment notification + tolerance of deficiencies with subsequent supplementation" model, compressing the full-process approval time for projects by more than 60%, setting a new record for the implementation speed of similar heavy chemical projects globally for BASF. At the market access level, the three free trade zones of Hengqin, Qianhai-Shekou, and Nansha have taken the lead in fully clearing foreign investment access restrictions in the manufacturing sector, and are accelerating the promotion of pilot expansion of opening up in medical care, telecommunications, finance, and other fields. As of June 2026, Nansha, relying on the free trade account system, has cumulatively opened nearly 10,000 accounts with fund remittances exceeding 6 trillion yuan, and qualified foreign limited partners have introduced more than 450 million yuan in foreign capital since the pilot began in 2022, with the efficiency of cross-border capital flows leaping significantly.
Building an efficient and collaborative industrial ecosystem through precise investment attraction along the industrial chain. To address the pain point of missing supporting facilities for early introduced projects, Guangdong has focused on strategic emerging industries to compile industrial chain investment attraction maps, established a normalized mechanism of "industrial chain investment attraction special task forces + direct express lanes for multinational enterprises," and used leading projects as magnetic poles to attract upstream and downstream enterprises to "settle in groups" and develop in clusters. Research found that Zhanjiang has established a special investment attraction task force, carrying out chain-based investment attraction around the BASF integrated base, attracting more than 50 large-scale petrochemical enterprises to supply supplying goods across a boundary or to a neighbor (隔墙供应, ge qiang gong ying - "wall, supply"), forming on-site a full-chain petrochemical ecosystem with an annual output value exceeding 120 billion yuan, greatly reducing coordination costs. To ensure that industrial chain investment attraction is implemented in practice, Guangdong has played a "combined punch" of factor guarantees, platform building, and capital empowerment: Nansha has released the Overseas Professional Qualification Recognition List 2.0, opening up the practice channel for high-end talents so that talents can come in and stay; the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Global Investment Conference has made precise invitations, with signed projects leaping from 853 in 2022 to 2,073 in 2025; and an "industrial chain + chain-leading enterprises + industrial funds" linkage mechanism has been innovated, using capital as a bond to achieve "introducing one fund, bringing in a batch of projects," accelerating the formation of industrial clusters. From "everything picked into the basket is considered a vegetable" to "precise introduction by following the map," Guangdong's investment attraction logic has undergone a fundamental transformation. Industrial chain investment attraction means foreign-funded enterprises no longer worry about "going deep alone," and Guangdong's industrial upgrading has gained powerful momentum for chain-based leaps.
Promoting the deep integration of foreign capital into the local innovation system through a collaborative innovation ecosystem. In the past, Guangdong's introduction of foreign capital was mainly focused on production and manufacturing links, and foreign-funded enterprises generally retained high-value-added links in the value chain such as core R&D and technical design at their overseas headquarters, resulting in manufacturing at home and innovation abroad. Based on the two-way needs of local industrial upgrading and localized R&D by foreign capital, Guangdong has made efforts in three directions: policy guarantees, platform construction, and ecological support. On the policy side, it has issued special incentive policies to support the establishment of foreign-funded R&D centers, providing up to 5 million yuan in rewards for R&D centers of multinational companies in Guangdong, using substantial or real money and resources (真金白银, zhen jin bai yin - "true gold, white silver") to support the implementation of foreign-funded R&D functions, and clearly supporting foreign-funded R&D centers to participate equally in provincial-level major science and technology projects and the formulation of industry standards. On the platform side, it has promoted the joint construction of joint laboratories between foreign capital and local universities and research institutions. At the Guangzhou Institute of Respiratory Health-AstraZeneca Real World Research Joint Laboratory, the relevant person in charge said frankly, "Guangdong's rich clinical resources and achievement transformation mechanisms are the key to making the move here." On the ecological side, Guangdong has implemented the "Talent Yueyou Card" to provide one-stop services, making the cross-border flow of innovation elements smoother. From policy support at the bottom, to platform bridging in the middle, to ecological retention at the top, Guangdong has used a trinity of open innovation ecosystems to shift foreign-funded R&D centers from "producing in China" to "co-creating with China," not only bringing technology "in" but also making technology "grow" here.
Building a new ecosystem of full-lifecycle services for foreign capital through digital empowerment. The foreign capital work system involves coordination across multiple departments, multiple levels, and multiple scenarios, and has long faced some bottlenecks and blockages. In the past, fragmented investment information made site selection for some enterprises like searching blindly for something in a vast area (大海捞针, da hai lao zhen - "big sea, scoop needle"), serial approval processes made multinational projects "unable to wait," and fragmented response to demands left enterprises "not knowing whom to turn to" when problems arose. Guangdong has applied digital means to break through bottlenecks and blockages one by one, building a service system covering the full lifecycle of foreign-funded enterprises: in the investment attraction stage, it launched the "Invest in Guangdong" digital platform, integrating more than 6,000 investment attraction information items across the province to achieve "one-screen overview" of investment resources; in the approval stage, it has achieved comprehensive "one-network processing" and "one-day completion." Shenzhen Qianhai has taken the lead in implementing "AI + industrial funds" review, allowing enterprises to enjoy the experience of "zero running around, second-level feedback, and instant arrival of funds"; policy services have shifted from manual running around to data flow, allowing policy dividends to reach enterprises precisely and directly. Shenzhen's "Shen i Enterprise" has launched the "Foreign Enterprise Station" column, Guangzhou's "Sui @ i Enterprise" has launched a policy intelligence calculator, and Huangpu's "Pu Enterprise Connect" has integrated 38 platforms to improve the efficiency of resolving demands. Today, Guangdong's service efficiency has shifted from being calculated in days to being calculated in seconds, and what multinational enterprises feel is not just the improvement in efficiency, but also the certainty of being seen and being responded to.
III. New Paths for China's High-Level Opening Up from Guangdong's Practice in Utilizing Foreign Capital
Guangdong's development practice is a window for observing the changes in foreign capital flows. Through this window, we can see the profound transformation China's utilization of foreign capital has undergone. At present, China's utilization of foreign capital is deepening from scale expansion to structural optimization and quality upgrading. In 2025, the share of actual utilized foreign capital in high-tech industries reached 32.3%, an increase of 3.7 percentage points over 2020. In the scientific research and technical services sector, 14,000 new foreign-funded enterprises were established, a year-on-year increase of 27.2%. This not only reflects the continuous improvement of the international attractiveness and global competitiveness of China's strategic industry investment tracks, but also reflects the structural changes in foreign capital's investment strategy in China: foreign capital in traditional labor-intensive, cost-driven, and other low-value-added industrial sectors is gradually flowing out, some export-oriented manufacturing links are being laid out in neighboring economies around China, while foreign capital in high-tech, high-value-added industrial sectors that match the construction of the modern industrial system is accelerating its inflow.
Looking at the world, the current international investment layout is undergoing deep restructuring, encompassing multi-dimensional changes in spatial layout, technological iteration, ecological reconstruction, and institutional adaptation, and its essence is a systematic adjustment of the global industrial division of labor model. For China, this round of restructuring is both a severe test and a historical window that must not be missed. To grasp the initiative in development, it is necessary to break out of the path dependence of local investment attraction "involution" and simple tax and fee concessions, examine major changes such as the restructuring of the global productive forces layout, the eastward shift of science and technology innovation centers, the reorganization of production and supply chains, and the reallocation of capital from a broader perspective, strive to forge irreplaceable strategic advantages, and transform challenges into powerful momentum for high-quality development.
Building competitive advantages of full industrial chain collaboration based on the evolution trend of the global productive forces layout. The global productive forces layout is accelerating its evolution toward regionalization, clustering, and multi-centering, with the industrial division of labor shifting from vertical gradients to fragmented and block-based industrial chains, and industrial carrying capacity has become a key variable in attracting layout. China has the triple superimposed advantages of the world's only complete range of industrial categories, a super-large market with great depth, and the gradient distribution of industries across the east, central, and west, which is the greatest confidence in responding to the restructuring of the global productive forces layout. To transform comparative advantages into competitive advantages, efforts need to be made in three aspects: first, seek breakthroughs in regional coordination, with the east focusing on high-end innovation to accelerate the development of advanced manufacturing, the central and west using resource advantages to undertake supporting production capacity, and overall planning to promote industrial gradient transfer and upgrading, which not only provides differentiated carrying space for different types of foreign capital but also helps prevent industrial hollowing out. Second, seek initiative in embedding into global networks, using the completeness of the industrial system and strong supporting capabilities to meet the needs of block-based layout, consolidate the position of the core industrial hub, and guide foreign capital to lay out higher-value-added links. Third, seek practical results in domestic demand traction, promote foreign capital to accelerate its shift to the new model of "R&D in China, production for China, and co-creation with China," and rely on the iterative upgrading driven by the super-large market to continuously enhance the industrial level.
Seizing the opportunity of the eastward shift of global science and technology innovation centers to shape the advantages of an open innovation ecosystem. Global science and technology innovation resources are showing a long-term trend of multipolar diffusion with the center of gravity gradually shifting eastward, which is a historic opportunity for China's science and technology innovation to move from "following" to "running alongside" and then to "leading." Under the leadership of artificial intelligence technology, current science and technology innovation is shifting from single-laboratory R&D to cross-border collaborative, scenario-driven open innovation, and the openness of the innovation ecosystem determines competitiveness. China's total social R&D expenditure intensity has reached 2.8%, invention patent applications have ranked first in the world for many consecutive years, and it has the world's largest and most complete talent pool, which provides a solid foundation for attracting foreign-funded R&D centers and building an open innovation ecosystem, and also provides an ideal landing point for the eastward shift of global science and technology innovation resources. To transform the advantages of the innovation ecosystem into lasting attraction, it is necessary to actively undertake the eastward-shifting innovation resources, promote the deep integration of utilizing foreign capital with introducing capital, introducing technology, and introducing talent, and achieve the leap of foreign capital functions from production and manufacturing to innovation and R&D. On the one hand, it is necessary to further open up internal and external collaboration channels, break down barriers to the cross-border flow of innovation elements, and promote deep cooperation between foreign-funded R&D centers and local universities and research institutions; on the other hand, it is necessary to focus on building the preferred place for transformation, relying on scenario and supporting advantages to promote the deep integration of foreign-funded R&D centers into the local innovation system, forming a development pattern in which global innovation resources accelerate their convergence and domestic and foreign capital innovation empower each other in both directions.
Conforming to the restructuring of global industrial and supply chains to consolidate the advantages of the intermediate goods trade hub. At present, supply chain resilience and self-control have become core concerns of all countries, and intermediate goods have replaced final consumer goods as the main form of international trade. As the world's largest producer and trader of intermediate goods, China has a supply system covering all industrial categories and has formed industrial clusters with global competitive advantages in electronic information, equipment manufacturing, new energy, chemicals, and other fields, which is the key support for maintaining the status of a supply chain hub and a unique advantage in attracting foreign capital. It is necessary to strengthen full-chain supply capacity, promote the upgrading of the intermediate goods industry toward high-end, intelligent, and green development, enhance the autonomous supply capacity of key core intermediate goods, and strengthen irreplaceability with supply advantages. Build a regional industrial ecosystem, deepen collaboration with neighboring economies, guide multinational enterprises to take China as the "anchor point" of regional supply chains for long-term layout, and enhance regional industrial stickiness. Deeply participate in global governance, and in the process of World Trade Organization reform, the deepening of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, and the alignment with the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership, promote the improvement of the rules system for global industrial and supply chains, so that the advantages of intermediate goods trade are continuously transformed into institutional competitiveness for attracting high-quality foreign capital.
Conforming to the new logic of security first in global trade and investment to enhance the advantages of certainty in the development environment. At present, geopolitical games continue to intensify, and global investment barriers have increased to some extent. Although global foreign direct investment grew by 6% in 2025, the recovery foundation is fragile and uneven: investment flowing to developed economies grew by 11%, while developing economies grew by only 2%. The fundamentals of China's long-term sound economic development, the continuous and stable orientation of macroeconomic policies, and the continuously optimized internationalized business environment together constitute the certainty advantage that attracts global capital, making China a "stabilizer" amid global investment fluctuations. It is necessary to forge a "certainty anchor point" for global capital through institutional opening up, respond to the uncertainty of the external environment with the certainty of one's own development, adhere to the dialectical unity of opening up and security, and achieve positive interaction between high-level opening up and high-level security. It is necessary to continuously improve the market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized business environment, attract long-term industrial capital and high-end factors with institutional stability, and continue to polish the global brand of "Invest in China." It is necessary to improve a sound, standardized, and transparent security review mechanism, coordinate the two-way linkage of "bringing in" and "going global," continuously consolidate China's status as a "safe haven" for global cross-border investment, and shape new advantages of win-win cooperation in the restructuring of the global trade and investment landscape.
Research Notes:
A history of Guangdong's utilization of foreign capital is half a chronicle of China's opening up. From the low-cost resource-driven "three supplies and one compensation" to the rule-led institutional opening up, through more than 40 years of rising and falling tides, the development and changes of foreign capital in Guangdong reflect not only the iteration of investment attraction strategies, but also the strategic planning of a major country actively shaping history amid the wave of globalization. From manufacturing to services, from asset-heavy to asset-light, from labor-intensive to capital- and technology-intensive and then to local innovation chains, these capital flows of "some going out, some coming in" are no longer a simple replacing low-end industries with high-end ones (腾笼换鸟, teng long huan niao - "empty cage, exchange bird"), but have moved from the old script of factor arbitrage into a new chapter of co-creation and win-win. Foreign capital is no longer like migratory birds, moving with warmth and leaving when it turns cold, but like trees, sinking its roots into the soil. What it brings is not only capital, but also technology, R&D networks, and long-termism. Behind this is China's overall leap from "world factory" to "innovation source," and global capital's strategic re-evaluation of China from a cost depression to a value highland. When global capital is no longer just "coming to China," but is competing to "take root in China, innovate in China," China's opening up can truly complete the historic leap from a passive participant to an active shaper.
Writers: Guo Feiran, Wang Tinghui, Yang Haishen, Shu Yu
Return to TopBy: 陈凯华
How Artificial Intelligence Is Leading a Transformation of the Scientific Research Paradigm
Chen Kaihua
The history of scientific and technological development has fully proven that technological progress is the internal driving force behind the evolution of the scientific research paradigm and is also a key factor in triggering its transformation. For example, precision optical instruments such as telescopes and microscopes enabled human senses to break through physiological limits, bringing the macroscopic universe and the microscopic world within the observable range and laying the foundation for the modern scientific system based on observation and experiment; the standardized analytical means provided by precision measuring instruments such as spectrometers and centrifuges pushed scientific research from the description of phenomena toward the induction of laws and the construction of theoretical models; computer technology made numerical experiments on complex systems possible, and big data technology helped scientific research achieve a shift from "hypothesis-driven" to "data-driven" approaches, reshaping the research pathways and knowledge-discovery logic of modern science. At present, a new generation of artificial intelligence technology represented by deep learning is integrating capabilities such as perception, recognition, prediction, and optimization into scientific activities, and is accelerating the entry of the scientific research paradigm into a brand-new stage centered on generative artificial intelligence, multimodal large models, and intelligent-agent technology, with the prospect of achieving disruptive transformation.
