Study Times - July 15, 2026

Continually advancing the building of a community with a shared future for mankind

By: 外交部分管外交日常业务工作的副部长 马朝旭

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the ceremony marking the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China that we promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, contributing Chinese wisdom, Chinese solutions, and Chinese strength to solving major human problems. General Secretary Xi Jinping made "must continue to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind" one of the "five musts" (五个必须) for "strengthening confidence, continuing the struggle, and constantly creating new achievements worthy of the times and the people." General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourse points the direction and provides the fundamental guidance for us to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind has become a glorious banner leading the progress of the times.

The Communist Party of China seeks happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation, and also seeks progress for humanity and common harmony for the world. With a profound sense of commitment to the people, General Secretary Xi Jinping, focusing on the fundamental and long-term interests of the Chinese people and the people of the world, put forward the important concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind. Building a community with a shared future for mankind has been written into the reports of the 19th and 20th National Congresses of the Party, listed as an essential requirement of Chinese-style modernization, and formally written into the Party Constitution and the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, rising to the will of the Communist Party of China and the entire Chinese people.

Human society is 休戚相关 (xiū qī xiāng guān - "share joys and sorrows," closely bound together) and fortunes and misfortunes are interdependent; all countries have elements of each other within themselves. As the once-in-a-century transformation accelerates, the world has entered a new period of turbulence and change, and humanity once again stands at a crossroads of where to go. Facing global crises, no one and no country can 独善其身 (dú shàn qí shēn - "look after one's own self alone," remain immune). Humanity has only the path of 和衷共济 (hé zhōng gòng jì - "work together with one heart," unite in solidarity) and 和合共生 (hé hé gòng shēng - "harmony and coexistence," coexist in harmony). It is precisely based on such profound thinking that in March 2013, General Secretary Xi Jinping, at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, first proposed that human beings live in the same global village, in the same time and space where history and reality intersect, and are increasingly becoming a community with a shared future in which each has a part of the other. In September 2015, at the general debate of the 70th session of the United Nations General Assembly, the overall framework of "five-sphere integrated plan" (五位一体) for building a community with a shared future for mankind was clarified. In January 2017, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the United Nations Office at Geneva, proposing the overall goal of building "five worlds" (五个世界). In June 2018, the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs established the guiding status of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, summarizing Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy as "ten upholds" (十个坚持), one of which is to uphold the promotion of building a community with a shared future for mankind with the purpose of maintaining world peace and promoting common development. At the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs held in December 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping further systematically expounded the "four beams and eight pillars" (四梁八柱) of the scientific system for building a community with a shared future for mankind.

A community with a shared future for mankind means that the future and destiny of every nation and every country are closely linked, sharing 风雨同舟 (fēng yǔ tóng zhōu - "in the same boat through storm," weathering storms together) and 荣辱与共 (róng rǔ yǔ gòng - "share honor and disgrace," sharing honor and disgrace), striving to turn this planet where we are born and raised into a harmonious big family, and to turn the aspirations of people of all countries for a better life into reality. It is not about replacing one system with another, nor about replacing one civilization with another, but about countries with different systems, different ideologies, different histories and cultures, and different levels of development sharing interests, rights, and responsibilities in international affairs, forming the greatest common denominator for building a better world.

The goal of promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind is to build a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, and clean and beauty. Lasting peace is to realize the common aspiration of people of all countries to reject war and seek peace. Maintaining world peace is a responsibility that every country should shoulder. Countries should build partnerships of dialogue rather than confrontation, of partnership rather than alliance, respect each other, engage in equal consultation, and resolutely reject Cold War mentality and power politics. Universal security targets the pursuit of absolute security by some countries, building their own security on the instability of others. All parties should establish a concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security, coordinate responses to traditional and non-traditional security threats, and oppose all forms of terrorism. Common prosperity means making the cake of the world economy bigger and distributing it well, so that people of all countries share the fruits of development. Countries should adhere to the concept of "you are good, I am good, everyone is good," create favorable conditions for the common development of mankind, jointly promote the development and prosperity of all countries, and let the fruits of development benefit all countries. Openness and inclusiveness means adhering to exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations, with all countries growing and progressing together. Different civilizations should coexist in harmony, complement each other, and jointly provide spiritual strength for human development. Clean and beauty means adhering to green and low-carbon development, seeking a path of sustainable development, building an ecological system that respects nature and pursues green development, and protecting the Earth home on which humanity depends for survival.

The principle of promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind is extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefit. Global affairs should be discussed by all, international rules should be jointly formulated and observed by all countries, and the fruits of governance should be shared by all, thoroughly discarding the law of the jungle and power politics. Major countries should act like major countries, provide more global public goods, assume major-country responsibilities, and demonstrate major-country commitment. Practice the common values of all humanity of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom. Promote the building of a new type of international relations, adhere to mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation, and blaze a new path of state-to-state relations. Jointly build the Belt and Road with high quality, deepen connectivity and strategic alignment among countries, and promote the development of all countries and world modernization. Increase the representation and voice of developing countries. Strengthen global governance of artificial intelligence, ensuring that AI is for good and benefits all humanity.

Promoting an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization is the necessary path to building a community with a shared future for mankind. We advocate an equal and orderly multipolarity, which means insisting on the equality of all countries, big and small, effectively promoting the democratization of international relations, ensuring that the multipolarization process is generally constructive, and that all countries can find their own place and play their due role. Economic globalization is an irreversible trend of the times. We advocate a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, which means responding to the common demands of all countries, especially developing countries, solving the development imbalances between and within countries caused by the global allocation of resources, promoting a globalization that is conducive to the development of all countries, especially developing countries, while supporting countries in taking development paths that suit their own national conditions, and maintaining the growth momentum and vitality of the world economy.

A community with a shared future for mankind is the common cause of all humanity. It is not a solo performance by one country or one family, but a chorus of all countries in the world. Under the personal planning and guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping, the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind has received response and support from more and more countries, expanding from a Chinese initiative to an international consensus, from a beautiful vision to rich practice, from a conceptual proposition to a scientific system, increasingly demonstrating the ideological power to lead the times, and pointing the way forward for a world full of change and turmoil. At present, more than 30 countries and more than 10 regions have reached consensus with China on building a community with a shared future. The China-Indochina Peninsula and Central Asia regions have achieved full coverage at both bilateral and multilateral levels. The China-Africa community with a shared future has been elevated to the "all-weather" level. The building of communities with a shared future in various fields such as cybersecurity, climate change, and health is steadily advancing. The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind has been written into UN General Assembly resolutions for nine consecutive years, written into many multilateral documents, and has become a glorious banner leading the progress of the times.

The four major global initiatives provide strategic support for promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Under the framework of a community with a shared future for mankind, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative. These four major initiatives are the four pillars of the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, systematic international public goods that China contributes to the world in the new era, and Chinese solutions to the global challenges facing humanity.

Facing the major issue of promoting global development, which is a major challenge for humanity, in September 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative when attending the general debate of the 76th session of the United Nations General Assembly via video. It aims to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, promote stronger, greener, and healthier global development, cultivate new drivers of global development, and build a global community of development. The Global Development Initiative advocates adhering to development as a priority, adhering to a people-centered approach, adhering to universal benefit and inclusiveness, adhering to innovation-driven development, adhering to harmony between man and nature, and adhering to an action-oriented approach. Since the initiative was proposed, it has received support and participation from more than 130 countries and international organizations. More than 80 countries have joined the "Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative." Various types of development funds of over 23 billion US dollars have been mobilized, and more than 1,800 cooperation projects have been carried out. We have held the High-level Dialogue on Global Development, established the Global Development Promotion Center, and made tangible contributions to promoting global development.

Facing the complex international and regional security situation and security governance challenges, in April 2022, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Security Initiative at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference. It aims to eliminate the root causes of international conflicts, improve global security governance, and promote the international community to jointly inject more stability and certainty into a turbulent and changing era, achieving lasting world peace and development. The Global Security Initiative emphasizes that security is a prerequisite for development, and humanity is an indivisible security community. It advocates that all countries adhere to a common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security concept, adhere to respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries, adhere to compliance with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter, adhere to paying attention to the legitimate security concerns of all countries, adhere to peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation, and adhere to coordinating the maintenance of security in both traditional and non-traditional fields. The initiative has received support and appreciation from more than 130 countries and international and regional organizations, and its core concepts have been written into more than 140 bilateral and multilateral documents. We actively promote the implementation of the Global Security Initiative, build a more balanced, effective, and sustainable security architecture, and blaze a new path of security featuring dialogue rather than confrontation, partnership rather than alliance, and win-win rather than zero-sum. We initiated the establishment of the "Group of Friends for Peace" on the Ukraine crisis, facilitated the restoration of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran and the reconciliation of Palestinian factions, promoted a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand, mediated multiple rounds of peace talks between relevant parties in the Myanmar conflict, played a constructive role in the conflict between the United States, Israel, and Iran, and made China's contribution to maintaining common and universal security.

Facing the greatest reality of the diversity of world civilizations and the urgent need to transcend the clash of civilizations, in March 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Civilization Initiative at the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting. It aims to promote mutual understanding and affinity among people of all countries and promote tolerance and mutual learning among various civilizations. It jointly advocates respecting the diversity of world civilizations, jointly advocating the promotion of the common values of all humanity, jointly advocating the importance of civilization inheritance and innovation, jointly advocating strengthening international人文交流 and cooperation, striving to create a new situation of people-to-people exchanges, cultural integration, and people-to-people bonds among countries, and making the garden of world civilizations 姹紫嫣红 (chà zǐ yān hóng - "purple and red, beautiful flowers," colorful and vibrant). We actively build a network for dialogue and cooperation among civilizations, initiate the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations and the Forum of Ancient Civilizations, promote the United Nations General Assembly to establish the International Day for Dialogue among Civilizations, and build bridges for exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations of all countries.

Facing the major proposition of what kind of global governance system to build and how to reform and improve the global governance system, in September 2025, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Governance Initiative at the "Shanghai Cooperation Organization+" meeting. It aims to work with all countries to promote the building of a more just and equitable global governance system and jointly march towards a community with a shared future for mankind. The Global Governance Initiative advocates upholding sovereign equality, insisting on equal participation, equal decision-making, and equal benefit for all countries in global governance, promoting the democratization of international relations, and enhancing the representation and voice of developing countries. It adheres to the rule of law in international relations, comprehensively, fully, and completely abiding by the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and other recognized basic norms of international relations, ensuring the equal and uniform application of international law and international rules. It practices multilateralism, adheres to the global governance concept of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefit, firmly upholds the status and authority of the United Nations, and effectively plays the irreplaceable important role of the United Nations in global governance. It advocates a people-centered approach, reforms and improves the global governance system, ensures that people of all countries jointly participate in global governance and share the fruits of global governance, and better safeguards the common interests of all countries. It focuses on an action-oriented approach, adheres to systematic planning and overall promotion, coordinates global actions, fully mobilizes resources from all sides, creates more visible results, and avoids governance lag and fragmentation through pragmatic cooperation. The Global Governance Initiative provides a systematic plan for reforming and improving global governance. It has received response and support from nearly 160 countries and international organizations, and more than 60 countries have actively joined the "Group of Friends of Global Governance." We have promoted the historic expansion of the BRICS cooperation mechanism and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, supported the African Union's accession to the G20, established the International Organization for Mediation, with more than 40 founding member states.

The reason why the four major global initiatives are widely welcomed is, in the final analysis, because they meet the needs of the times and conform to the aspirations of the people. The four major global initiatives advocate promoting prosperity through development, ensuring stability through security, enhancing mutual trust through civilization, and seeking justice through governance. They aim to build a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, and clean and beauty, and promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. We must deeply understand the great significance of the four major global initiatives, continuously promote the initiatives to 走深走实 (zǒu shēn zǒu shí - "go deep and go solid," deepen and solidify), and lead the great transformation of the world to develop and evolve in the correct direction of building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind through concrete actions of major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.

Promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind is the core concept of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and the lofty goal pursued by major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era. At present, China is in the best period of development since modern times, and the world is undergoing a major transformation unseen in a century. The two are intertwined and interact with each other. We must enhance historical initiative, raise our political stance, effectively serve high-quality development, effectively resolve external risks and challenges, and help China continue to gain strategic initiative in fierce international competition.

Adhere to strengthening strategic confidence. Since the reform and opening up, the fundamental reason for all our achievements and progress is that we have blazed the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, formed the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and established the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics. Adhering to confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics reflects the national will, national spirit, and national image of China in the new era, and is the source of strength and foundation of belief for our external work. Diplomatic work is an important part of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. We must adhere to taking socialism with Chinese characteristics as the foundation to enhance strategic confidence.

Resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests. This is the starting point and落脚点 of major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, and also the sacred mission of Chinese diplomacy. The Communist Party of China and the Chinese people have grown and strengthened through struggle. Daring to struggle and being good at struggle have always been the fine tradition and distinctive feature of New China's diplomacy. At present, China is in a critical period of comprehensively advancing the building of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation through Chinese-style modernization, with unprecedented risks and challenges. External work must enhance risk awareness, strengthen bottom-line thinking, grasp the laws in the changing situation, seek advantages and avoid disadvantages in the chaotic situation, strive for initiative in the struggle, clarify positions and draw red lines on issues involving the core interests of the country, and fully demonstrate the determination and will to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests.

Promote the building of a community with a shared future for neighboring countries. Thoroughly implement the spirit of the Central Conference on Work Relating to Neighboring Countries, uphold the concept of 亲诚惠容 (qīn chéng huì róng - "amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness") and 命运与共 (mìng yùn yǔ gòng - "shared future"), consolidate strategic mutual trust with neighboring countries, and support regional countries in steadily taking their own development paths. Deepen development integration, build a high-level connectivity network, and strengthen cooperation on industrial and supply chains. Jointly maintain regional stability, actively mediate the cooling and stabilization of hot-spot issues, carry out security and law enforcement cooperation, and respond to various risks and challenges. Expand exchanges and communication, facilitate personnel exchanges, and consolidate the foundation of public opinion.