Promoting the integration of the entire chain of scientific research. Artificial intelligence possesses powerful capabilities for data integration, knowledge extraction, and cross-domain collaboration. It can break through the information barriers among the various links of scientific research, technological development, and industrial application, effectively linking the scientific discoveries of the laboratory, the R&D breakthroughs of the technology end, and the application demands of the industrial end, achieving the efficient flow and intelligent coordination of knowledge, data, and resources, activating the vast amounts of accumulated data, reducing the cost of cross-domain collaboration, shortening the cycle of achievement transformation, enabling research results to enter development more quickly and development results to enter production more quickly, and realizing the efficient connection "from the laboratory to the factory."
Reshaping the operational mechanisms of scientific research. Artificial intelligence is accelerating the comprehensive reconstruction of the operational mechanisms of scientific research activities, leading scientific research into a new stage of high throughput and high precision. For example, the "robot chemist" developed by the National Key Laboratory of Precision and Intelligent Chemistry at the University of Science and Technology of China breaks through the scattered model of traditional chemical research that relies on "expert inspiration, single-link advancement, and small-scale trial and error," upgrading it to an intelligent research model of "data-driven, full-process closed loop, large-scale exploration, and standardized implementation," powerfully promoting the development of scientific research in the direction of scale and automation. In terms of scientific research collaboration, artificial intelligence further promotes openness and integration, giving rise to a new collaborative mechanism that combines centralized and distributed approaches, effectively breaking down the organizational, temporal, and spatial barriers of scientific research.
Promoting the transformation of scientific research actors. At present, scientific research actors are undergoing a transformation from "human-led" to "human-machine collaborative" and even "intelligent autonomous." Artificial intelligence is gradually upgrading from an auxiliary tool to an autonomous scientific research actor. Intelligent agents will possess the capabilities of autonomous discovery, reasoning, and experimentation, achieving a major shift from passively executing instructions to actively expanding the boundaries of knowledge, forming a brand-new scientific research ecology of autonomous exploration under human strategic guidance and effective supervision. At the same time, relying on advantages in data, computing power, and capital, enterprises are gradually transforming from the demand and application side of scientific research into major participants in scientific research activities, and in some fields even becoming the dominant actors, promoting the integrated development of scientific research and application scenarios; intelligent tools, supporting platforms, and open-source communities will also become new types of technological participants, enriching the scientific research ecosystem.
Promoting the upgrading of scientific research tools and methods. Breakthroughs in artificial intelligence technology are driving the transformation of scientific research tools from passive analysis to active generation, no longer limited to observing and simulating existing phenomena but capable of autonomously designing new hypotheses and new experiments. In addition, traditional scientific research platforms centered on physical instruments will be upgraded into composite scientific research infrastructure platforms integrating intelligent computing power, large-scale data generation, and comprehensive experimental capabilities, achieving broader open interconnection and efficient collaboration through the highly efficient integration of the entire chain of "data-tools-models-intelligent agents."
The artificial intelligence-driven scientific research paradigm is transforming the key elements of scientific research competition from "experience, instruments, and tacit knowledge" to an equal emphasis on "data, algorithms, and computing power," and is reconstructing the logic of scientific research competition. The world's major scientific and technological powers are competing to strengthen their strategic deployments, attempting to lead this paradigm transformation, seize the commanding heights of scientific and technological development, and form new competitive advantages in science and technology. Taking the United States as an example, it is comprehensively promoting the artificial intelligence-driven transformation of the scientific research paradigm and laying out positions on many frontier tracks. In November 2025, the United States launched the "Genesis Plan," explicitly proposing to carry out national-level scientific research mobilization with urgency and strategic ambition comparable to the "Manhattan Project," and to build an artificial intelligence-driven scientific research system running through "data-models-intelligent agents-simulation-experiment"; in July 2026, the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy released the report Science: A New Golden Age, further making the "Genesis Plan" the flagship action for national artificial intelligence-enabled scientific research. Under the coordination of the U.S. Department of Energy, the United States has integrated and reactivated the large amounts of accumulated data built up over the years, making them an important data source for training large models, and, combined with its leading advantages in highly integrated unified computing power and high-end chips, is attempting to build a moat in the basic sciences and recreate an "iron curtain of technology."
Relying on favorable conditions such as data scale, application scenarios, talent resources, computing power facilities, and a system of mobilizing all national resources for a single goal (举国体制, ju guo ti zhi - "whole, country, system, regime"), our country has certain advantages in achieving "asymmetric catch-up" in the field of science and technology. But we must also clearly recognize that our country's current scientific research production tools and production relations are difficult to adapt to the urgent needs of scientific research development in the intelligent era. First, in terms of the supply of algorithms, computing power, and data, although the total amount of our country's computing power resources ranks among the forefront of the world, the supply of computing power for scientific research scenarios is insufficient and unevenly distributed, the efficiency of intelligent resource allocation is low, an intelligent computing power sharing system has not yet been established, unified data standards and open sharing mechanisms have still not been formed, and the problems of cross-institutional data barriers and heterogeneous data integration are relatively prominent. Second, in terms of interdisciplinary integration and talent needs, the traditional disciplinary classification and management system based on a single discipline and bounded by faculties and departments is difficult to adapt to the rapidly integrating knowledge innovation needs of the intelligent era; the current disciplinary setup is relatively rigid and overly subdivided, lacking effective carriers and mechanisms for cross-disciplinary integration; and the problem of disciplinary barriers in scientific research evaluation and resource allocation is prominent. Third, in terms of actor collaboration and factor integration, the coordinated operation of new types of knowledge actors or carriers such as open-source communities, data platforms, and scientific research intelligent agents is not smooth, the level of intelligence of various innovation actors is significantly insufficient, their functions are relatively independent, and the various subsystems lack open sharing and coordinated linkage, so a complementary innovation system has not yet been formed and there is a lack of synergy to support the reshaping of the entire-chain innovation paradigm. Fourth, in terms of institutional mechanisms and coordinated supporting measures, the current organizational structure and institutional arrangements clearly lag behind the process of the artificial intelligence-driven development of the scientific research paradigm, the flexibility and openness of scientific research organizational forms are insufficient, there is a lack of mechanisms for joint research by cross-institutional and cross-disciplinary teams, unified data management and sharing mechanisms have not yet been established, the organizational and guarantee mechanisms for open-source and open infrastructure are still in the exploratory stage, the platform-based operation model for multi-party collaborative cooperation has not yet been established, and the traditional scientific research funding system, evaluation mechanisms, and organizational methods are difficult to meet the needs of openness and open-source development.
In August 2025, the State Council issued the Opinions on Deeply Implementing the "AI+" Action, making "AI+" science and technology one of the key actions and proposing to "accelerate the exploration of a new scientific research paradigm driven by artificial intelligence." In October 2025, the recommendations for the 15th Five-Year Plan proposed "leading the transformation of the scientific research paradigm with artificial intelligence, and strengthening the integration of artificial intelligence with industrial development, cultural development, livelihood security, and social governance." We must firmly seize this major historical opportunity for leapfrog catch-up and deeply advance the transformation of the scientific research paradigm led by artificial intelligence.
Accelerating the construction of the intelligent scientific research infrastructure foundation. The artificial intelligence-driven scientific research paradigm is highly dependent on the supply and coordination of advanced and autonomous algorithm models, ultra-large-scale intelligent computing power, and high-quality scientific data. In terms of algorithms, we must focus on the core scientific problems and technical principles of the artificial intelligence-led transformation of the scientific research paradigm, build an autonomous and controllable theoretical and algorithmic system, and strengthen the collaborative development of scientific foundation models and disciplinary large models. In terms of computing power, we must promote the systematic layout and overall coordination of scientific research data centers and high-performance computing platforms, and establish a national-level computing power scheduling platform for artificial intelligence-driven scientific research. In terms of data, we must improve the scientific research data standards system and open mechanisms, build a national scientific data sharing network, and promote the safe and orderly flow of data elements.
Systematically building an interdisciplinary integration model. In terms of disciplinary integration, we must give full play to artificial intelligence's powerful capabilities in semantic understanding and knowledge graph construction, break down the semantic barriers between different disciplines, encourage cross-disciplinary knowledge flow and recombination, form a dynamic network-style disciplinary collaboration system, and achieve the free combination and innovative generation of knowledge elements across disciplines. In terms of two-way empowerment, we must promote the deep integration of general artificial intelligence algorithms with the specific mechanisms and experimental methods of various disciplines, accelerate the development of closed-loop research methods combining scientific research with artificial intelligence, form an intelligent scientific research method and tool set adapted to the knowledge characteristics of different disciplines, and provide brand-new methodological support for original innovation. In terms of talent cultivation, we must accelerate the intelligent transformation of the national talent cultivation and development system, deepen the reform of the traditional single-discipline talent education, cultivation, and management system, rely on major scientific and technological needs to strengthen the building of interdisciplinary talents and teams, improve the organizational system and management system adapted to this, advance education, science and technology, and talent development in an integrated manner, and build a high-quality talent team proficient in the new paradigm.
Actively cultivating an open, collaborative innovation ecosystem. We must promote the collaborative construction of intelligent scientific research platforms by government departments, scientific research institutes, institutions of higher learning, and leading enterprises, improve the mechanisms for the interconnection and sharing of data, models, computing power, and tools across actors and organizations, and create a whole-chain innovation ecosystem from artificial intelligence-driven basic research to technological development and scenario application. We must build a new high ground for open source and openness with broad global influence, accelerate the construction of a national-level open-source community for artificial intelligence-driven scientific research, and explore new mechanisms organically combining code contribution with computing power incentives. We must actively participate in the governance of the global artificial intelligence-led transformation of the scientific research paradigm, take the lead in formulating key standards such as scientific data quality and algorithm reproducibility, actively participate in and promote the implementation of international scientific data sharing agreements, establish close cooperation mechanisms with major global scientific research institutions and data platforms, and enhance our country's international voice and influence in the transformation of the scientific research paradigm.
Gradually improving the scientific research governance system. We must promote the transformation of scientific research organizations from rigid hierarchical structures to flexible networked structures, strengthen the exploration of new organizational management theories and methods adapted to artificial intelligence-driven scientific research, deepen the building of the new system of mobilizing all national resources for a single goal, attempt to establish task-driven dynamic organizational models, and carry out collaborative tackling of key problems. We must improve the comprehensive, three-dimensional management systems and mechanisms for disciplinary integration covering scientific research talent cultivation, scientific research activity organization, and scientific research performance assessment, explore incorporating new types of artificial intelligence scientific research achievements—whose achievement forms are diverse, whose contribution boundaries are blurred, and which are difficult to assess quantitatively—into the scientific evaluation system, and effectively stimulate the endogenous driving force of the transformation of the scientific research paradigm. We must strengthen the building of scientific research ethics, risk, and security, strengthen the assessment of reliability and trustworthiness, establish an ethical review mechanism for the artificial intelligence-driven scientific research paradigm, strengthen security and risk prevention and control in areas such as data and models, build an agile, forward-looking risk monitoring and early warning system, ensure that the artificial intelligence-led transformation of the scientific research paradigm develops within a controllable scope, and efficiently, safely, and reliably empower the building of the knowledge innovation system.
Author: Distinguished Professor, School of Public Policy and Management, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Return to TopBy: 蔡立东
Consolidating the Foundation of the Rule of Law through Law-Abiding by the Entire People
Cai Lidong
The connotation of the rule of law includes not only the correct choice of the path of rule of law, the scientific construction of the legal system, and the fairness and justice of law enforcement and judicature, but also, more centrally and more profoundly, the belief in and adherence to it by the entire people. General Secretary Xi Jinping has stressed that only a rule of law engraved in people's hearts is a truly unbreakable rule of law. Law-abiding by the entire people is the foundational project for building a law-based country and a law-based society. In July 2026, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council forwarded the "Ninth Five-Year Plan for Carrying out Legal Publicity and Education by the Central Publicity Department and the Ministry of Justice (2026–2030)." To build a socialist law-based country at a higher level, it is necessary to effectively enhance the enthusiasm and initiative of the whole society in vigorously implementing the rule of law, so that the entire people become faithful advocates, conscious observers, and steadfast defenders of the socialist rule of law.
Law-abiding by the entire people means that any organization or individual must act within the scope of the Constitution and laws, take the Constitution and laws as the code of conduct, and exercise powers or rights and perform duties or obligations in accordance with the Constitution and laws. From the perspective of the subject, "the entire people" includes all state organs and armed forces, all political parties and social organizations, all enterprises, public institutions, and every citizen; no one has the privilege of transcending the Constitution and laws, and anyone who violates the Constitution and laws must be held accountable. From the perspective of the object, "law" includes not only "hard law" norms with coercive force, such as the Constitution, laws, administrative regulations, local regulations, and rules, but also "soft law" norms with a certain binding force, such as self-governance charters, village rules and civil pacts, and community conventions; it includes not only specific legal provisions but also the principles and spirit of the socialist rule of law. From the perspective of conduct, the baseline requirement is "passive law-abiding," that is, choosing not to violate the prohibitive provisions of laws and regulations, whether out of fear or out of weighing of interests; the high-line requirement is "active law-abiding," that is, consciously identifying with the law, actively studying and using the law, handling affairs according to law, internalizing it in the mind and externalizing it in action, thereby making law-abiding durable and stable.
Our Party attaches great importance to legal publicity and law-abiding by the entire people, and promotes the people's study and use of the law, breaking free from the feudal traditional logic of power that "if punishments are unknown, then authority cannot be feared" — this is a great pioneering undertaking in the history of China's rule of law. Since the implementation of the "First Five-Year" legal publicity plan in 1986, China has carried out nationwide legal publicity activities spanning 40 years, 8 five-year legal publicity plans, and covering billions of people, greatly enhancing the legal literacy of the whole society and writing a vivid and striking (浓墨重彩, nong mo zhong cai - "thick, ink; heavy, colorful") chapter in the history of human rule of law. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has made law-abiding by the entire people a long-term foundational task of comprehensive law-based governance, established the National Constitution Day, established the constitutional oath system, formulated the Law on Legal Publicity and Education, extensively implemented the "whoever enforces the law shall publicize the law" responsibility system for legal publicity, carried out thematic legal publicity activities on a regular basis, trained more than 4.4 million "legal knowledgeable persons" in villages and communities nationwide, built more than 5,200 legal-themed parks (squares) at and above the county level, achieved a coverage rate of 95.7% for legal culture venues in administrative villages (communities), and established more than 30,000 new media accounts for legal publicity nationwide. The socialist legal culture is flourishing, and the socialist spirit of the rule of law is increasingly taking root in people's hearts.