Maintain overall stability in major-country relations. Implement the important consensus reached by the heads of state of China and the United States, expand dialogue and cooperation in various fields, carry forward the spirit of struggle, improve the ability to struggle, resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and promote a constructive and strategically stable relationship between China and the United States. Consolidate the high-level political mutual trust and strategic coordination between China and Russia, deepen and expand pragmatic cooperation in various fields, and jointly maintain international strategic stability. Develop China-Europe relations on the basis of mutual respect, seeking common ground while reserving differences, openness and cooperation, and mutual benefit and win-win.

Deepen solidarity and cooperation with the Global South. Promote the implementation of the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, successfully hold the "China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges," negotiate and sign agreements on economic partnership for common development with African countries, promote the "zero tariff" policy for African countries having diplomatic relations with China to take effect and quickly exert comprehensive empowering effects, and continuously inject new impetus into the development of China-Africa relations. Enhance solidarity and mutual trust with Arab countries, advance the negotiations on the China-Gulf Cooperation Council Free Trade Agreement, and push China-Arab cooperation in various fields to a new level. Promote the construction of the "five major projects" (五大工程) for building a China-Latin America and the Caribbean community with a shared future, and consolidate and expand the results of China-Latin America cooperation.

Advance the reform of the global governance system. Firmly practice multilateralism, uphold the authority and status of the United Nations, and actively play the role of a permanent member of the Security Council. Promote the high-quality development of "Greater BRICS cooperation," and integrally advance the strategic layout of the "five BRICS" (五大金砖). Implement the outcomes of the Tianjin Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and build the "SCO family" well. Actively participate in and lead global climate governance, improve rules and mechanisms in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, "sea, air, space, and cyberspace" (海空网极), promote the political settlement of hot-spot issues, and build a more just and equitable global governance system.

Promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. Strengthen strategic alignment with partner countries, deepen "hard connectivity" of infrastructure, "soft connectivity" of rules and standards, and "people-to-people connectivity" with the people of partner countries. Improve the layout of a multidimensional connectivity network, and coordinate the advancement of major landmark projects and "small but beautiful" livelihood projects. Enhance the development level of the China-Europe (Asia) Railway Express, and accelerate the construction of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor. Deepen pragmatic cooperation in trade, investment, industry, and people-to-people exchanges, and expand cooperation in fields such as green development, artificial intelligence, digital economy, health, tourism, and agriculture.

Expand high-standard opening up. Successfully host the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, fully participate in G20 cooperation, and promote global economic and financial governance reform. Align with high-standard international economic and trade rules, steadily expand unilateral opening up and institutional opening up, and accelerate the process of regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements. Uphold the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core, oppose all forms of unilateralism and protectionism, resist discriminatory and exclusive standards and rules, and maintain the stability and smooth flow of global industrial and supply chains.

Strengthen the protection of overseas interests. Continuously strengthen the construction of the rule of law in foreign affairs, and continuously enhance and improve the ability to counter sanctions, interference, and "long-arm jurisdiction." Actively build a "five-in-one" (五位一体) overseas security protection system involving the central government, local governments, embassies and consulates abroad, enterprises, and citizens, strengthen the risk early warning, prevention and control, and protection mechanisms for overseas interests and investments, strengthen international cooperation in security and other fields, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and legal persons abroad. Promote cooperation with relevant countries to combat transnational crime, especially telecom and online fraud.

Unswervingly adhere to the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core over diplomatic work, and implement the diplomatic strategic deployments determined by the Party Central Committee. This is the most distinctive feature of major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, and also our greatest political advantage in overcoming all risks and challenges. We must unite more closely around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, especially Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, deeply understand the decisive significance of the "two establishments" (两个确立), enhance the "four consciousnesses" (四个意识), strengthen the "four confidences" (四个自信), and achieve the "two upholds" (两个维护). With concrete actions and achievements, we will create favorable conditions for advancing the building of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation, and make greater contributions to promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind!

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Focus on strengthening itself, always full of vitality

By: 洪乐为

The way to evergreen lies in self-conquest. At the celebration of the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping listed “focusing on strengthening oneself and always being full of vitality” as one of our Party’s excellent traits, profoundly expounding the important significance of governing the Party, and providing important guidance for us to continuously advance the great new project of Party building in the new era.

Examine oneself by the requirements of the times, and grasp historical initiative in keeping pace with the times. A political party that was once advanced does not mean it will always be advanced; once at the forefront of the times does not mean it will always be at the forefront. Facing profound changes in the world, the country, and the Party, we must deeply understand the long-term, arduous, and complex nature of building the great project. Looking back on the century-long journey, facing the questions of the times and history, the Communist Party of China has never been 因循守旧 (yīn xún shǒu jiù - “follow the beaten track and stick to old ways,” conservative and resistant to change) or 故步自封 (gù bù zì fēng - “stand still and refuse to make progress,” complacent and self-satisfied), but instead embraces change with an open mind, discerns the general trend with keen vision, and at key historical junctures accurately identifies changes, scientifically responds to changes, and actively seeks changes. Our Party has always stood on the side of historical correctness and on the side of human civilization progress, accurately grasped the changes in the principal social contradictions in each historical period, focused on new problems, new challenges, and new demands arising from the development of the times, actively examined itself, enhanced its capabilities, forged ahead with determination, 推陈出新 (tuī chén chū xīn - “push out the old and bring forth the new,” innovate and discard the outdated), and continuously radiated enthusiasm for work and creative vitality that keeps pace with the times. Therefore, it has always been a worthy vanguard of the times and the backbone of the nation.

Alert oneself with a strong sense of vigilance, and forever maintain political integrity while 居安思危 (jū ān sī wēi - “dwell in safety, think of danger,” be prepared for danger in times of peace). “Thrive in adversity, perish in comfort,” always think far ahead and be prepared for danger in times of peace—these are the internal driving forces for the Communist Party of China to continuously strengthen itself and maintain vitality in its century-long struggle. Our Party was born amid 内忧外患 (nèi yōu wài huàn - “internal troubles and external threats”), grew up through hardships, and expanded by overcoming difficulties. Generations of Chinese Communists, with a sense of vigilance and shouldering heavy burdens, have united and led the Chinese people from victory to new victories. Only by constantly enhancing the sense of vigilance and adhering to bottom-line thinking can we deeply understand the long-term and complex nature of the “four tests” (四大考验) facing the Party, deeply understand the sharpness and severity of the “four dangers” (四种危险) facing the Party, and deeply understand the importance and urgency of enhancing the ability to self-purify, self-improve, self-reform, and self-enhance. Only then can we continuously 化险为夷 (huà xiǎn wéi yí - “turn danger into safety”) and turn crisis into opportunity amid increasingly complex risks and challenges, ensuring 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.

Perfect oneself with the spirit of self-reform, and become stronger and more powerful through revolutionary tempering. Being brave in self-reform is the most distinctive character of our Party and the “second answer” for the Party to break out of the historical cycle of rise and fall (历史周期率). Under long-term governance conditions, various factors that weaken the Party’s advanced nature and harm its purity exist at all times, and various viruses that erode the Party’s physical health are everywhere. If not strictly guarded against and political dust is not frequently swept away, over time it will inevitably become 积重难返 (jī zhòng nán fǎn - “accumulated weight hard to reverse,” deep-rooted problems difficult to remedy). The Party’s self-reform is 任重道远 (rèn zhòng dào yuǎn - “heavy burden, long road,” a long-term and arduous task), and there must be no thought of stopping or resting. From “to forge iron, one must be strong oneself” to “to forge iron, one must be strong oneself” (with emphasis), from “style construction is always on the road” to “Party conduct and clean government construction and anti-corruption struggle are always on the road,” and then to “comprehensively and strictly governing the Party is always on the road,” and finally to “the Party’s self-reform is always on the road”… Our Party, with the courage to turn the blade inward, the conviction of 不破不立 (bù pò bù lì - “without breaking, there is no establishing”), and the determination to use strong medicine to cure severe ills, eliminates any stubborn diseases and risk hazards that affect the Party’s physical health, making the Party’s conduct and government style completely new, social customs and public morals continuously improve, and the Party’s organizational body always full of vitality.

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Enhance Political Competence Throughout the Entire Process of Building the Cadre Force

By: 李明祥

Studying and implementing Xi Jinping’s thought on Party building is an important political task for the entire Party in the current period and for some time to come, and “improving political ability” is an important component of Xi Jinping’s thought on Party building. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, General Secretary Xi Jinping has delivered a series of important discourses on improving political ability, elucidating the contemporary connotation, important status, and practical pathways of political ability, providing fundamental guidance and a guide to action for strengthening the construction of political ability among leading cadres in the new era and forging a cadre contingent capable of shouldering the heavy task of modernization. At present, the entire Party is deeply engaged in study and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of performance achievement; local leading bodies at all levels will successively undergo their term changes. Studying well and implementing well General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourses on improving political ability, placing the improvement of cadres’ political ability in a more prominent position and grasping it firmly and substantively, is of great and far-reaching significance for driving leading bodies and leading cadres at all levels to deeply comprehend the decisive significance of the “Two Establishments” (两个确立), strengthen the “Four Consciousnesses” (四个意识), fortify the “Four Confidences” (四个自信), achieve the “Two Upholds” (两个维护), forge ahead on the new journey of the “Fifteenth Five-Year Plan” (十五五) with a correct view of performance achievement, and better advance Chinese-style modernization.

Deeply comprehend the rich connotation and practical requirements of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourses on improving political ability

General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important discourses on improving political ability, with strong theoretical self-awareness and profound strategic vision, scientifically answer major questions such as “what is political ability,” “why improve political ability,” and “how to improve political ability.” They are lofty in conception, rich in connotation, and profound in thought, enriching and developing Marxist political theory and Party-building theory, and possess powerful truth force and practical might.

It pioneered the concept of political ability. Facing the severe challenges of the “Four Tests” (四大考验) and “Four Dangers” (四种危险) in the new era, at the special topic democratic life meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee on the “Three Stricts and Three Honests” (三严三实), General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward “political ability,” emphasizing that one must be a clear-minded person politically and that political ability must be strong. The concise formulation of this concept creatively elevated capacity building to a political height, integrated political requirements into the content of capacity building, adapted to the new era and new journey, aimed at forever maintaining the Party’s advanced nature and purity, met the contemporary requirements of strengthening Party building and the practical needs of building a strong cadre contingent, and possesses distinct originality and symbolism. The 19th National Congress of the CPC clearly put forward the major proposition of “the Party’s political construction” (党的政治建设), emphasizing that the Party’s political construction is the fundamental construction of the Party, determining the direction and effect of Party building, and that the Party’s political construction must be placed first and taken as the统领 (overall guidance). These major judgments highlight the extreme importance of the Party’s political construction and its important position in the great new project of Party building. This is a major innovation in Marxist Party-building theory, of great and far-reaching significance.

It enriched and developed the connotation of political ability. At the First Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out that attention must be paid to improving political ability, especially the ability to grasp direction, grasp the general trend, and grasp the overall situation, as well as the ability to maintain political定力 (strategic resolve),驾驭 (steer) the political situation, and prevent political risks. At the sixth collective study session of the 19th Central Political Bureau, General Secretary Xi Jinping further emphasized that implementing the Party’s political construction into cadre contingent building requires continuously improving the ability of leading cadres at all levels, especially senior cadres, to grasp direction, grasp the general trend, and grasp the overall situation, and the ability to distinguish political right from wrong, maintain political定力 (strategic resolve), steer the political situation, and prevent political risks. At the concrete practical level, it requires highly condensing political ability into political judgment, political comprehension, and political execution, forming a structured and systematic summary. These important discourses enrich and perfect our Party’s understanding and grasp of political ability, establishing a logically rigorous, dialectically unified, and mutually supporting “list of elements” of political ability, which has become the core yardstick for measuring cadres’ political quality.

It pointed out the status and role of political ability. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out that among all the abilities of leading cadres, political ability is the first and foremost; the most important履职 (performance) ability is political ability; he requires cadres, especially young cadres, to improve “seven kinds of abilities” (七种能力), among which the first is political ability; he emphasizes that cadres at all levels must comprehensively improve the political ability, leadership ability, and work ability that are compatible with advancing Chinese-style modernization, also placing political ability first. These important discourses elucidate the internal logic between political ability and all of a cadre’s abilities; it is both the “master switch” in the cadre ability system and the “steering wheel” that guides the correct functioning of various abilities, marking that our Party’s understanding of the laws of cadre capacity building has reached a new height.

It revealed the practical落脚点 (foothold) of political ability. Starting from the Party’s political attributes, political mission, and political pursuit, General Secretary Xi Jinping elucidated that political ability, when implemented concretely and into action, is first embodied in firmly adhering to the correct political direction. He pointed out that improving political ability requires upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system of China, resolutely implementing the Party’s basic theory, basic line, and basic strategy, highlighting that the direction issue is the fundamental issue of political ability. It is embodied in advancing the practice of reform, development, and stability, requiring cadres at all levels to bear in mind the “greatest concerns of the country” (国之大者) and the “great plans of the Party” (党之大计), taking advancing Chinese-style modernization as the greatest politics, highlighting the clear orientation that political ability must focus on central tasks. It is embodied in practicing the Party’s original aspiration and mission, emphasizing taking the people’s standpoint as the fundamental political standpoint, placing the people in the highest position in the heart, calibrating the value coordinates and solid foundation of political ability. It is embodied in strictly observing discipline and rules, requiring that one must have reverence for the Party’s political discipline and political rules, continuously enhance political定力 (strategic resolve), discipline定力 (resolve), moral定力 (resolve), and anti-corruption定力 (resolve), clarifying the bottom-line requirements of political ability, and so on. These important discourses deepen the practical pertinence and practical orientation of the standards for good cadres in the new era, providing a more distinct and clear practical foothold for accurately judging cadres’ political performance, scientifically evaluating cadres’ political responsibility, and doing deep and substantive investigation of cadres’ political quality.