At present, building a socialist law-based country at a higher level faces new circumstances and new requirements, and achieving law-abiding by the entire people still faces many practical problems that urgently need to be solved. For example, some members of the public still have only a smattering or even no understanding of the laws and regulations they should know in daily life, and many people's awareness of the rule of law remains at the passive law-abiding stage of "not committing illegal or criminal acts"; the traditional mindset inertia of "it is easy to get things done if one has connections in power" still exists, and some people still first seek connections and pull strings rather than rely on the law and follow rules when encountering problems; the awareness of the rule of law among key groups such as leading cadres and young people still needs to be further strengthened, especially the exemplary role of leading cadres in taking the lead in respecting, studying, abiding by, and applying the law has not been fully played; some netizens, taking advantage of the anonymity and virtual barrier of cyberspace, follow the crowd in stirring up trouble and launch malicious attacks, and phenomena such as cyber violence and "doxxing" have not yet been eradicated; in some places, the model of legal publicity and education is relatively monolithic, with insufficient pertinence and effectiveness, and a new model of precise legal publicity has not yet been formed; and so on. These problems may lead to the hollowing out of the legal system, the accumulation of hidden social risks, and even hinder the process of comprehensive law-based governance. It is necessary to prescribe the right remedy for the disease, unremittingly promote law-abiding by the entire people, and consolidate the legal foundation of the edifice of modernization.
To promote law-abiding by the entire people, the first priority is to uphold the authority of the law. For the law to play its role, it must have prestige. No matter how many good laws are enacted, if the people cannot trust and abide by them, the rule of law still cannot be realized. Between good laws and good governance, it is necessary to build a bridge of the people's reverence for and respect for the law. On the one hand, it is necessary to adhere to the principles that all laws must be observed, all laws must be strictly enforced, and all violations must be prosecuted, fully proclaiming the coerciveness and unchallengeability of the law. For acts that seriously defy the law, openly challenge the authority of the law, or deliberately violate legal provisions, such as violent crimes infringing on the lives and property of the people, corruption and embezzlement by state functionaries, acts violating public security administration such as disturbing public order and endangering public safety, and acts of malicious breach of contract, intentional tort, and violation of public order and good morals, they should be seriously dealt with and severely cracked down upon according to law, educating the majority by punishing the violators, so as to prevent the law from becoming in the eyes of the people a "tiger without teeth" or "a piece of paper shelved and ignored." It should be pointed out that strengthening the punitive and deterrent function of the law is by no means equivalent to severity of punishment or heavy fines, but rather should emphasize fairness, moderation, and balance. For some illegal or criminal acts that are minor in circumstances and small in harm, one should not simply impose a fine or a sentence and be done with it; rather, one should combine punishment with education, intensify the efforts to explain the law and state the reasoning, educate and guide the parties concerned to consciously abide by the law, and demonstrate to the broad masses the warmth of the law. On the other hand, it is necessary to adhere to positive incentives and positive guidance, affirm and protect law-abiding conduct, prevent the formation of the erroneous orientation that the benefits of law-abiding are far lower than the costs of law-abiding and that the benefits of law-breaking are far higher than the costs of law-breaking, enhance the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security from law-abiding, cultivate a simple recognition of and loyalty to the authority of the law from the direct experience that "law-abiding is beneficial," and create a social atmosphere in which law-abiding is honorable and law-breaking is shameful. The joint incentive system for trustworthiness and joint punishment system for dishonesty that have been comprehensively implemented since the new era, making full use of both incentive and constraint means, so that the trustworthy and law-abiding benefit and the dishonest and law-breaking are restricted, are very conducive to promoting the entire people's respect for and abidance by the law and safeguarding the dignity of the law.
Cultivating the spirit of the rule of law and enriching the social soil for law-abiding by the entire people. The spirit of the rule of law is the soul of the rule of law. If people lack the spirit of the rule of law and society lacks a prevailing atmosphere of the rule of law, the rule of law can only be something without a foundation (无本之木, wu ben zhi mu - "no, root; of, tree"), something without a basis (无根之花, wu gen zhi hua - "no, root; of, flower"), and something without a foundation (无源之水, wu yuan zhi shui - "no, source; of, water"). "Every state has laws, but there is no law that ensures the laws will be enforced." In fact, what is meant by "the law that ensures the laws will be enforced" is precisely the spirit of the rule of law. China has traditionally been a society of personal connections; the network of acquaintance relationships formed by the interweaving of blood and geographical ties is deeply embedded in social life, and the inertia of appealing to personal feelings when encountering problems has long existed. At the same time, concepts such as the "upright official" complex and the worship of power have not yet been eradicated. Today, although the socialist rule of law system with Chinese characteristics is increasingly improved, the heartfelt recognition of and belief in the rule of law still need to be cultivated, and the spirit of the rule of law has not yet been fully integrated into the fabric of social culture. How to transform legal constraints into people's inner awareness of and belief in the rule of law is an unavoidable issue of the times in deeply advancing comprehensive law-based governance. It is necessary to address the problems that some laws and regulations are divorced from China's social reality, such as overly general wording and lack of supporting provisions, promote refined legislation, enhance the operability of the law, reduce the gray areas where discretionary power is too broad, deprive hidden rules of their soil, and provide stable, clear, and definite guidance for law-abiding by the entire people. Focusing on some group illegal acts, such as competing to build illegal structures, disorderly parking, occupying roads for business, walking groups blocking traffic, and square dancing causing noise nuisance, it is necessary to strengthen comprehensive governance such as source control and case warnings, correct the erroneous perception that "the law cannot punish the many," prevent following the crowd and imitation, and block the broken windows effect. It is necessary to do a good job in implementing the "Ninth Five-Year" plan for legal publicity and education, disseminate legal knowledge, carry forward the spirit of the rule of law, cultivate belief in the rule of law, innovate the concepts and methods of legal publicity, shift from instilling legal provisions to infusing concepts, shift from one-way communication to interactive, service-oriented, and scenario-based communication, and create a social atmosphere of advocating the rule of law, adhering to rules, respecting contracts, and upholding justice.
Resolving conflicts and disputes according to law and through the use of law is an important part of law-abiding by the entire people. "Law is the beginning of governance." Social stability does not mean the absence of conflicts and disputes, and social harmony does not mean the absence of interest disputes; the key is whether one can express demands, safeguard rights, and seek remedies according to law. When law-abiding and law-using become the universal consensus and basic norm of the whole society, and when people have clear behavioral expectations provided by the law, even if interest disputes arise, they can be fairly adjudicated and rights can be effectively remedied when infringed, and social stability and harmony can be guaranteed. At present, the interest demands of various social groups are increasingly diverse, and various social contradictions are more complex and intertwined. It is urgently necessary for the entire people to develop the way of thinking and behavioral habits of handling affairs according to law, seeking the law when encountering problems, using the law to solve problems, and relying on the law to resolve conflicts, and to build a "firewall" against hidden social risks. It is necessary to further improve the mechanisms for preventing, mediating, and resolving social conflicts and disputes, such as mediation, petitioning, arbitration, litigation, administrative adjudication, and administrative reconsideration, give full play to the role of people's mediation as the first line of defense and the role of judicature as the last line of defense in safeguarding social fairness and justice, and provide the people with convenient, reliable, and trustworthy channels for dispute resolution. It is necessary to make great efforts to change the phenomenon in some places of "no settlement without making a fuss, small settlement with a small fuss, big settlement with a big fuss," deeply advance the law-based handling of petitioning work, bring both rights protection and stability maintenance into the track of the rule of law, never tolerate acts that illegally infringe on the rights and interests of others or disrupt public order in the name of rights protection, and resolutely correct erroneous perceptions and practices such as "smoothing things over is competence" and "settling things is stability." Cyberspace is not a lawless place; it is necessary to promote online platforms, self-media, and multi-channel network institutions to operate the internet according to law and use the internet according to law, promote internet judicature to resolve disputes more fairly, efficiently, and conveniently, resolutely resist cyber violence, crack down on cyber crimes, curb online chaos, lead and cultivate a self-respecting, self-confident, rational, calm, positive, and upward online social mentality, and create a clean and wholesome atmosphere (风清气正, feng qing qi zheng - "wind, clear; air, upright") in cyberspace.
Achieving law-abiding by the entire people is an important task in the process of modernization. More than 1.4 billion people are moving into a modern society as a whole, a scale exceeding the total population of existing developed countries, with unprecedented difficulty and complexity. Only when the entire people and the whole society abide by the Constitution and laws and carry out construction in various fields such as the economy, politics, culture, society, and ecological civilization under the Party's leadership can the advantages of the system be fully brought into play, the strength of all parties be united and gathered, and the goals and tasks of comprehensively building a modern socialist country on the track of the rule of law be ensured. For example, centering on high-quality development, it is necessary to guide various business entities to honor contracts in good faith and operate in compliance with the law, respect property rights, protect and incentivize innovation, severely punish illegal acts such as breach of contract and repudiation of agreements, production and sale of counterfeit and shoddy goods, and fraud and swindling, reduce the trust costs and transaction costs of the market economy, turn honesty and credit from an academic concept into the "blood" of the market, and promote the building of a law-based economy and a credit-based economy; centering on achieving common prosperity, it is necessary to guide the people to get rich legally, promote fair distribution, strictly investigate acts such as embezzlement and misappropriation of funds for benefiting the people, tax evasion and tax fraud, and infringement of the rights and interests of small and medium investors, and improve the legal system that embodies fairness of rights, fairness of opportunities, and fairness of rules; centering on deepening reform comprehensively, it is necessary to guide the whole society to view the adjustment of interests in reform rationally, better understand and identify with the achievements of institutional reform confirmed through legal procedures, and consolidate consensus on reform; centering on advancing the modernization of national governance, it is necessary to pay close attention to the issue of leading cadres, the "key minority," taking the lead in respecting, studying, abiding by, and applying the law, pay close attention to the issue of law enforcement and judicial personnel strictly enforcing the law and impartially administering justice, promote the law-based operation of all aspects of national work, and advance the integrated construction of a law-based country, a law-based government, and a law-based society, providing strong legal guarantees for Chinese modernization.
Author: Executive Vice President and Professor of Jilin University
Return to TopBy: 钟金实
Cultural China
Deeply Grasping the Outstanding Continuity of Chinese Civilization
Zhong Jinshi
Editor's Note: Chinese culture has a long history, and Chinese civilization is vast and profound. On June 2, 2023, at the Symposium on Cultural Heritage Development and Transmission, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that China's excellent traditional culture contains many important elements that together shape the outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization, and for the first time summarized and systematically elaborated these outstanding characteristics: continuity, innovativeness, unity, inclusiveness, and peacefulness. Beginning with this issue, this journal will consecutively publish relevant research findings from experts and scholars.
Chinese civilization is the only great civilization in the world that has continued unbroken and developed in the form of a state to this day. At the Symposium on Cultural Heritage Development and Transmission, General Secretary Xi Jinping, possessing a commanding and strategic perspective (高屋建瓴, gao wu jian ling - "high, house; build, pour"), summarized the outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization, with "outstanding continuity" ranked first. This outstanding continuity does not merely refer to continuous and unending (连绵不绝, lian mian bu jue - "continuous, connect; not, cut") development along a linear dimension; it also carries extremely broad and profound implications. It is an important marker distinguishing Chinese civilization from many other ancient civilizations, and it interpenetrates with innovativeness, unity, inclusiveness, and peacefulness, jointly shaping the overall picture of the outstanding characteristics of Chinese civilization. Deeply grasping the outstanding continuity of Chinese civilization, connecting ancient China, modern China, and future China, is of great and far-reaching significance for strengthening cultural confidence, following our own path, and achieving great rejuvenation.
I
Generally speaking, civilization is an advanced form of society and its achievements that humanity ultimately formed and has continued to the present over millions of years of development, encompassing rich content such as material civilization, institutional civilization, and spiritual civilization. Compared with other civilizations of the world, ancient Egyptian civilization, the civilizations of Mesopotamia, and Indian civilization all experienced interruptions of civilization, whereas Chinese civilization, despite experiencing dynastic changes, internal division, and invasion by external enemies, has seen its civilizational thread always continue without cease. The British philosopher Russell wrote, "Ancient Egypt, Babylon, Macedonia, and the Roman Empire all perished one after another; only China, through continuous evolution, still survives." This kind of unbroken continuity is not accidental but is the result of the combined action of multiple structural factors.
The birth and development of any civilization relies on a certain geographical space. The vast East Asian continent, with plateaus to the west, deserts to the north, seas to the east, and hills to the south, enabled Chinese civilization, in a stable environment, to coalesce at an early stage into a broad-region royal state with the Central Plains at its core, thereby giving civilization's continuation a stable bearer. At the same time, the interior of the East Asian continent has geographical diversity—from the Loess Plateau in the middle reaches of the Yellow River to the water-networked plains of the Yangtze River basin, from the nomadic zones of the northern grasslands to the rice-growing regions of the southern hills, from the high-cold agriculture and pastoralism of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau to the trade corridors of the Western Regions oases—this diverse geographical environment nurtured pluralistic and complementary economic forms and cultural traditions. The opening of transportation arteries such as the overland and maritime Silk Roads connected Chinese civilization with the world, forming an open posture and promoting interaction, exchange, and integration among various regions and ethnic groups. It is precisely in this vast geographical cradle that Chinese civilization has been flourishing and vigorous (根深叶茂, gen shen ye mao - "root, deep; leaf, lush"), enduring and expandable, experiencing successive periods of prosperity and change (兴嬗相继, xing shan xiang ji - "prosper, change; mutually, follow") and discarding the old to embrace the new (革故鼎新, ge gu ding xin - "change, old; establish, new").
Civilization, in its essence, is the crystallization of humanity's productive and living practices. The stability and resilience of an agricultural civilization of enormous scale shaped the psychological structure of the Chinese ancestors that respected the laws of nature, valued the accumulation of experience, and honored hard labor, enabling Chinese civilization to display extremely strong adaptability and capacity for restoration when responding to natural disasters and social changes. Successive dynasties continuously adjusted land distribution and tax-and-corvée collection policies—from the well-field system to the equal-field system, from the zu-yong-diao system to the two-tax law, and then to "apportioning the poll tax into the land tax"—which to a great extent guaranteed long-term social stability, consolidated state fiscal revenue, and provided a solid material foundation for civilization's continuation. At the same time, the grassroots governance tradition nurtured by agricultural civilization, bound by clan blood ties and combining official governance with local self-governance as complements, is an important reason why, although the upper-level political system was repeatedly restructured, the local order was never wholly ruptured. Because of this characteristic of agricultural civilization, even when the Chinese nation encountered war and division, it was often able to recover within a relatively short period and move toward new heights of development.