It clarified the effective path for improving political ability. Based on a profound grasp of the laws of cadre growth, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that ability is not something that can be achieved once and for all or overnight; it must be continuously upgraded and constantly expanded. Based on consolidating the ideological foundation of political ability, he pointed out that theoretical maturity is the foundation of political maturity; for cadres to grow, they must strengthen the armament of Marxist theory. Seizing the fundamental measure of tempering Party spirit, he requires educating and guiding cadres to strengthen Party spirit cultivation, build a solid foundation of faith, and integrate speaking politics throughout the entire process of Party spirit tempering. Highlighting the key lever of practical tempering, he emphasizes that improving political定力 (strategic resolve) and political ability depends on learning, and even more on political experience and practical exercise, taking the fiery practice as the best classroom. Focusing on giving play to the Party organization’s gatekeeping role, he proposes that political standards are a hard bar; the political pass and integrity pass must be strictly checked; using one good person can inspire a large group; cadres must be subject to all-round management, and so on. These important requirements run through the ideological tempering, political experience, practical exercise, and professional training of cadres, constructing a comprehensive, systematic, and holistic work chain for improving cadres’ political ability, providing the correct path and scientific guidance for organizations to cultivate good cadres who are politically competent.

Fully recognize the extreme importance of improving cadres’ political ability on the new journey of the new era

On the new journey of the new era, the more the cause of the Party and the state develops forward, the more important and urgent it becomes to strengthen the construction of cadres’ political ability. It concerns the Party’s leadership, the banner direction, the quality of the contingent, and the rise and fall of the cause; it is the key to answering the fundamental questions of whom to align with, for whom to struggle, and whom to obey.

An important guarantee for maintaining the centralized and unified leadership of the Central Committee. Maintaining the centralized and unified leadership of the Central Committee is concrete and practical. It requires cadres at all levels, with a high degree of political consciousness, to fully implement the organizational principle of “four obediences” (四个服从), resolutely implement the various systems for maintaining the centralized and unified leadership of the Central Committee, improve and strictly implement the implementation mechanism for the Central Committee’s major decisions and deployments, and practice the “Two Upholds” (两个维护) with concrete actions. The organizational line serves the political line; the fundamental落脚点 (foothold) is embodied in maintaining the authority of the Central Committee to have the final say and be the sole authority, in promoting the unswerving implementation of the Party’s theories, line, principles, and policies, and in ensuring that the Party’s overall leadership is as firm as a rock. The political responsibility of the organizational department is to make every Party member and cadre a reliable force loyal to the Party’s core, loyal to the Party’s faith, loyal to the Party’s cause, and loyal to the Party’s organization; to make Party organizations at all levels sound and competent; to form a tight organizational system that is connected from top to bottom and has strong execution, ensuring the Party’s leadership is “like the body commanding the arm, like the arm commanding the finger” (如身使臂、如臂使指).

An important prerequisite for promoting the establishment and practice of a correct view of performance achievement. Cadres must comprehend and implement well the general requirements of the study and education: “establishing the Party for the public, benefiting the people, making scientific decisions, and working hard and practically” (立党为公、为民造福、科学决策、真抓实干). This tests cadres’ political ability. When the organizational department grasps the issue of cadres’ view of performance achievement, the key is to run the requirements of a correct view of performance achievement throughout the entire cadre work, firmly establish a correct orientation for employing people and for work, discover and use those cadres who can establish and practice a correct view of performance achievement, resolutely not use cadres with a deviated view of performance achievement, make “relying on politics to stand firm, relying on real performance to speak” (靠政治立身、凭实绩说话) the most distinct value orientation of the cadre contingent, and promote cadres at all levels to have both consciousness and ability, to produce performance for the people with a correct view of performance achievement, and to produce performance through hard work.

An important foundation for building a cadre contingent loyal to the Party. Among the thousands of requirements for cadre contingent building, political competence is the first and foremost. Only when one is politically strong will cadres not suffer from “calcium deficiency” (缺钙) in spirit, will not contract “osteomalacia” (软骨病), and can forge an “indestructible body” (金刚不坏之身). With the support of political ability, cadres can transform loyalty to the Party into concrete actions, unswervingly listen to the Party and follow the Party, stand clear-cut on major issues of principle, be fearless in the face of trials of wind and waves, stand firm in the face of various temptations, and be reliable, capable, trustworthy, and reassuring at critical moments. When the organizational department performs its duty of selecting cadres, the first thing is to strictly check the political pass, take political ability as an important yardstick for measuring cadres, make loyalty to the Party the purest political底色 (background color) and the most distinct political character of cadres at all levels, and ensure the overall high quality of the contingent with high political standards.

An important support for promoting high-quality economic and social development. High-quality development is the hard truth of the new era, and it is also a major political task that cadres at all levels must firmly shoulder. Whether it is adhering to the new development concepts of innovation, coordination, greenness, openness, and sharing, or统筹 (balancing) quality and efficiency, supply and demand, economy and people’s livelihood, development and security, all require cadres to have strong political ability, be good at grasping the “time” and “trend” (时与势) of high-quality development from a political height, observe and analyze economic and social problems with political vision, calculate not only the economic account but also the political account, and consciously integrate local and departmental work into the overall situation of high-quality development. Serving economic and social development is an important mission of the organizational department; it must improve the ability of cadres at all levels to promote high-quality development, more consciously think about problems, make decisions, and handle affairs in accordance with the new development concepts, find the development positioning, innovate ideas and measures, and tackle and solve difficult problems with higher political skills, ensuring that high-quality development advances steadily and far.

An important confidence for preventing and defusing various risks and hidden dangers. Whether a cadre possesses strong political ability often becomes the key factor determining the evolution and direction of risks. Cadres with strong political ability possess relatively strong strategic定力 (resolve), bottom-line thinking, and fighting spirit; they can see through phenomena to grasp the essence from a political height,洞察 (discern) opportunities, judge trends, see the slightest sign and accurately characterize, properly handle various risks and challenges with superb fighting skills, and firmly grasp and steer the overall situation in complex and chaotic circumstances. When the organizational department educates and trains cadres, it must take enhancing cadres’ political foresight, political sensitivity, and political discernment as an important task, focus on strengthening the cultivation of fighting spirit and fighting skills, promote cadres to better grasp the overall situation and general trend, make accurate judgments, prevent and defuse risks, play the first move, fight the active battle, and ensure that all work produces good political orientation, political influence, and political effect.

Integrate the systematic improvement of cadres’ political ability into the entire process of selection, education, management, and use

To improve cadres’ political ability, it is necessary to deeply implement the important requirements proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping for establishing the “five major systems” (五大体系) of cadre work: quality cultivation, knowing people and affairs, selection and appointment, strict management, and positive incentives. Political requirements must run through them, systematic promotion and comprehensive measures must be taken, and “fine steel” (好钢) in politics must be continuously forged.

Strengthen the education and cultivation of political ability, promote the consolidation of the foundation of loyalty to the Party. Persistently use Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to solidify the soul, strictly implement the “first agenda” (第一议题) and theoretical study systems, make the Party’s innovative theory the primary and mandatory training content, do a good job of regular training, especially basic training, promote cadres to master the fundamental skills and firm political loyalty. Do a solid job of study and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of performance achievement, always focus on key tasks, promote the integration of study, investigation, and rectification, promote normalization and long-term effectiveness, guide cadres at all levels to examine performance from a political height, and practice the “Two Upholds” (两个维护) with concrete actions of deep study, thorough understanding, true investigation, and real rectification. Implement a plan to improve the political ability of leading cadres, optimize the task arrangement, class setting, methods, and mechanisms of cadre education and training around the connotation of political ability, and promote the overall improvement of the political literacy of the cadre contingent. Deepen Party spirit education, excavate and make good use of red resources, establish a mechanism linking Party spirit education and Party spirit analysis, and promote cadres to regularly purify their political souls and sweep away political dust. Give play to the熔炉 (crucible) role of inner-Party political life, establish and improve a quality control mechanism for democratic life meetings, cultivate a positive and healthy inner-Party political culture, and let cadres purify their Party spirit and strengthen their bodies in serious criticism and self-criticism.

Deepen the assessment and evaluation of political ability, promote the shouldering of the responsibility of alignment and benchmarking. Persist in taking doing deep and substantive investigation of cadres’ political quality as an important lever. Around the five aspects emphasized by General Secretary Xi Jinping — political loyalty, political定力 (resolve), political responsibility, political ability, and political self-discipline — refine the evaluation elements of political quality according to the characteristics of cadres at different levels, in different fields, and in different positions, strive to conduct an all-round investigation of cadres’ political performance, explore the establishment of a retrospective investigation and evaluation mechanism for the view of performance achievement after leaving office, and promote cadres to benchmark against everything politically and compare against everything everywhere. At the level of leading bodies, focus on investigating the political ecology, carry out annual assessments of political effects in performing duties, make analysis and judgments on political construction, political life, the atmosphere of employing people, and strict governance of the Party, and determine evaluation grades. Make good use of the means of performance assessment for high-quality development, closely combine assessing people with assessing affairs, qualitative with quantitative, strengthen political requirements, and压实 (firmly press) political responsibility. Innovate measures for investigating and understanding cadres’ social performance, focus on investigating political morality, professional ethics, social morality, and personal private morality, promptly grasp cadres’ family affairs and property, promptly report social activities, promptly investigate social relations, and promptly verify social public opinion.

Highlight political ability in selecting the worthy and capable, promote the establishment of the yardstick of both moral integrity and professional competence. Persist in taking political ability as the core element for evaluating whether a cadre is competent, adhere to both moral integrity and professional competence, with moral integrity first, take political requirements as the first yardstick, strictly check the political pass, conduct pass, ability pass, style pass, and integrity pass. Do a good job of the term change work of local leading bodies, take political ability as an important consideration in the allocation of the leading body, look not only at the matching degree of professional ability but also at the compatibility of political ability, and enhance the overall political function of the leading body. Strengthen the supervision of the atmosphere during term changes; for those cadres who make friends with political swindlers and political brokers, engage in投机钻营 (speculation and scheming), and engage in crooked ways, not only should they not be promoted or reused, but they must also be seriously investigated and dealt with, ensuring that the entire process of term change is upright and clean. Promote the normalization of cadres being able to go up and down, take the situation of implementing political requirements as the decisive factor for cadres’ entry, exit, retention, and transfer, make organizational adjustments with real determination and hard measures, and guide the orientation of starting undertakings with the correct orientation of employing people. Regularly carry out retrospective investigations of the selection process for “promotions despite illness” (带病提拔), increase the intensity of investigation and handling of violations in selecting and employing people, and ensure that excellent cadres with both moral integrity and professional competence are selected.

Strictly correct and rectify political ability, promote the strict adherence to the foundation of standing and governing. Persist in putting the Party’s political discipline and political rules first, improve the normal supervision and inspection mechanism of cadres’ political behavior, increase the intensity of supervision and inspection of the implementation of reporting major matters, reporting personal matters, and democratic centralism, continuously盯住 (keep an eye on) and strive to solve the “seven have-its” (七个有之) problems. Promote the concretization, precision, and normalization of political supervision, explore the establishment of a political supervision list that closely follows cadres’ job responsibilities and sees people and affairs, and continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of political supervision. Establish a record of negative problems in cadres’ political performance, improve the mechanism for joint gatekeeping of cadres’ political problems, deeply analyze the political stance, political principles, and political responsibility reflected in cadres’ professional work, accurately grasp the nature of the problem, promptly discover political problems and correct political deviations. Carry out political rectification and training for prominent problems, focus on solving common political problems exposed in巡视 (disciplinary inspection), case investigation, etc., and promote correction and orientation. Improve the mechanism for the coordination of various types of supervision, make good use of the joint meeting system for cadre supervision work, explore the establishment of a big data platform for supervision and a judgment and early warning system, improve the list of shared supervision information, and form an overall synergy of cadre supervision.

Grasp the practical exercise of political ability, promote the stimulation of the ability to take responsibility and act. Persist in taking practice as the best stage for strengthening cadres’ political experience, improve the mechanism of “learning by doing, doing by learning” (干中学、学中干), through cross-level, cross-regional, cross-field mutual dispatch and exchange secondment, planfully select and send cadres to grassroots frontlines, major special projects, project construction, and other demanding positions to undergo tempering, continuously improve the leadership ability, thinking ability, and practical ability to handle problems from a political and overall perspective. Take the ability to do mass work as an important aspect of improving political ability, supervise and implement the system of grassroots contact points, highlight the requirements of “going down to the grassroots level” (四下基层) in daily management, select newly appointed cadres and outstanding young cadres to exercise in petition departments, and promote cadres at all levels, especially young cadres, to firmly stand on the mass standpoint and be good at mass work. Focus on cultivating cadres’ fighting spirit and fighting skills, send cadres to the frontlines of major struggles such as reform攻坚 (tackling tough issues), grassroots governance, emergency response, and disaster relief, promote the enhancement of awareness of preventing political risks, and enrich political wisdom and accumulate political experience in the practice of confronting tough issues and real struggles. Actively build platforms such as “making contributions in posts” (岗位建功) and “horse racing and competition” (赛马比拼), explore and implement mechanisms such as “posting challenges and taking the lead” (揭榜挂帅) for major tasks and group攻坚 (tackling tough issues), so that those who want to do things have a stage, those who can do things have an arena, and those who accomplish things have a podium. Improve the benign interactive mechanism of “two-way responsibility” (双向担当) where cadres take responsibility for the cause and organizations take responsibility for cadres, explore the establishment of a system covering all fields for due diligence exemption and fault tolerance and error correction, establish a timely reward mechanism for cadres, maximize the stimulation of cadres’ enthusiasm for starting undertakings and doing business, and let the spirit of daring to take responsibility and being able to act become common practice in the cadre contingent.