From the implementation of the commandery-county system in the Qin dynasty, to the strengthening of state governance in the Han dynasty, to the continuous improvement of the centralized system in later generations, the pattern of great unity became an important institutional guarantee for the continuation of Chinese civilization. The tradition of great unity was not only reflected in territorial unification but also, through the imperial examination system, the civil service system, and legal codes, established a framework of social governance that transcended regions and social strata, enhancing social cohesion. This tradition was also reflected in the capacity to coordinate major projects and public affairs; large-scale cross-regional projects promoted economic and cultural exchange, strengthened the connection between the central government and local areas, and formed a governance pattern of "joint governance under heaven." Through the deep stability of its institutions, the pattern of great unity ensured that dynasties changed while civilization continued unbroken. Each period of division and turmoil was like a fire of refinement, forcing innovation and integration and becoming an opportunity for civilization to be reborn from the ashes.
The continuation of civilization relies not only on spatial stability and institutional perfection but, even more, on the transmission of cultural traditions and the threading-through of values and thought. As early as 8,000 years ago, the dawn of civilization, with observation of celestial phenomena for timekeeping, moral cultivation, and ritual propriety as important contents, had already appeared on the Chinese land. This early civilizational gene, after the systematization of the ritual and music institutions of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, crystallized into the core values of "revering Heaven and honoring ancestors" and "matching Heaven with virtue." The Analects states: "The Shang dynasty followed the rites of the Xia; what was added and what was omitted can be known. The Zhou dynasty followed the rites of the Shang; what was added and what was omitted can be known. Should there be a successor to the Zhou, even a hundred generations hence, it can be known." Civilization has additions and omissions yet can be known for a hundred generations, because addition and omission are not rupture but adjustment on the basis of inheritance; "can be known" is not prophecy but conscious grasp and steadfast protection of continuity. Along the way, from the pre-Qin masters, the classical studies of the Han, the Dark Learning of the Wei-Jin period, the Buddhist studies of the Sui-Tang, the Neo-Confucianism of the Song-Ming, to the evidential scholarship of the Qing, the thread of thought of Chinese civilization has always extended amid inheritance and innovation. The core foundation of putting people first and valuing virtue and ritual propriety, the cosmological understanding of the unity of Heaven and humanity and the coexistence of all things, the governance wisdom of combining ritual and law and applying learning to practical affairs, and the spiritual pursuit of harmony amid diversity and the Great Unity of the world—these have always been the cultural markers by which Chinese civilization defined itself amid historical change, becoming the intellectual cornerstone sustaining the enduring continuity of the Chinese nation's value system and spiritual world.
The possibility of continuity also depends on a deep-seated sentiment of family and country. All people die, but customs such as filial piety and ancestral sacrifice extend the meaning of life beyond one's own death; the family thereby becomes the initial field in which the individual extends life and settles emotions. From family to state, from state to all under Heaven, the survival of the family is tied to the stability of the state, and the longevity of the state is tied to the continuation of civilization; the individual thus merges his or her own efforts into the common cause of defending the family and the country. Yan Zhitui wrote the Yan Family Instructions amid times of chaos, solemnly entrusting the way of the former kings and the family's hereditary enterprise to his descendants; Fan Zhongyan's "To worry before all under Heaven worries, and to rejoice after all under Heaven rejoices," and Wen Tianxiang's "Since ancient times, who has not died? Leave a loyal heart to shine in the annals of history"—a family instruction, a poem, behind each lies the responsibility of the individual to consciously carry on the lifeblood of civilization. Relying on the state form of great unity, Chinese civilization has continued to this day; family and state share the same structure, family and state are one, and the life of the individual, the fate of the nation, and the continuation of civilization are thereby joined as one. It is precisely this structure that threads together the individual, the family, the state, and civilization that makes Chinese civilization vast and long-lasting, unified yet pluralistic, always cohesive through all trials, and forever full of vitality in transmission and inheritance.
II
Continuity is both a historical fact and a historical memory, and even more a value pursuit. As a historical fact, it is concentratedly embodied in territorial maps and artifacts and tools; as a historical memory, it is concentratedly crystallized in the writing, annotation, and compilation of various classics such as the classics, histories, masters, and collections; as a value pursuit, it is profoundly expressed in the spiritual world of the Chinese people. Historical fact, historical memory, and value pursuit support one another, giving the continuity of Chinese civilization a clear and reliable thread.
The territorial map is the spatial carrier of civilization's survival, encompassing and integrating cultural elements such as dialects, cuisine, and folk customs, promoting the movement of multiple ethnic groups from "geographical adjacency" to "shared destiny," and forming the civilizational foundation of "plurality within unity." From the "establishing residence in China" of the Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties that established the Central Plains as the core, to the unification of the northern and southern agricultural regions in the Qin-Han period that established the vast territory, to the continuous expansion and consolidation during the Sui-Tang and Yuan-Ming-Qing periods, the geographical space of Chinese civilization has displayed a posture of inward cohesion and outward radiation. This continuation of territory was not achieved by military conquest but was based on shared governance structures, cultural identity, economic ties, and the pursuit of unity. Successive dynasties, on the basis of inheriting the territories of previous dynasties, brought different regions and different ethnic groups into a unified state system through flexible methods such as the commandery-county system and the jimifu system. The territorial map of the Chinese nation has maintained astonishing historical continuity amid dynastic changes, becoming the most direct manifestation of the continuity of Chinese civilization.
Artifacts and tools are the material support for civilization's transmission. Over thousands of years of history, the Chinese nation has formed an unbroken chain of technology and a production system. In agricultural production, from the wooden and stone plows of ancient times, to the bronze agricultural tools of the Shang-Zhou period, to the iron agricultural tools popularized in the Warring States period; from ox-drawn plowing in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods, to the inventions of intensive-cultivation tools such as the coupled plow of the Han dynasty and the curved-shaft plow of the Tang dynasty, agricultural technology has continuously iterated and updated. In craft manufacturing, from pottery making in ancient times to bronze casting in the Shang-Zhou period, from iron smelting in the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods to porcelain firing in the Tang-Song period, as well as silk-weaving technology that has continued for thousands of years—the intergenerational transmission of these skills is reflected not only in the gradual improvement of artifact forms but also contains a steadfast adherence to aesthetic paradigms and aesthetic spirit. The Grand Canal is an even grander testimony to the continuous transmission of Chinese material civilization. This water artery flowing through the land of China, beginning in the Spring and Autumn period and undergoing continuous excavation, regulation, and improvement through the Qin-Han, Sui-Tang, Two Song, and Yuan-Ming-Qing dynasties, has become an excellent portrayal of the continuous and unending vitality of Chinese civilization.
The tradition of the classics and histories is the most conspicuous manifestation of continuity. The classics are the constant way; the histories are the records of actual events; the classics establish the guiding principles, and the histories record the changes. The Chinese nation has a profound tradition of "mutual verification of classics and histories" and "the Six Classics are all histories." From Sima Qian's writing of the Records of the Grand Historian, to Ban Gu's dynastic history the Book of Han, to Sima Guang's compilation of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, the lineage of historians has been passed down generation after generation. In the Twenty-Four Histories, each dynasty compiled the history of the preceding dynasty, becoming an unbroken convention, so that the national histories are linked end to end. The Grand Historian took as his mission "to investigate the boundary between Heaven and humanity, and to penetrate the changes of past and present"; Yuan Haowen had the aspiration that "when the state perishes, history must be written—this is my own duty"; Wang E stated even more directly: "Since ancient times there have been states that could perish, but no history that could perish." Dynasties rose and fell, but the writing of history never ceased; the efforts of generation after generation were thereby incorporated into the same civilizational thread, and the labors of predecessors were not obliterated by dynastic change. The cultural lineage was continued through the transmission of the classics. Confucius edited the Book of Songs and the Book of Documents, fixed the Book of Rites and the Book of Music, praised the Book of Changes, and compiled the Spring and Autumn Annals, establishing China's earliest canonical texts; thereafter, literati of successive generations transmitted the classics without cease—Zheng Xuan annotated the entire corpus of classics, Zhu Xi compiled collected annotations on the Four Books, and the consciousness of the orthodox transmission of the Way was passed down generation after generation. Equal emphasis on classics and histories constituted the dual mechanism by which Chinese civilization remembered itself and continued itself: the histories record events, the classics illuminate principles; events manifest principles, and principles and events support each other. Within the chain of meaning constructed by the tradition of classics and histories, historical change did not sever the memory of Chinese civilization but instead continuously channeled new historical experience into it, presenting a clear and continuous civilizational thread like "my Way is threaded through with one principle."
Language, writing, and the calendrical system are the most everyday carriers of continuity. From the perspective of writing, although modern Chinese characters differ greatly from oracle bone script and bronze inscriptions, the developmental process from oracle bone script to bronze script, from bronze script to small seal script, from small seal script to clerical script, from clerical script to regular script, and from traditional regular script to simplified regular script is extremely clear and complete. No matter how much the forms of characters have changed, the construction of characters has always followed the common principles of pictographs, indicatives, ideographs, and phonetic compounds. When we read the character "heaven" in oracle bone script today, we can still recognize its pictographic representation of a person with a head above the sky—this is a direct display of such continuity.The stability of the logic of character construction means that bamboo slips of the Warring States period and stone inscriptions of the Qing dynasty can share a single set of visual grammar. All changes in language occurred gradually over the course of long historical development, and later generations can climb step by step along the interpretations of predecessors to read earlier ancient texts. The same is true of the calendar; successive dynasties either "reformed the first month of the year" to reestablish the political time of their era, but always emphasized "the succession of the correct calendar." When Confucius discussed governing a state, he placed primary importance on "adopting the Xia calendar," precisely because a shared time system is an important foundation for a community to maintain stability and develop continuously. When Heaven and time are one, then the hearts of the people are unified; when the four seasons are orderly, then civilization has constancy. Thus, shared language and writing enable people of different regions to communicate, and a shared time system enables the lives of different generations to connect with one another; both evolved in an orderly manner, becoming conclusive evidence of civilization's unbroken continuation.
III
Placed in the comparative perspective of world civilizations, the outstanding continuity of Chinese civilization can be called a great wonder in the history of world civilization. The German philosopher Jaspers once used "axial breakthrough" to summarize the spiritual leap of major civilizations from the 8th to the 2nd century BCE. Although this theory has strong explanatory power, it easily obscures a fundamental difference—China's axial breakthrough was a breakthrough of continuity, a breakthrough of inheritance, not a breakthrough of negation. From "matching Heaven with virtue" to "interpreting ritual through benevolence," every leap of Chinese civilization was a continuation and elevation of tradition rather than a negation of it; it did not break with its own tradition but opened new ground on the extension line of tradition, and the transitions between them were gradual, not abrupt ruptures. Through continuous interpretation, adjustment, and renewal, Chinese civilization incorporated change into its own historical process of development.
It must be particularly pointed out that the history of Chinese civilization has never been the exclusive history of any single ethnic group but is a continuous history jointly created by the Chinese nation. Chinese civilization has a basic concept: culture is higher than ethnicity. It is precisely because civilization is judged by culture rather than ethnicity that Chinese civilization was able to continuously absorb and integrate the cultural creations of different ethnic groups, coalescing into the Chinese nation of plurality within unity. Plurality injects vitality into civilization; unity ensures that the shared cultural thread is not broken; the two achieve each other, constituting an important condition for the continuous development of Chinese civilization.
Some overseas scholars, viewing from the perspective of Western civilization, hold that Chinese civilization does not possess continuity, regarding the Yuan and Qing as alien conquest dynasties. This is in fact the result of viewing Chinese civilization through Western concepts of nation and civilization, and at a deeper level is still "Western-centrism." The Yuan and Qing, as important dynasties in Chinese history, like other dynasties, made outstanding contributions to the development of the pluralistic and unified pattern of the Chinese nation. In the eighth year of Zhiyuan (1271), Kublai took the meaning of "Great indeed is Qian Yuan" from the Book of Changes to set the dynastic name "Yuan," placing himself in the line of succession from the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors; he established the Imperial Academy, and during the reign of Emperor Wuzong of Yuan, Confucius was posthumously honored as "Great Perfected Ultimate Sage King of Culture"; Emperor Renzong of Yuan revived the imperial examinations. Even Zhu Yuanzhang, who overthrew the Yuan to establish the Ming dynasty, did not regard the Yuan as an "alien" dynasty; his enthronement edict explicitly stated that the Yuan "received the Mandate of Heaven as a true man from the desert, entered China and became lord of all under Heaven," frankly acknowledging that the Yuan received the Mandate of Heaven and occupied the orthodox position; he placed an altar for Emperor Shizu of Yuan in the Temple of Successive Emperors, sharing in sacrifices with successive emperors. During the Qianlong reign of the Qing dynasty, the Complete Library of the Four Treasuries was compiled, comprising over 79,000 volumes, the largest collection of books in ancient China; the Wuying Hall collated and printed the Twenty-Four Histories, enabling the standard histories of successive dynasties to be collected and circulated. The ancients judged orthodoxy by culture, not by ethnicity in distinguishing Chinese from barbarian; although dynasties changed, institutions, laws, and civilizational identity were inherited from one to the next. Dynastic change did not alter the fundamental direction of the continuation of Chinese civilization—this is what we must make clear in firmly proposing that "Chinese civilization possesses outstanding continuity."
Looking back at the so-called argument that Chinese civilization was ruptured at the Yuan and Qing transitions, it appears to be based on historical facts but is in fact confined to the Western "nation-state" analytical framework; it is cutting Chinese history according to Western concepts, making Chinese history static, and turning it into an object to be measured by Western views of history rather than a subject of history. From the "conquest dynasty theory" to the "Inner Asian perspective," from "after Yashan there is no China" to "after the fall of the Ming there is no Huaxia," these emphasize the non-Han character of the Yuan and Qing dynasties, describe dynastic change as civilizational rupture, dissect the pluralistic and unified civilizational whole from the perspective of a single ethnic group, and use the "rupture-replacement" model to obliterate the continuity of "inheritance, reform, addition, and loss"—this is typical historical nihilism and cultural nihilism. As General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "If one does not understand China from the perspective of its long and continuous history, it is impossible to understand ancient China, impossible to understand modern China, and even more impossible to understand future China." Only by understanding China's more than five thousand years of civilizational history from the principles of Chinese civilization itself can one grasp the true meaning of the continuity of Chinese civilization.