(The author is a member of the Standing Committee of the Jilin Provincial Party Committee and Minister of the Organization Department)

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Important Remarks

105 years of unremitting struggle have forged a powerful Communist Party of China. Our Party keeps in mind the nature, purpose, and struggle goals of a Marxist party, vigorously promotes the great founding spirit of the Party, and after enduring hardships its fighting spirit becomes even firmer; after being 千锤百炼 (qiān chuí bǎi liàn - "a thousand hammers and a hundred refinements," to be thoroughly tempered and tested) it becomes even stronger. Today, our Party has developed into the world's largest ruling party with significant global influence, receives the heartfelt support and endorsement of the people, is the strong leading core of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and is fully worthy of being a great, glorious, and correct party.

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This Issue at a Glance

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Systematically Advance the Construction of the "Six Networks" of Infrastructure

By: 魏际刚

On April 28, 2026, a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee clearly stated that planning and construction of the water network, new-type power grid, computing power network, new-generation communication network, urban underground pipeline network, and logistics network should be strengthened. On May 9, the State Council executive meeting made more specific arrangements in this regard. According to estimates by the National Development and Reform Commission (国家发展改革委), the scale of investment in the "six networks" and related key areas this year alone exceeds 7 trillion yuan. Systematically advancing the construction of the "six networks" is not only an urgent need to expand effective investment and stabilize economic growth, but also a strategic move to cultivate new quality productive forces and shape future competitive advantages.

The strategic significance of strengthening the construction of the "six networks"

Infrastructure is the foundation of economic development and plays a strategic, foundational, and pioneering role in the overall national economic and social development. On the one hand, the traditional "railway, highway, airport" infrastructure model has approached its ceiling, with diminishing marginal returns on investment, making it urgent to find new growth engines. On the other hand, the external environment is undergoing profound changes, the global industrial and supply chains are accelerating their restructuring, and it has become crucial to smooth the domestic great circulation and enhance the autonomy and security of development. Against this backdrop, the construction of the "six networks" will become an important support for promoting the stable and long-term development of China's economy.

Smoothing the domestic great circulation and building a solid foundation for the new development pattern. The "six networks" construct a modern infrastructure system that connects things, data, intelligence, and green elements, enabling production, distribution, circulation, and consumption to be efficient and smooth on a larger scale and at a deeper level. The "six networks" have their respective divisions of labor and support each other, which not only enhances the economy's capacity for autonomous support but also strengthens its resilience against external shocks, pushing the national economic cycle from "basically smooth" to "precise matching, efficient operation."

Spawning new quality productive forces and building the core engine for industrial leapfrogging. The "six networks" are not only an upgraded version of traditional infrastructure but also fertile ground for nurturing new technologies and spawning new business forms. For example, the new-type power grid integrates technologies such as smart sensing and virtual power plants, driving the development of businesses like energy big data; the computing power network and the new-generation communication network support AI large models and industrial internet applications; the intelligentization of the logistics network promotes the popularization of unmanned warehouses and smart supply chains; the digital transformation of the water network and urban underground pipeline network provides broad scenarios for digital twin and IoT sensing technologies. It can be said that the construction of the "six networks" is implanting a powerful "smart engine" for industrial upgrading, driving the transition from technological innovation to industrial implementation.

Reshaping the mode of factor allocation and injecting surging momentum into the economic cycle. Facing the new demands for a leap in the level of factor allocation, the "six networks" fundamentally reshape the way factors flow and combine. The computing power network, through the "east data, west computing" (东数西算) project, achieves the nationwide dispatch of computing resources, reducing costs and carbon emissions; the new-type power grid, relying on intelligent dispatch, achieves coordination of "source, grid, load, and storage," precisely matching western green electricity with eastern loads; the logistics network, through interconnection and intercommunication, achieves large-scale socialized coordination of logistics resources, effectively reducing the overall logistics cost of society; the low-latency characteristics of the new-generation communication network make remote control possible, greatly enhancing equipment coordination efficiency. The coordinated action of the "six networks" promotes the precise matching of energy flows, data flows, and material flows, effectively reducing transaction costs, logistics costs, and environmental costs.

Activating the momentum for regional coordination and laying a green foundation for common prosperity. The cross-regional dispatch capability of the "six networks" provides a historic opportunity for coordinated regional development. The computing power network guides data centers to be deployed in the western region, transforming energy advantages into computing power economic advantages; the new-type power grid transmits electricity across provinces, turning western "energy bases" into "value highlands"; the wide coverage of the new-generation communication network bridges the "digital divide," bringing telemedicine and quality education to rural areas; the logistics network, through an operational system of "hubs + corridors + networks," promotes the integrated development of logistics with regions and industries, empowering rural revitalization through "express delivery to villages" and cold chain construction; the renewal of urban underground pipeline networks improves the quality, livability, and resilience of urban functions; the water network ensures the safety of urban and rural water supply and flood control. The coordinated efforts of the "six networks" promote the complementary advantages of the eastern and western regions, allowing all people to share the dividends of infrastructure construction, significantly enhancing the balance, coordination, and inclusiveness of development.

The main connotations and functional positioning of the "six networks"

The "six networks" have distinct characteristics of the times; they are both an upgrade of traditional infrastructure and a forward-looking layout of new infrastructure.

The water network is the basic network that safeguards the source of life. It includes not only traditional large-scale water conservancy facilities, inter-basin water transfer channels, large and medium-sized reservoirs, and river embankments, but also covers smart water management, ecological water network construction, and other content. Its core function is to ensure the spatiotemporal balance of water resources; it is the lifeline for food security and urban security, and also an important support for flood control, drought relief, and ecological water replenishment. With the increase in extreme weather events caused by climate change, the strategic value of the water network is becoming increasingly prominent.

The new-type power grid is a key network for reshaping the energy landscape. With new challenges such as the continuously rising demand for new energy integration and the increasing pressure of regional imbalances in power supply and demand, there is an urgent need to establish a more secure, reliable, green, low-carbon, strong, resilient, intelligent, and flexible new-type power grid. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" (十五五) period, investment is expected to exceed 5 trillion yuan. In particular, the demand for "computing-power-electricity coordination" triggered by the explosion of AI computing power has further highlighted the strategic position of the new-type power grid. "The end of computing power is electricity"; the flexible dispatch capability of the power system has become the key to the success or failure of infrastructure construction in the digital economy era.

The computing power network is the core network driving the intelligent economy. With data centers, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence at its core, it achieves a nationwide integrated layout through the "east data, west computing" project, combining the computing power demand of the east with the clean energy advantages of the west to build an efficient computing power dispatch platform. The computing power network is a necessary support for the development of the digital economy and artificial intelligence, determines the efficiency of releasing the value of data elements, and is also a strategic high ground in international technological competition.

The new-generation communication network is the hub network that opens up the information main artery. Focusing on 5G-A, F5G, 6G, and the industrial internet, it promotes the development of information networks with high speed, wide coverage, and low latency. The new-generation communication network and the computing power network are deeply integrated, providing the underlying support of "computing power + connectivity" for applications such as AI large models, remote control, and autonomous driving; it is the "nervous system" of the era of the Internet of Everything.

The urban underground pipeline network is the safety network that carries urban resilience. By the end of 2025, the total length of pipeline networks built in China had reached nearly 3.9 million kilometers, ranking first in the world. However, problems such as aging of some pipeline networks, low intelligence levels, insufficient drainage capacity, and water supply leakage remain prominent. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, investment is expected to be about 5 trillion yuan, with construction and renovation of approximately 770,000 kilometers of pipelines for gas, water supply and drainage, and heating, upgrading "invisible infrastructure" into "visible national strategy," shifting from "passive response" to "active sensing."