Today, standing at a new historical starting point, we must deeply appreciate the civilizational qualities of Chinese civilization that are ever-generating, enduring, and expandable; uphold fundamental principles and break new ground in promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of China's excellent traditional culture; promote exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations through openness and inclusiveness; use the Two Integrations (两个结合) to open new horizons for the development of Chinese civilization; promote the growth of a new cultural life-form; enable the more than five thousand years of Chinese civilization to radiate even more vigorous vitality in the new era; and enable Chinese civilization, becoming more fresh and vibrant with time (历久弥新, li jiu mi xin - "pass, long; increasingly, new") and keeping pace with the times (与时偕行, yu shi xie xing - "with, time; together, walk"), to make new and greater contributions to the progress of human civilization.
Return to TopBy: 刘成纪
The Aesthetic Roots and Contemporary Echoes of China's Agrarian Tradition
Liu Chengji
Earlier this year, the nation's first mental-health service demonstration platform built around terrace ecosystems — the "Yuanyang Thousand-Year Hani Terrace Psychology and Natural Therapy Demonstration Site" — was officially launched in Yuanyang, Yunnan. Walking a full circuit along the field ridges, bending down to transplant rice seedlings, and listening to a night of frog calls have been incorporated as signature elements of the healing curriculum. Not without exception (无独有偶, wu du you ou - "no, alone, have, pair"), in recent years some urban youths have bid farewell to office towers and plunged into ancient villages in southern Zhejiang, northern Fujian, and southeastern Guizhou to become "new farmers,"" converting abandoned cattle sheds into pottery workshops, converting old terrace dwellings into guesthouses, and editing their forebears' mulberry-and-hemp labors into short-video clips of""Chinese-style slow living."" These seemingly scattered phenomena in fact jointly point to a deeper question: in an era when artificial intelligence is continually reshaping sensory experience and urbanization is continually diluting the sense of hometown, why are more and more people turning back toward the land and the countryside?
The answer is clearly not merely a matter of economic accounting, but touches upon the aesthetic and spiritual dimensions. China's agrarian tradition originated in the early Neolithic period over ten thousand years ago, ran through the entire course of Chinese civilization's development, and to a certain extent can be said to be the spiritual mother-body of the Chinese people. In fact, farming is not only a mode of production, but even more a mode of existence. It has caused Chinese aesthetics to always carry the heaviness of the soil and the clarity-and-distance of heaven and earth, profoundly influencing how Chinese people view the world, experience beauty, and settle body and mind.
This aesthetic orientation, deeply rooted in the agrarian tradition, is first of all embodied in a firm human-land relationship. In the pre-Qin period, the Zhuangzi says:""Great Earth loads me with form, labors me with life, eases me in old age, and rests me in death."" This is precisely speaking of the relationship of sharing life and death, sharing common destiny, between humans and the land. In modern times, more scholars have paid attention to the unique relationship formed between agricultural production and the land. Fei Xiaotong, in From the Soil: The Foundations of Chinese Society, pointed out that""those who work in industry can choose their place of residence and move without hindrance; but those who till the soil cannot move the land, the crops growing in the soil cannot move, and the old farmer who tends the crops is for this reason as if half-inserted into the soil — earthiness arises because of non-mobility." That is to say, the human-land relationship is the foundational relationship of agrarian society. For farmers, whether they treat the land as an object of labor or as means of subsistence, their mode of production and mode of life are both constrained by the land. By comparison, industrial and commercial production is fluid, and its property is portable; agricultural production, however, is fixed to the land, which determines that farmers are attached to their soil and reluctant to leave their hometown. This connection formed between humans and the land through agricultural production has nurtured an extremely stable family-and-country sentiment among the Chinese people. Human attachment to the land and love for one's hometown are one and the same; patriotism is an amplified form of this native-soil sentiment, and its artistic expression is the praise of and longing for one's native place and nature. Native land, fields, mulberry and hemp, crowing roosters, cooking smoke — these have thereby become the most authentic spiritual landscape of the Chinese people.
This spiritual landscape is saturated with the breath of life, because agricultural production mainly involves dealing with nature, and the growth of all things causes Chinese people to regard the land and nature with a wholly living attitude. The Shuowen Jiezi glosses "earth": "Earth is that which spits out living things from the ground";it glosses""life"":""Life means advancing. It images grass and trees emerging from the soil."" This means that""earth"" is earth capable of giving birth to life, and""life"" is life that comes from the earth. The ancients further recognized that although life constitutes the most essential attribute of the earth, it is not exclusive to the earth, but comes from the integrated transformation-and-nurturing of heaven, earth, and the whole of nature. Endless cycles of life and growth (生生不息, sheng sheng bu xi - "birth, birth, not, stop") are the shared great virtue of heaven and earth, that is,""the great virtue of heaven and earth is called giving life."" Between heaven and earth, there is a life-breath that transforms all things, flowing and filling throughout. In short, China's agrarian tradition has promoted the formation of a cosmology of great transformation flowing forth and teeming with vitality, in which the essence of life is regarded as the universal essence of all things. In this sense, Chinese people's understanding of beauty has never been limited to concrete living things in nature, but has vitalized the entire cosmos; and their appreciation of beauty has never stopped at the external appearance of things, but has penetrated into the inner rhythm of life within all things.
What is opened up by this rhythm of life is precisely the beauty of nature's original authenticity. Traditional Chinese agrarian society revered natural beauty, taking the natural rather than the man-made as the highest form of beauty. The so-called""natural"" means being-so-of-itself, that is, a thing being itself, which means that a flower naturally grown from the soil is more beautiful than an artificially made plastic flower. Li Bai's poetry says,""The sage dynasty restores the ancient, valuing plainness and purity in dress,""and""clear water emerges lotus, natural, without carving or adornment""— both emphasize the original-authentic and inherent beauty that originates from nature.It can be considered that without this unconditional reverence and gratitude toward the land and nature serving as precursor, there would be no comprehensive affirmation of its aesthetic value. And the reason this beauty is said to be infinitely plural and vibrant is because the nature understood by Chinese people is not mechanical and lifeless, but has an inner vitality of life continually surging forth within it. In this way, naturally grown flowers are not only more beautiful than artificial flowers, but they themselves, because they possess different life-qualities, are each different from one another, each finding and appreciating their own unique beauty (各美其美, ge mei qi mei - "each, beauty, its, beauty"). That is to say, in nature, there are never two identical flowers, and their beauty is forever non-repetitive, and the natural beauty thereby composed is necessarily active because of its life, and infinitely plural because of its non-repetitiveness. The Southern Dynasties writer Qiu Chi said,""In late spring, third month, south of the Yangtze, grass grows, miscellaneous flowers bloom among the trees, flocks of orioles dart about""— precisely depicting this fully vitalized rural landscape. In sum, the flourishing and withering of grass and trees, the opening and falling of flowers, spring sowing and autumn harvest in nature, have caused Chinese people to form a perceptual concept of time; country dwelling, fields, villages, distant mountains have caused Chinese people to form a perceptual concept of space. Undoubtedly, this concept of time and space is not something that modern abstract and digitized mechanical clocks, calendars, maps, and the like can provide.
The perceptual concept of time and space, steeped in the agrarian tradition, further gave birth to an artistic tradition themed on countryside and pastoral fields. The ancients' understanding of art and beauty was founded on agricultural planting and livestock raising. The Shuowen Jiezi glosses""art"":""Art means planting""; it glosses""planting"":""Planting means art."" This mutual glossing of""art"" and""planting"" suffices to show that the ancients' understanding of""art"" was founded on agricultural planting, or rather, agricultural planting itself is art. Correspondingly, the Shuowen Jiezi glosses""beauty"":""Beauty means sweetness. It follows sheep, it follows great,"" which shows that the ancients' understanding of beauty had the background of livestock raising. On this basis, the ancients continually elevated the art of rural labor toward the spiritual level, as when the Qing dynasty scholar Duan Yucai glossed""the Six Arts"":""In the Zhou dynasty, the character for the Six Arts was also written as yi. The Confucian's relationship to rites, music, archery, charioteering, calligraphy, and mathematics was like the farmer's planting and cultivating — the Confucian cultivates himself just as the farmer cultivates the soil,"" pointing out that the Six Arts are physical-and-mental arts cultivated and nurtured through acquired training, and that the Confucian tills his own self just as the farmer tills the land.This formulation clearly extends the farmer's material planting activity toward the spiritual level. Thereafter, there further formed a literary and artistic system themed on agriculture and countryside. Like the agricultural-work poetry and pastoral poetry in Chinese poetry, the landscape and flower-and-bird painting in painting, the country estates and gardens in architecture — most take natural countryside as their object of expression. For thousands of years,""Peach Blossom Spring"" and""the pastoral dream"" have always been the aesthetic ideal yearned for by Chinese people
That the aesthetic ideal is deeply rooted in people's hearts depends precisely on the tradition of aesthetic education that takes farming as its teaching. In ancient Chinese society, aesthetic and artistic education was one with humanistic education, generally called cultural education, mainly comprising three major types: poetry education, rites education, and music education. The ancients believed that behind these three major types of education, there still existed a more fundamental education, namely, the education of farming itself, and that nothing could cultivate good temperament in people better than""engaging in farming"" itself. The Lüshi Chunqiu says:""The ancient sage-kings' way of guiding their people was to put farming first. The people's farming is not merely for the benefit of the land, but values their will."" This means that the value of tilling the land lies not only in producing more grain, but, more importantly, in being able to cultivate good aspirations in people. Based on this understanding of the value of labor, at least since the Western Zhou dynasty, rulers of successive dynasties would, before spring plowing, lead officials and even common people in performing the Field-Plowing Rite, which was both an exhortation to farming and a way of establishing value orientation for society. From an aesthetic perspective, China's traditional poetry education, rites education, and music education all possess the nature of aesthetic education, but what truly makes this education take root is agricultural labor. It causes aesthetic education to not stop at the surface level of appreciating rural landscapes, but to be deeply rooted in the embodied recognition of the inner essence of soil, plants, and the like, thereby making beauty more profound and correspondingly making aesthetic education more spiritually deep. Farming as education — this process is necessarily arduous, but this arduousness helps people deepen their understanding of nature and life, and to experience how hard-won every meal of rice and every dish of vegetables is
To be sure, China's agrarian tradition has long been attached to the self-sufficient smallholder economy and patriarchal clan order, having nurtured a relatively closed and rigidified native society, and to a certain extent having suppressed the pioneering spirit of outward expansion. But these aesthetic endowments deeply rooted in the agrarian tradition possess irreplaceable value for settling the spiritual world of modern people. First, they help anchor spiritual coordinates in an age of mobility. The population mobility demanded by modern industrial production once caused the agrarian tradition to be regarded as a""backward"" shackle, but in the present era of highly mobile populations, the non-movability of land has precisely become a scarce spiritual resource. It elevates people's attachment to every blade of grass, every tree, every well, every mulberry tree into an emotional identification with the community of family and country, causing family-and-country sentiment to take root in simple native-soil feelings. Second, they help overcome loneliness and the feeling of being a stranger in a strange land. In native life, humans and nature coexist in mutual being —""Heaven and earth were born together with me, and all things are one with me""; they can also co-feel and co-respond —""I see green mountains as charming, and expect that the green mountains see me likewise."" In today's world, where modern media have long intervened in the relationship between humans and the world through images, this conception of nature as a living, feeling,""you"" that can be conversed with, rather than an""it"" to be disposed of, can enable modern people to obtain spiritual consolation in the mutual attunement between humans and nature. Third, they help resist sensory dulling and emptiness. Contemporary industrial and information society emphasizes order and efficiency, greatly promoting social development, but at the same time, to a certain extent, it causes human sensory organs to become dull, and digital existence further casts people into the virtual and abstract, making sensory experience increasingly thin and flat. Returning to that living, tangible, body-connected perceptual time and space of agrarian civilization possesses significance that cannot be ignored for resisting the sensory dulling of modern people and rebuilding a rich, textured life-world. Fourth, they help supplement the structure of contemporary education. The tradition of China's traditional agrarian society of deeply integrating aesthetic education, labor, and life education possesses important practical value. It reminds us that true aesthetic education cannot tread on air, but should unfold in a real relationship with the land, labor, and seasonal rhythms, thereby allowing the cultivation of aesthetic sensibility, the embodied recognition of nature's rhythms, and the embodied experience of labor's arduousness to interpenetrate with one another. Only in this way can aesthetic education avoid degenerating into a superficial ornamental decoration and possess a more solid sense of reality and spiritual depth.
In ancient China, the state was founded on agriculture, and the agrarian tradition thereby formed displays multidimensional value dimensions far beyond the material. Today, modern agricultural technology has gradually enabled China's agricultural production to cast off heavy physical labor, and modern communication technology has gradually enabled China's rural life to solve the problem of information isolation. It can be considered that, at this new interface where urban and rural economic and social resources can gradually achieve equality, the aesthetic advantages of the countryside will become an extra gift to those who choose to live in rural areas. At present, many migrant workers from China's countryside have begun to return to their hometowns to start businesses, and quite a few urban youths have also come to regard rural living as fashionable. This new trend shows that, between city and countryside, the value of China's agrarian tradition has begun to be rediscovered and reawakened. In this sense, the countryside has not only created a new and fresh way of doing things (别开生面, bie kai sheng mian - "separate, open, birth, face") outside the process of contemporary Chinese urbanization, but the aesthetic value it contains points toward the future.
The author is a professor at the School of Philosophy, Beijing Normal University.
Return to TopBy: 文平
Recognizing the Essence of Historical Nihilism in "Pseudo-History Theory"
Wen Ping
For some time now, a series of absurd arguments collectively labeled "pseudo-history theory" have continued to ferment online and gradually entered the public eye. Among these are both extreme assertions that directly deny the documented history of Chinese dynasties, such as "the Tang Dynasty never existed" and "the Song Dynasty lasted 800 years," as well as making unreasonable connections or forced arguments (牵强附会, qiān qiāng fù huì - "drag, force; attach, join") such as "Mount Emei is the Alps" and "the Yongle Encyclopedia gave birth to modern Western civilization." When such bizarre and dazzling or grotesque (光怪陆离, guāng guài lù lí - "light, strange; colorful, variegated") views are becoming widely prevalent or fashionable (大行其道, dà xíng qí dào - "greatly, spread; its, way") under the label of "historical truth," while rigorous archaeological findings are instead denounced as "fabricated history books," what we face is no longer ordinary online rumor, but a new form of historical nihilism. It uses algorithms as its "new-style weapon" and spreads in a fission-like, viral manner among certain groups through "pan-entertainment" methods. The value orientation and communication logic lurking behind it merit our in-depth examination.
As an erroneous social trend of thought, historical nihilism has its philosophical foundation in idealist views of history. It often cloaks itself in the garb of "scholarship" or "literature and art," with refined packaging and strong deceptive appeal, yet in reality it harbors specific political intentions, posing a real threat to China's cultural security and ideological security. Among its manifestations, those extreme expressions that openly deny the Party's history, vilify the Party's leaders, and smear heroic figures are relatively easy for the public to see through because of their straightforward stance and crude methods, reducing them to a person or thing universally detested (过街老鼠, guò jiē lǎo shǔ - "cross, street; pass, mouse"). However, historical nihilism has not died out because of this; instead, it constantly changes its tactics and reinvents itself. "Pseudo-history theory" is one of the current variants of historical nihilism that is highly anti-intellectual in character. Although it claims to "question antiquity," it is fundamentally different from the textual criticism and authentication practiced in the historical studies community on the basis of rigorous materials, and the two must never be conflated. History has never been a discipline that cannot be questioned; newly unearthed archaeological findings and newly discovered documents and classics can often revise previously established historical understandings. Modern Chinese historiography was precisely established on the twin drivers of empirical spirit and rational skepticism, and its epistemological foundation lies in the principle that any historical judgment must be subject to the test of evidence and rational debate. "Pseudo-history theory," by contrast, completely abandons the basic bottom line of empirical research. It does not exercise caution where "historical materials are insufficient," but deliberately turns a blind eye where "evidence is conclusive." Its cognitive logic has slid from "having doubts" to "deliberately doubting," and from "seeking truth" to "seeking novelty." "Pseudo-history theory," which engages in "nihilism" in practice under the name of "questioning antiquity," is not only a disorder of historical cognition, but also a concentrated projection of historical nihilism at the methodological level. While seriously distorting history, it is also dismantling people's critical thinking capacity and public rationality on a massive scale.
What deserves particular attention is that, against the backdrop of rapid evolution in information technology, historical nihilism has taken on new characteristics of diversified carriers, fragmented discourse, and stratified communication circles. It targets in particular the youth groups whose values are still taking shape, employing playful and mocking modes of expression, coupled with emotional and highly immersive discourse strategies, giving it extremely strong powers of confusion and deception. Platform traffic logic naturally pursues conflict, favors extreme emotional content and sensationalist narratives, which precisely matches the cognitive features of the post-truth era: emotion precedes fact, position precedes evidence, resonance precedes truth. The algorithmic mechanisms of short-video platforms have further accelerated the spread of "pseudo-history theory." Rigorous and substantial histories of Tang Dynasty institutions and culture attract few readers, yet a shock-value headline like "the Tang Dynasty was fabricated" can quickly harvest traffic. This kind of "pseudo-history narrative" follows a mature communication playbook: first, use astonishing conclusions that overturn common sense to grab attention; then take fragmented information, cut off the head and tail, and graft pieces together, packaging it as so-called "evidence"; and finally, hand it to some naive audiences under the name of "innovative achievements." Serious historical writing is being recoded into "emotional commodities" for consumption. The disseminators exploit the weaknesses of minors who lack historical training and have limited life experience, dressing up the absurd conjectures of anti-intellectualism as "penetrating insights," constantly fostering the cheap sense of superiority of feeling uniquely enlightened while others are deluded (众人皆醉我独醒, zhòng rén jiē zuì wǒ dú xǐng - "all, people, all, drunk; I, alone, awake"). Moreover, some minors, having long been immersed in the information cocoons created by algorithmic recommendations, are continuously fed homogenized and extreme viewpoints, repeatedly reinforcing their existing cognitive biases. After a batch of self-media accounts that fabricated and spread extreme "pseudo-history theory" were centrally dealt with in 2025, the related dissemination did not vanish, but instead shifted to decentralized and covert communication channels. More extreme assertions have been broken down into short phrases, stuffed into short-video comment sections, live-stream bullet comments, and community message boards, and their deep-level harm is not to be underestimated or taken lightly (不容小觑, bù róng xiǎo qù - "not, allow, small, look down").
It should be recognized that "pseudo-history theory" is not merely a battle of ideas confined to cyberspace; it also harbors multiple political and social risks, and its negative effects have already spread from the virtual realm to real society. The rampant extreme pseudo-history rhetoric online continues to spread overseas, already damaging China's academic discourse power and external cultural image. At a deeper level, some "pseudo-history theory" narratives contain hidden tendencies toward ethnic separatism, objectively serving as theoretical accomplices in denying the pluralistic and integrated pattern of the Chinese nation. For example, some define the Tang Dynasty as a "Hu people's regime" solely on the basis of imperial bloodline, and the groups disseminating such claims often simultaneously believe in erroneous arguments such as "Yuan and Qing were not China" and the so-called "1644 view of history," forming an implicit alignment and resonance with certain overseas narratives aimed at deconstructing the continuity of Chinese civilization. Regardless of the original intentions of these arguments, their actual consequences are often the deconstruction of national identity, the erosion of cultural foundations, the shaking of belief in the continuity of the Chinese nation, and the risk of fragmentation of the historical consensus of the Chinese national community. Looking at the present, some overseas forces are using artificial intelligence to mass-produce false information that distorts history, and there is a real risk that large quantities of AI-generated false historical materials will flow back into domestic cyberspace. Once such false content seeps into basic corpus databases, AI systems will continuously output biased historical narratives, forming a vicious cycle of "algorithms amplifying bias—bias solidifying cognition—cognition reshaping algorithms," posing a long-term, hidden, and even difficult-to-reverse erosion of the historical cognition of the Chinese people, especially young people.
The ancients said: "To destroy a state, one must first erase its history." General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly stressed the need to "establish and uphold a correct view of history, a correct view of the nation, a correct view of the state, and a correct view of culture," and to "oppose and resist historical nihilism with a clear-cut stand." In the face of the continued spread of "pseudo-history theory," we must conduct in-depth analysis and forceful rebuttal, and respond in a coordinated manner through technological governance, educational guidance, and legal safeguards. We must fully implement the responsibility system for ideological work, tighten and consolidate the primary responsibility of online platforms, and promote the deep embedding of mainstream value orientation into algorithmic recommendation models, never allowing algorithms to become the mouthpiece of historical nihilism. Accounts that have long disseminated "pseudo-history theory" should be dealt with in accordance with laws and regulations, cutting off the chain of transmission of erroneous ideas; for extreme acts that disrupt public order and touch the bottom line of the law, legal responsibility must be seriously pursued in accordance with the law. At the same time, schools and families should work in coordination to continuously enhance the historical literacy and media literacy of young people, strive to achieve a paradigm shift from "knowledge indoctrination" to "cognitive immunity," help minors improve their ability to distinguish the truth of historical rumors, and hold the cognitive bottom line in an algorithm-surrounded online environment. Popularization of authentic history should also learn to tell stories using new media methods, helping people establish a correct view of history.
History must not be arbitrarily tampered with, and the long-standing and splendid civilizations of all ethnic groups must not be dissolved into nothingness. From the countless cultural relics and historic sites of the glorious Tang Dynasty recorded in historical books and scattered across the country, to the physical remains continuously unearthed by generations of archaeologists that corroborate civilization, real history has its own complete and solid chain of evidence and needs no self-justification. What truly needs to be carefully safeguarded is the public rationality that respects historical facts and reveres evidence. In the face of the various erroneous arguments of "pseudo-history theory," we should take historical facts as our shield, the rule of law as our sword, and education as our foundation, speak out proactively, dare to draw the sword, and resolutely resist the erosion of historical nihilism. This is both the reverence and protection we owe to several thousand years of history, and a weighty responsibility that we must shoulder for the next generation and for the future!
Return to TopBy: 赵宏图 陈文林
Shifts in the Global Energy Landscape Seen Through the US-Israel-Iran Conflict
Zhao Hongtu, Chen Wenlin
Since the outbreak of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East have intensified, triggering a new round of global energy crisis. Energy security has increasingly become a priority option in the energy policy-making of various countries, and developing clean energy is seen as an important path to safeguarding energy security and reducing external dependence. The global energy transition, which had shown signs of slowing after the Russia-Ukraine conflict, now faces new opportunities. Against this backdrop, the balance of international energy power is accelerating its evolution, the discourse power over global oil and gas is fluctuating in relative strength or importance (此消彼长, ci xiao bi chang - "this, diminish; that, increase"), and economies that actively embrace the energy transition may occupy a more important position in the future global energy landscape.
I
In recent years, the international energy market has been marked by turbulence and interwoven changes, facing numerous destabilizing factors. The Russia-Ukraine conflict, the Middle East conflict, the US tariff war, and US-European energy sanctions against Russia, Iran, and Venezuela have, to a certain extent, pushed the world into a "period of energy insecurity." In particular, the US-Israel-Iran conflict led to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, causing an "unprecedented" disruption in supply from energy-producing regions, further elevating the importance of energy and accelerating the adjustment of global energy development logic and landscape.
From the perspective of energy policy goals and development logic, the security factor is increasingly prominent. After the outbreak of the US-Israel-Iran conflict, supply shortages and rising oil prices in many countries brought energy security issues back to the center of decision-making. The International Energy Agency report points out that urgent threats and long-term risks have elevated energy issues to core topics of economic and national security, and all countries regard energy security and affordability as top priorities. In Asia, many countries have adopted emergency measures, such as vigorously promoting work-from-home arrangements, implementing fuel rationing, and restricting production for industrial users, to maintain economic operations and social stability. South Korea has fully implemented a maximum oil price ceiling system, India has lowered excise taxes on gasoline and diesel, and the Philippines has declared a state of energy emergency. In Europe, many countries have tapped into strategic petroleum reserves, some have publicly called for relaxing emission policies, Italy and Germany have slowed the coal power phase-out process, and the United Kingdom has used economic compensation to guide users to reduce electricity consumption during peak demand periods. At the CERAWeek conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts, known as the "Davos of the energy world," the most notable change this year is the return of the energy security agenda, with the core theme shifting from "energy transition" in previous sessions to "energy security," reflecting a shift in development logic from "efficiency and cost priority" to "security and resilience first."
From the perspective of the balance of energy power, the US-Israel-Iran conflict has severely impacted Middle Eastern oil-producing countries and key oil and gas corridors, leading to a reshuffling of the traditional energy power landscape. After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US and Europe imposed energy sanctions on Russia, causing a sharp decline in Russian energy exports, with the EU paying a heavy price in energy and economic terms, while US energy discourse power rose significantly. At the same time, oil and gas exporting countries in the Middle East, Latin America, and elsewhere expanded their international market shares to varying degrees. In the US-Israel-Iran conflict, the "epicenter" of the energy crisis shifted. On the buyer side, Asian consuming countries were hit hardest, with manufacturing in Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, and other countries suffering severe blows, facing risks of high inflation and economic slowdown. Most European countries were also affected, with their industrial systems struggling to operate. On the seller side, the production capacity and exports of Middle Eastern oil-producing countries were damaged, and the UAE's withdrawal further weakened the influence of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), significantly diminishing the Middle East's oil and gas discourse power. Due to relaxed energy sanctions and rising oil prices, Russia has become a new beneficiary, while Latin America shows strong production growth momentum. The US share of oil and gas exports and its discourse power have been further strengthened, but the crisis has also accelerated the process of oil "de-dollarization."
From the perspective of the transition between old and new energy, this conflict has brought new opportunities for the international energy transition. After the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the US and Europe experienced a "green regression," especially as the current US administration overturned the previous administration's "Green New Deal," slowing the international energy transition that had been advancing vigorously in carbon neutrality actions. The US-Israel-Iran conflict has prompted many countries to re-examine their dependence on fossil fuels and transportation corridors, accelerating the pace of the energy transition. For example, Vietnam and India have successively introduced policies to increase the development of green energy such as photovoltaics; South Korea has stated that the energy crisis has become an important opportunity to accelerate the promotion of renewable energy transition; and the European Commission has announced the "Accelerate the EU" action package, proposing to speed up the electrification process of member states and strengthen grid system construction. International Energy Agency Executive Director Fatih Birol predicts that this round of crisis will accelerate the development of renewable energy, nuclear power, and electric vehicles worldwide.
II
The energy crisis triggered by the US-Israel-Iran conflict is the direct catalyst for the reshaping of the global energy landscape. At a deeper level, the reshaping of the global energy landscape is both a continuation of the "politicization" and "securitization" of international energy against the backdrop of frequent geopolitical conflicts in recent years, and a result of the failure of international energy governance to adapt to current challenges.
Geopolitical rivalry deepening the trend of "politicization" of energy issues is a change of the times facing the energy sector. Currently, energy issues are increasingly hijacked by geopolitical goals, and the trend of globalization of energy supply chains has suffered setbacks, instead accelerating restructuring toward "politicization" and "camp-based alignment." After the Russia-Ukraine conflict, free trade in energy was severely obstructed, giving rise to "political alliance" trading and "secure and reliable" trading, prompting a awakening of energy autonomy awareness in many countries, with a marked rise in the trend toward localization and regionalization of resource and energy production and supply chains. The current US administration vigorously promotes "energy dominance" and the weaponization of energy, binding policies in fossil fuels, transportation corridors, and energy finance comprehensively with geopolitical strategy, pushing hard for "de-Sinicization" of clean energy, continuously strengthening energy sanctions against oil-producing countries such as Russia, and severely deteriorating the international energy security environment. The US-Israel-Iran conflict has triggered another concentrated outbreak of the "politicization" of energy issues, with the blockade of key oil and gas transportation corridors such as the Strait of Hormuz becoming a key weapon for striking and countering opponents, strengthening the security attributes of energy and pushing the global energy trade map further toward "camp-based alignment" and "regionalization." The US-Europe energy ties continue to strengthen, while Russian oil and gas exports further shift "eastward" and "southward."
The disorder of international energy governance mechanisms is the "catalyst" for the accelerated evolution of the energy upheaval. In recent years, the international energy order has been unstable, and existing response mechanisms have severely failed to function, to a certain extent fueling the spread of the crisis and intensifying the competition for energy power among all parties. After World War II, the United States long regarded maintaining the free global flow of oil and market stability as an important goal of its foreign policy. However, with the success of the "shale revolution" and the decline of its own hegemony, the United States has turned its energy advantages into diplomatic bargaining chips and geopolitical weapons, building "small circle" style energy alliances and severely undermining the effectiveness of traditional energy governance institutions. In particular, the current US administration has comprehensively geopoliticized its energy strategy, using it as an important tool to delay the decline of its hegemony. In early 2026, it militarily intervened in Venezuela and jointly used force against Iran with Israel, causing repeated high-level fluctuations in oil and gas prices and becoming the "source of turmoil" in the international energy market. Existing international energy governance institutions and mechanisms are unable to adapt to new changes and challenges, have taken no substantive action on the energy crisis, fail to reflect the demands of most countries, lack effective governance over the green trade barriers imposed by some countries, lack effective preventive measures against risks accompanying energy technology development in the digital-intelligent era, and are even more powerless against the weaponization and "camp-based alignment" of energy.
The low-carbon energy transition is a major trend, but this process will inevitably experience twists and turns. First, there is the advance-and-retreat change in the energy transition. After the Russia-Ukraine conflict, under the pressure of the energy crisis and economic slowdown, the Green parties in Europe that actively promoted clean energy development declined, and right-wing and far-right populist forces tend to slow the pace of the energy transition and relax green restrictions on traditional industries, leading to a marked weakening of support for clean energy in the EU and some European countries. Energy giants such as BP have consequently scaled back green investments. The current US administration has once again withdrawn from the Paris Agreement, slowing the pace of the energy transition. In contrast, clean energy strategies in the Asia-Pacific region continue to advance steadily, with the green economy growing rapidly. Asia's renewable energy installed capacity accounts for nearly 60 percent of the global total, and it is becoming the new center of gravity for the energy transition. Second, there is the competition between oil and electricity. Driven by the rapid development of artificial intelligence and other factors, the share of electricity in final energy consumption continues to rise. Some emerging economies are firmly pursuing the path of electrification and clean development, leading in electrification levels and gradually becoming "electricity nations." The current US administration clings to a high-carbon development path, accelerating fossil fuel development and exports, strengthening the reliance on coal, natural gas, and nuclear power to support grid operations, attempting to counter the path of electrification and clean development by consolidating fossil fuel advantages and expanding global energy hegemony. Third, there is the dilemma between transition and security. Economies such as the EU are increasingly anxious about geopolitical and security factors, intensifying efforts to "reduce dependence" and "de-risk" clean energy supply chains, which raises the cost and difficulty of their clean energy development, trapping them in a dilemma of both wanting to promote the energy transition and needing to reduce external strategic dependence, thereby delaying opportunities for the energy transition.
III
In the long run, the global trends toward low-carbon energy and electrification are irreversible, but influenced by factors such as de-globalization, great power competition, geopolitical conflicts, changes in energy supply and demand, and the historical laws of transition, the future development of global energy and the evolution of the landscape will present new characteristics.
The traditional energy supply and demand landscape is "shifting westward in supply and eastward in demand," with the share of electricity continuing to rise. Historical experience shows that the energy transition is a long and tortuous historical process, and oil and gas will continue to play an important role for a considerable period. The International Energy Agency even predicts that global oil and gas demand may continue to grow until 2050. At the same time, against the backdrop of the "politicization" and "securitization" of international energy, geopolitical rivalry over oil and gas will accelerate the evolution of the global energy landscape. First, the center of gravity of oil and gas supply is accelerating its "westward shift." The status of Middle Eastern oil-producing countries may continue to decline in the future. The Middle East is plagued by frequent unrest and many restrictions on foreign investment, and countries have been vigorously seeking alternatives to Middle Eastern oil and gas sources and the Strait of Hormuz shipping route since the outbreak of the US-Israel-Iran conflict; internal rifts within OPEC are deepening, and its ability to regulate oil prices is clearly weakened. Russia's position in the global oil and gas landscape is unlikely to return to its pre-Russia-Ukraine conflict level. Although the US-Israel-Iran conflict has brought some benefits to Russia, the trend toward "camp-based alignment" and "regionalization" in international energy will persist in the long term, the prospect of the US and Europe lifting energy sanctions is slim, and Russia faces numerous obstacles in long-term energy investment and construction. The position of American countries in the global oil and gas market continues to rise. On the one hand, the United States is rich in shale oil and gas resources, and the current US administration attaches great importance to fossil fuel development and exports, further consolidating its position as the world's largest oil and gas producer and continuously strengthening its dominance. On the other hand, Latin American oil-producing countries such as Brazil and Guyana are rising strongly, and with their large amounts of newly developed oil and gas resources and favorable investment environments, their oil and gas production continues to rise, and they are expected to become key non-OPEC oil and gas supply forces by 2030. Second, the consumption center continues to "shift eastward." Emerging economy markets are becoming the core of growth, and the center of gravity of demand continues to shift toward Asia. UBS predicts that the rapid population growth and strong economic development aspirations in emerging economy markets will support oil consumption growth in the coming years. In particular, China, India, and Southeast Asia will become the main drivers of consumption growth, rising in status within the traditional energy landscape. Shell predicts that by 2050, liquefied natural gas imports from South Asia and Southeast Asia will account for about 40 percent of total global imports. Third, "electricity nations" will accelerate their rise. Over the next five years, global electricity demand is expected to accelerate, and global power construction will enter a new round of expansion. As industrialization accelerates in emerging economies in Asia and Latin America, their share of global new electricity consumption will continue to rise. The International Energy Agency predicts that by 2030, new electricity consumption in emerging economies will account for nearly 80 percent of the global total. However, the surge in electricity consumption from artificial intelligence is exacerbating the supply-demand imbalance, and combined with the layering of new and old risks such as extreme weather, geopolitical tensions, and trade frictions, the probability of regional or even global electricity crises is also significantly increasing.
Currently, the momentum of new energy development shows a trend of "decline in the West and rise in the East," with the discourse power of emerging economies relatively increasing. First, the first-mover advantages of the US and Europe in new energy have not been fully realized. Due to policy reversals in renewable energy development and infrastructure bottlenecks, the local manufacturing capacity of the new energy industry in the US and Europe is weak, and project implementation is slow. Although the absolute value of their new energy installed capacity and power generation is still growing, their share of global new renewable energy installations will show a declining trend. Second, the advantages of emerging economies in new energy development will be further amplified. Developing clean energy has become an effective path for many emerging economies to achieve economic and social transformation and upgrading. China, India, and Brazil are becoming the main forces in new energy development. By region, the center of gravity of global renewable energy development continues to tilt toward Asia, with Asia accounting for over 65 percent of global new renewable energy power generation in 2024. After the US-Israel-Iran conflict, Asia's willingness to pursue the energy transition has become stronger, related policies are easier to implement, and the growth potential of clean energy has further increased. Third, the discourse power of key mineral resource countries has risen significantly. The development of strategic emerging industries such as new energy has driven a substantial increase in demand for key minerals such as lithium, cobalt, and nickel, intensifying competition in related markets and strategies. Mineral-rich regions and countries such as Indonesia, Australia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and the Latin American "lithium triangle" (Bolivia, Argentina, and Chile) are leveraging the new round of rising key mineral prices to strengthen resource control and promote industrial upgrading, and their influence in the future global energy landscape will continue to strengthen.
The future global energy landscape is no longer the traditional "resource is king," and the elements of energy discourse power are constantly being enriched. Countries that master discourse power over transition-related technology, finance, and rules will gain greater influence. A diversified green governance system based on clean energy and low-carbon technologies will accelerate its rise, and is expected to break the traditional energy governance model driven by "small circle" grouping and geopolitics. In the process of the energy transition, the forces of all parties are being reorganized, and new and old risks are intertwined. Energy security will, for the foreseeable future, always be a comprehensive and strategic issue related to national economic and social development. The international community should join hands to eliminate conflicts, oppose the "politicization" and "securitization" of energy, adhere to extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, maintain the stability and smooth operation of global energy industry and supply chains, and promote the establishment of a more fair, just, balanced, and inclusive global energy governance system.
Authors' affiliation: China Institute of Contemporary International Relations
Return to TopBy: 季图南
On Geng Yan Single-Handedly Defeating a Powerful Enemy
Ji Tunan
In the early years of the Eastern Han dynasty, the realm was not yet pacified. Zhang Bu occupied twelve commanderies in the Qi region, commanding troops and asserting his own dominance. General of Established Might Geng Yan led his army on an eastern campaign and encountered a powerful enemy east of the great city of Linzi, and the military situation was urgent. Emperor Guangwu, Liu Xiu, upon hearing that the fighting had become critical, personally came to the front lines to provide reinforcement. When the generals under Geng Yan's command heard that Emperor Guangwu was personally leading the campaign, they urged Geng Yan to "close the camp and rest the troops for the time being, awaiting the emperor's arrival," so that the decisive battle could be fought once the imperial army arrived. Geng Yan flatly refused: "Since the imperial carriage is about to arrive, a subject should slaughter cattle and pour wine to await the assembled officials — how could I instead leave the rebels for the sovereign and his father?" Thereupon he marshaled his troops for a desperate battle, routed the enemy forces, and swept the Qi region clean. Emperor Guangwu lavishly praised Geng Yan, saying success comes to those who persist (有志者事竟成, you zhi zhe shi jing cheng - "have will, things eventually succeed"), and even considered his achievement greater than that of Han Xin, the great general of the early Han: "Han Xin attacked those who had already surrendered; you, General, single-handedly defeated a formidable enemy — your achievement is harder than his."
Every time I read the Book of the Later Han, I must read the biography of Geng Yan; every time I read the biography of Geng Yan, I must read the Battle of Linzi. The image of the young general, valiant and spirited, single-handedly defeating a powerful enemy, is vividly depicted on paper (跃然纸上, yue ran zhi shang - "leap, on, paper"). The reason I must read this passage of history is that it contains a principle: those who accomplish things value taking responsibility, while those who fail begin by avoiding matters. Geng Yan's pacification of Qi was not merely a marvel of military strategy; it also set a benchmark for officials of all dynasties: the responsibility within one's own remit cannot be shirked, the difficulty before one's eyes cannot be avoided, and the burden on one's shoulders cannot be set down. Looking back at the counsel of the generals under his command, it appeared cautious and prudent, but in reality it carried the indolent tendency of "handing matters upward and sitting back waiting for someone else to provide a safety net." The so-called "a single battle reveals one's mettle, and a thousand years serve as a mirror for the human heart" — this is precisely what it means.
Over the past two thousand years, officialdom's mores have changed and the affairs of the world have undergone countless transformations, yet the contrast between taking responsibility and avoiding matters has never changed. In modern times, when the mountains and rivers of the nation were shattered, the revolutionary forebears inherited the mettle of the ancients and shouldered burdens of immense weight amid extreme hardship. The Liu-Deng Army's thousand-li advance into the Dabie Mountains can be counted as one of the most moving models of responsibility-taking in the history of the Party and the military. At that time there was no rear area to rely on; there were blockades ahead and pursuers behind, and the situation was extremely perilous. The Liu-Deng Army did not pass its contradictions upward, nor did it sit waiting for support; it bore the pressure alone, fought hard to break the deadlock, and struck deep roots in enemy territory, opening a new situation for the War of Liberation. Had it sat waiting for support from higher levels, it could never have achieved the strategic marvel of the thousand-li advance, still less the fundamental reversal of the nationwide war situation.
Times change, but mettle is passed down. The Shekou Industrial Zone in Shenzhen at the beginning of reform and opening up is likewise a vivid footnote to responsibility-taking at the grassroots level. At that time, Shekou was still a stretch of barren beach at the southernmost tip of the Nantou Peninsula, beset by difficulties in development, with no prior experience to draw on — everything required crossing the river by feeling the stones, and the risks were great. The responsible comrades at the time were not trapped by the old convention of "no action without orders," nor did they cling to the inertia of "waiting for higher levels to loosen the reins." They took the initiative to break the deadlock and boldly carried out reform: they smashed the iron rice bowl, became the first in the nation to implement open recruitment, were among the earliest to explore paid use of land, implement project bidding, and promote housing commercialization reform, solving difficult problems through proactive action and courageously "cutting a bloody path forward." Over the years, batch after batch of leading cadres, like Geng Yan of the Eastern Han, have not bound their own hands and feet in idle waiting, have not left difficult problems to their superiors, and have turned one "impossible" after another into reality. Responsibility-taking in ancient and modern times runs in one continuous vein.
In the thousand-year history of official governance, there have been positive incentives, but no shortage of negative examples either. In the late Western Jin dynasty, official governance languished: ministers at court exalted idle philosophizing, prefectural and county officials reported famines to the court and sat waiting for relief troops when bandits arose, daily administrative affairs were handled perfunctorily, and hidden dangers at the margins were passed upward layer by layer. Local governance degenerated into empty motion, and in the end the state itself collapsed. In the middle and late Song dynasty, redundant officials and redundant administration proliferated; officials mostly sought security, and when matters arose they sought no merit but only no fault, pushing difficult problems upward and shifting responsibility upward. The court was exhausted by disposing of trivial local matters, accumulated ills in the localities were never fundamentally remedied, and the atmosphere of good governance was gradually worn away. The malady of official governance, the beginning of decline and laxity, is often not that there are no policies to solve problems or no people to employ, but that everyone fears difficulty and everyone avoids responsibility. The history of antiquity is a mirror — one cannot fail to heed it! Passing matters upward layer by layer and shifting blame to superiors has never been a minor flaw, but a deep-seated malady that harms governance, impedes undertakings, and loses the people's hearts.
The unhealthy tendency of avoiding matters that existed in antiquity still lingers among some individual cadres of ours today. Some cadres are content to serve as "megaphones" in their work: when it comes to thorny affairs such as accumulated petition cases and grassroots disputes, they are unwilling to personally enter the situation and take the initiative to resolve them; at the slightest resistance they immediately report upward, dragging out small matters that should be resolved at their own level until they become major matters that are difficult for higher levels to handle. Some cadres cling rigidly to established rules and dare not adapt flexibly, harboring the mindset of "avoid blame by deferring to superiors," using "in accordance with higher-level requirements" as a shield. Faced with new situations and new problems, they do not understand how to act in light of local conditions and dare not innovate or break through; they only mechanically copy provisions, and once any oversight occurs, they shift blame by saying they "followed the deployment," no different in mentality from the mediocre officials of antiquity who avoided disaster to protect themselves. What is more, some cadres imitate the negligent officials of past dynasties, treating the people's livelihood demands with indifference: if superiors do not supervise, nothing is done; if the masses do not petition, matters are shelved. Minor hidden dangers to people's livelihoods accumulate and fester, eventually becoming entrenched governance problems.
Viewed from the overall situation, the failure to take responsibility and the tendency to shift blame upward are a blockage to the implementation of policies. Had Geng Yan sat waiting for Emperor Guangwu's reinforcement, the war situation in Qi would certainly have dragged on for a long time, wasting the nation's strength in vain. If our cadres today sit waiting for decisions from higher levels and rely on higher levels to provide a safety net for everything, then no matter how good the policy deployments are, they will spin in empty motion layer by layer and fail to be implemented. Moreover, precious administrative resources are consumed in layer upon layer of requests for instructions, and opportunities for development are lost in repeated delays — the cause of reform and development is bound to be obstructed. Viewed from the atmosphere, when there is responsibility-taking, the atmosphere is clean and upright; when there is blame-shifting, people's hearts grow slack. With a fine general like Geng Yan who carries heavy burdens forward, there is the Han army's high-spirited vigor. But if those who avoid responsibility profit while those who take responsibility lose out, if the good and the bad are treated alike and rewards and punishments are unclear, then the atmosphere of practical work dissipates, indolent selfishness grows, and this is bound to sap the morale of the ranks, dissolve the atmosphere for undertaking work and starting enterprises, and in turn damage the sound political ecosystem. Viewed from the people's hearts, the good officials of antiquity all took caring for the people as their duty, rather than pushing the people's hardships entirely upward to the court. If our cadres are indifferent to the masses' demands and shift problems upward layer by layer, they may appear to be avoiding their own troubles, but in reality they are alienating the Party-masses relationship and damaging the credibility of the Party and the government.
Yuan Haowen's poem says: "To be an official and avoid matters is a lifelong shame; treating death as a homecoming (视死如归, shi si ru gui - "view, death, as, return") is the heart of one who serves the state." This maxim of official conduct through the ages is precisely the best annotation of Geng Yan's mettle, and also the lifelong standard for officials of every dynasty. A flourishing age holds no danger of bloodshed on the battlefield, but it does hold the duty of fulfilling one's responsibilities. To hold office in one place is to benefit that place; one should naturally take responsibility proactively and not avoid one's duties. Therefore we must eradicate the thousand-year entrenched malady of avoiding matters when they arise and shifting blame upward, and strive to boost the initiative, courage, and capability of leading cadres in taking responsibility and acting. Taking responsibility and acting begins, first and foremost, with cultivating the mind. One must have the sincerity to proactively shoulder responsibility and leave no difficult problems behind, temper the original aspiration of serving the people, cast aside selfish thoughts and distractions, and engrave responsibility and dedication into one's very heart. Taking responsibility and acting hinges, crucially, on cultivating capability. One must learn the skill of relying on one's own strength and efforts (自力自为, zi li zi wei - "self, strength, self, act") from the forebears, grow one's abilities in solving difficult problems, and forge the solid capability to dare to take on matters and to succeed in accomplishing them. Taking responsibility and acting focuses, importantly, on cultivating institutions. One must clarify the boundaries of powers and responsibilities and strictly define the standards of reward and punishment, so that those who take responsibility have no worries and those who do practical work have a stage, promoting the act of shouldering responsibility and eliminating the malady of blame-shifting, and fostering a new political atmosphere of guarding one's post and proactively breaking deadlocks.
Geng Yan took responsibility in a single battle, and his worth lay in not avoiding difficulty when it came, securing peace for one region and helping bring about the unification of the realm; the mediocre officials of the late Jin and late Song shifted blame upward layer by layer, and in the end this became entrenched political ills, so that government affairs fell into disuse and even the fortunes of the state declined. Our leading cadres must take history as a mirror and take the worthy as models, never shifting blame in any matter and always daring to take responsibility at all times, facing contradictions, solving difficult problems, and serving the masses with a sense of responsibility of being "always unable to set one's mind at ease," continuously writing qualified answers to the examination of fulfilling one's duties in the new era.
Return to TopBy: 王维国
Study Q&A
How should we understand that upholding Party political building as the overarching guide is the fundamental requirement of Party building in the new era?
Wang Weiguo
This year marks the 90th anniversary of the victory of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army's Long March. The victory of the Long March was a victory of direction and of path. General Secretary Xi Jinping once emotionally recounted a detail from the Long March: "When the Red Army was crossing the grasslands, the cooks, as soon as they got up, did not ask whether there was rice to cook that day, but first asked whether we were heading south or north." In the vast grasslands, amid immense hardship, even a cook understood that the question of direction was more important than what there was to eat. If there is a deviation on the question of direction, a subversive mistake will be made. Party political building is precisely the fundamental building that concerns whether the direction of Party building is correct or not. In Xi Jinping's thinking on Party building, upholding Party political building as the overarching guide is the fundamental requirement of Party building in the new era and the fundamental guarantee for our Party to unify its thinking, will, and action on the new Long March.
Why can Party political building be endowed with the status of "overarching guide"? This is because Party political building determines the direction and the effectiveness of Party building. To use an analogy: for a giant ship to reach its destination safely through wind and waves, engine power, hull structure, and the quality of the sailors are all indispensable, but what is especially critical is the course and the compass. In the overall picture of Party building, Party political building plays the role of the "fixed star" and the "compass," and it resolves the fundamental question of "what banner to hold and what path to take." If the political direction deviates, no matter how well the other kinds of building are carried out, it will only be acting in a way that is contrary to one's original intention (南辕北辙, nan yuan bei che - "south, chariot; north, chariot"), and may even go down the evil path. Thought building must consolidate political conviction, organizational building must highlight political standards, conduct building must run political requirements through it, discipline building must strictly enforce political discipline, institutional building must establish political rules, and the fight against corruption must first of all be viewed from a political perspective. It can be said that the two characters "overarching guide" vividly reveal the intrinsic relationship between Party political building and the various other aspects of Party building. Only by taking Party political building as the overarching guide and impelling all aspects of Party building to keep to the correct political direction and implement political requirements can Party building be twisted into a single rope and form a powerful combined force.
Looking across the Party's more than one hundred years of struggle, a fundamental strength and experience is to speak politics with a clear-cut stand and to attach great importance to Party political building. From the Gutian Conference establishing the principles of building the Party ideologically and building the army politically, to the Seventh National Congress of the Party proposing "first of all, lay emphasis on building up the Party ideologically and politically"; from Comrade Mao Zedong after the founding of New China proposing that "political work is the lifeline of all economic work," to Comrade Deng Xiaoping after reform and opening up emphasizing that "no matter what time it is, we must speak politics" — always paying attention to building the Party politically has been an important guarantee for our Party's continuous growth and strengthening and its advance from victory to victory. Entering the new era, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out with a thunderous voice: "If a Communist Party does not speak politics, can it still be called a Communist Party?" Reviewing the course of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party since the Eighteenth National Congress of the Party, an important reason why our Party has been able to solve many difficult problems that it long wanted to solve but could not, and accomplish many major undertakings that it wanted to accomplish in the past but could not, lies precisely in taking Party political building as the overarching guide and driving all aspects of Party building to achieve an all-round improvement. Conversely, neglecting politics and diluting politics makes it easy for a hundred ailments to arise. For those corrupt elements who have fallen from power, if one opens their confessions, every one of them began with losing their stand politically, degenerating ideologically, and becoming lax and undisciplined, and the root of it all lay in problems in political direction and political principles. The experience of both the positive and the negative sides profoundly warns us that political questions are at all times fundamental major questions; if political building is done well, the Party's other kinds of building will have their "soul" and "foundation"; if political advancedness is lost, the Party's advancedness and purity cannot even be discussed.
With Party political building as the overarching guide, what are its core essence and practical requirements? The first and most fundamental one is to ensure that the whole Party obeys the Central Committee and to uphold the authority of the Party Central Committee and its centralized, unified leadership. This is the primary task of Party political building. For a Party as large as ours and a country as large as ours, without the authority of the Party Central Committee in establishing absolute authority or a single standard (定于一尊, ding yu yi zun - "decide, at; one, respect") and making a final, decisive judgment or decision (一锤定音, yi chui ding yin - "one, hammer; decide, sound"), we would become a disorganized group lacking cohesion (一盘散沙, yi pan san sha - "one, tray; scattered, sand") and split apart. We must deeply comprehend the decisive significance of the Two Establishments (两个确立) and resolutely achieve the Two Upholds (两个维护), and embody them in actions that resolutely implement the Party Central Committee's decisions and deployments, in the concrete results of performing duties and doing one's own work well, and in the daily words and deeds of Party members and cadres, ensuring that the Party Central Committee's orders and policies are unimpeded and that orders are carried out and prohibitions are heeded. Only with theoretical sobriety can one be politically steadfast. We must make the study and implementation of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era the primary political task, make efforts in truly understanding, grasping, and implementing it, and continuously consolidate the foundation of conviction, replenish the calcium of the spirit, and steady the rudder of thought. To strengthen Party political building, fostering a sound political ecosystem is a foundational and routine task. We must strictly enforce the Party's political discipline and political rules, make good use of the weapon of criticism and self-criticism, enhance the political, contemporary, principled, and militant character of intra-Party political life, develop a positive and healthy intra-Party political culture, and, in clearing the source of the stream, nurturing the forest, cultivating uprightness, and consolidating the foundation, be persevering with unremitting effort (锲而不舍, qie er bu she - "carve, and; not, abandon") and make sustained, long-term effort. To strengthen Party political building, the key is to raise the political capability of Party organizations at all levels and of Party members and cadres. We must strengthen political tempering, effectively improve political judgment, political understanding, and political execution, enhance the ability to grasp direction, grasp the general trend, and grasp the overall situation, and the ability to distinguish political right from wrong, maintain political resolve, control the political situation, and guard against political risks, so that one's political capability matches the duties of the post one holds.
Some comrades think that Party political building is a matter for the Party Central Committee, a matter for those above, and has little to do with ordinary Party members and cadres, or think that speaking politics means making a statement of position, and that as long as one does not violate rules or discipline, one counts as speaking politics. These understandings are wrong and must be resolutely clarified and corrected. Speaking politics has always been concrete and practical, integrated into the daily work and every word and deed of Party members and cadres; it is by no means "empty against empty," but rather "real against real." In the face of major strategic deployments of the Party and the state, whether one can consciously view them from a political perspective and implement them fully and without discount — this is speaking politics; in the face of historical nihilist remarks online that smear the Party's history, whether one can sharpen one's eyes and dare to draw one's sword — this too is speaking politics; in the face of the people's urgent difficulties and worries, whether one sincerely solves problems and does practical things, or "kicks the ball" and "plays tai chi," engaging in formalism and bureaucratism — this is even more a direct manifestation of whether one speaks politics or not. If political consciousness is insufficient, one will fail to recognize potential political risks; if political capability is weak, one will misunderstand the spirit of higher-level instructions and distort their implementation, causing good policies to encounter obstacles and "beach sand to stop before reaching the end." It can be said that the effectiveness of Party political building directly determines the results of performing duties and the realm of undertaking work and starting undertakings. Every Party member and cadre must consciously undergo a "political physical examination," integrating speaking politics into their blood and turning it into a normal state. Those Party members and cadres who are working with utmost diligence and conscientiousness (兢兢业业, jing jing ye ye - "tremble, tremble; business, business") at their posts and who charge ahead in urgent, difficult, dangerous, and heavy tasks are themselves writing their political answer sheets with practical action.
In the era of the revolutionary war, with gunpowder smoke everywhere and mountains and passes blocking the way, the Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao used radios to command the whole Party and the whole army, deciding victory a thousand miles away. General Secretary Xi Jinping said with deep feeling: "'Tick-tock, tick-tock' was the voice of the Party Central Committee and Chairman Mao, and the whole Party and the whole army executed it unconditionally." Deep in the grasslands there was the direction of the revolutionary ranks; in the sound of the radio waves there were the orders of the Party Central Committee. From the years of beacons and war to the new era and the new journey, we must always listen to this inspiring "tick-tock, tick-tock" sound, consistently uphold Party political building as the overarching guide, keep the whole Party in unified thinking, firm will, coordinated action, and strong combat effectiveness, advance in lockstep on the new Long March, and strive to create the historical glory that belongs to our era.
Author: Executive Dean of the School of Marxism, University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences
Return to TopBy: 曹斌
Comrade Editor:
Quite a number of localities and units have made "zero public-opinion incidents" a hard target indicator in their work. In everything they do, they first worry about whether a public-opinion incident might occur; and when one does occur, their first reaction is not to solve the problem but to busy themselves with deleting posts and covering up the lid.
One-sided pursuit of "zero public-opinion incidents" often breeds formalism. When something happens, there is only a public-opinion contingency plan but no problem-solving plan; they first calculate the gains and losses in public opinion, not the gains and losses for the masses. As a result, appeals that should have been directly addressed are passed down level by level and dragged into "slow inaction," and contradictions that should have been resolved on the spot are stewed through repeated study into "long-standing tough problems."
Making "zero public-opinion incidents" the goal is mistaking the fundamental for the incidental (本末倒置, ben mo dao zhi - "root, end, reverse, place"). Treating different voices as floodwaters and fierce beasts is a misunderstanding of the essence of governance. True governance has never operated in a vacuum. That the masses hold different views and raise questioning voices is itself the normal state of the governance process. The correct attitude toward public opinion has never been the pursuit of having no voices at all. The vitality of governance lies precisely in tolerance of different voices. Allowing normal discussion and allowing well-intentioned criticism means that work can be continuously improved through interaction.
The effort spent on responding to public opinion should be redirected to solving actual problems; every instance of public attention should be treated as an opportunity to improve work; responses should be made candid, and matters should be handled openly and aboveboard. When Party members and cadres no longer waste their energy on "guarding against public-opinion incidents" but devote all their minds to solving difficulties and doing practical things for the common people, the relationship between cadres and the masses will naturally become ever more solid, and the combined force for development will become ever more powerful.
Cao Bin, Organization Department of the Shenmu Municipal Party Committee, Yulin City, Shaanxi Province
Return to TopBy: 季春芳
"Performance anxiety" is an unhealthy emotional tendency that forms among some leading cadres in the course of performing their duties and fulfilling their responsibilities, arising from excessive worry and impatience over such matters as performance evaluation, personal development, and accountability for responsibilities. It readily leads to a restless and impetuous mindset, which in turn gives rise to a series of erroneous behaviors, bringing numerous harms to the cause of the Party and the people.
"Performance anxiety" and a restless and impetuous mindset are the result of multiple factors interweaving and compounding with one another. Some leading cadres neglect regular Party-spirit tempering, and when facing difficulties and challenges first consider their personal prospects, falling into a passive mentality of "seeking stability and fearing disorder." Some regard promotion in office and gains or losses of fame and profit as the goals of life, and when expectations are not met they fall into sustained anxiety. Some find that their knowledge reserves and practical abilities cannot keep pace with the demands of the times, and when confronted with complex problems they are at a loss, giving rise to a panic over competence and self-doubt. Some are pursuing lofty goals without regard for reality (好高骛远, hao gao wu yuan - "good, high, go, far") and hastily seeking quick success (急于求成, ji yu qiu cheng - "urgent, at, seek, success"), and especially at key junctures such as leadership transitions and assessments, the mentality of comparison and the concern over gains and losses continue to intensify, further amplifying their anxious emotions.
To break free of the restless and impetuous mindset and step out of "performance anxiety," it is necessary to strengthen ideological guidance and consolidate the ideological foundation of a correct view of political achievements; to improve institutional mechanisms and assess and verify true performance accurately and substantively; to enhance capabilities and qualities and strengthen the confidence in performing duties that comes from taking on responsibility and acting; and to optimize the social atmosphere and foster a sound environment of pragmatic action.
(Excerpted from Practice magazine, 2026, Issue No. 6)
By: 国家统计局
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