The logistics network is the material flow network that smoothens the economic cycle. It covers multiple modes including railway, highway, waterway, aviation, pipeline, postal service, express delivery, distribution, and warehousing. In 2025, the ratio of total social logistics costs to GDP in China has dropped to 13.9%, falling below the 14% threshold for the first time. The construction of the logistics network will continue to drive cost reduction and efficiency improvement, with the goal of reducing it to around 13.5% by 2027, creating favorable conditions for enhancing the competitiveness of the real economy, strengthening the resilience of industrial and supply chains, and improving people's livelihoods.

Main pathways for coordinating the construction of the "six networks"

The construction of the "six networks" is a complex systematic project with cross-domain, cross-level, and cross-cycle characteristics. It requires adhering to a systems perspective, strengthening overall coordination, innovating mechanisms and models, and forging a path of modern infrastructure construction with Chinese characteristics.

Strengthening cross-domain overall planning and building a "one network" coordinated advancement pattern. The functions of the "six networks" are interdependent and their spaces are interwoven; it is necessary to break down departmental fragmentation and achieve intensive co-construction. At the planning level, the construction space for each network should be coordinated within the territorial spatial planning, exploring multi-network integration and space-sharing models to save land resources. At the sequencing level, adhere to appropriate advance, clarify priorities and connection points, such as urban underground pipeline network renewal must be implemented simultaneously with communication fiber laying and power grid cable undergrounding, achieving one-time completion and long-term utilization. At the standards level, accelerate the formulation of cross-network data interfaces, security protection, and interconnection standards to ensure that water network sensing data is uploaded via the communication network to the computing power network for processing, achieving "one map" sensing and dispatch. At the spatial level, form a national "one network" with east-west linkage and land-sea coordination.

Innovating investment and financing mechanisms to gather diverse capital. Based on the characteristics of long-cycle, large-scale investment, build a pattern of "government guidance, market leadership, and diversified participation." Make good use of policy financial instruments such as ultra-long-term special government bonds and special-purpose bonds, include the "six networks" in the national major construction project database, and ensure the steady progress of backbone projects. Advance the pilot of infrastructure REITs to revitalize existing assets with stable cash flows such as data centers, high-standard warehouses, and energy storage facilities, forming a virtuous investment cycle. Innovate franchise and PPP models; for urban underground pipeline networks, explore "integrated pipe corridors + commercial operation"; for the logistics network, promote "government-enterprise co-construction and co-operation," optimizing the upfront investment structure of enterprises. Explore green financial instruments, issue green bonds for projects such as computing-power-electricity coordination, optimize carbon emission reduction support tools, and smooth regular financing channels. Set up industrial investment funds to attract long-term capital to key equipment and cross-network integration demonstration projects.

Deepening the "infrastructure+" empowerment and promoting the deep integration of the "six networks" with industries. Use the "six networks" as industrial platforms to empower thousands of industries, releasing multiplier effects. For example, "water network+" promotes digital twin smart irrigation areas and precise dispatch; "new-type power grid+" opens dispatch interfaces to develop new business forms such as virtual power plants and vehicle-grid interaction; "computing power network+" establishes a dispatch trading platform and issues "computing power vouchers" to reduce computing costs and support industry large model training; "new-generation communication network+" promotes 5G-A and F5G fixed-mobile convergence to support the large-scale implementation of industrial internet and remote control; "urban underground pipeline network+" builds a "one map" platform, using AI and robot inspections to turn passive response into active early warning; "logistics network+" builds logistics hubs, promotes multimodal transport "single document system" and supply chain integration.

Building a solid bottom line of security and resilience, and improving full life-cycle governance. The "six networks" are the lifelines of the nation; security and resilience must be embedded throughout the entire process. Strengthen network security, build an "end-edge-network-cloud" protection system, use quantum encryption and zero-trust architecture to prevent and resolve risks, and establish a cross-network early warning and response mechanism. Conduct regular physical examinations and renewals to promote dynamic upgrades and optimization of facilities. Improve the emergency support system, establish reserves and plans for extreme scenarios, deploy "dual-use for normal and emergency" (平急两用) distributed energy storage and emergency base stations to ensure stable operation under extreme conditions. Improve relevant laws, regulations, and standards, issue regulations for the protection of new infrastructure and urban underground pipeline networks, establish a full life-cycle carbon emission and green evaluation system, and enhance the level of standardized governance.

Strengthening scientific and technological innovation and talent support, injecting lasting momentum. Place independent innovation in a prominent position, overcome key technologies, and cultivate composite talents. For the power grid, focus on UHV transmission and grid-forming energy storage; for computing power, overcome high-performance chips and dispatch algorithms; for communications, lay out 6G and satellite-terrestrial integration; for logistics, develop unmanned equipment and new energy heavy trucks; for pipeline networks, break through trenchless repair and intelligent detection. Form innovation consortia, with leading enterprises and universities jointly establishing collaborative innovation centers, building comprehensive test sites in Xiong'an, the Yangtze River Delta, and other places, and carrying out cross-network technology incubation and integration verification. Cultivate composite talents, rely on industry-education integration to cultivate cross-domain talents, set up interdisciplinary subjects in universities, implement project-based job rotation in enterprises, and cultivate leading talents with both technological insight and engineering practice ability. Deepen international cooperation, participate in the formulation of international rules for computing power interconnection, new energy grid integration, etc., promote the "going global" of China's infrastructure standards, and enhance global discourse power and influence.

(The author is Deputy Director of the Market Economy Research Institute of the Development Research Center of the State Council (国务院发展研究中心市场经济研究所))

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Continually advancing the building of a community with a shared future for mankind

By: 外交部分管外交日常业务工作的副部长 马朝旭

General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out at the ceremony marking the 105th anniversary of the founding of the Communist Party of China that we promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, contributing Chinese wisdom, Chinese solutions, and Chinese strength to solving major issues facing humanity. General Secretary Xi Jinping made "must continue to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind" one of the "five musts" for "strengthening confidence, continuing the struggle, and constantly creating new achievements worthy of the times and the people." General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourse has pointed the direction and provided fundamental guidance for us to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind has become a glorious banner guiding the progress of the times.

The Communist Party of China seeks happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation, and also seeks progress for humanity and harmony for the world. With a profound sense of commitment to the people, General Secretary Xi Jinping, keeping in view the fundamental and long-term interests of the Chinese people and the peoples of the world, put forward the important concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind. Building a community with a shared future for mankind has been written into the reports of the 19th and 20th National Congresses of the Communist Party of China, listed as an essential requirement of Chinese-style modernization, and formally incorporated into the Party Constitution and the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, rising to the will of the Communist Party of China and the entire Chinese people.

Human society is bound by a common destiny, with fortunes intertwined. Countries have become so interconnected that they are inseparable from each other. With the accelerated evolution of the once-in-a-century changes, the world has entered a new period of turbulence and transformation, and humanity once again stands at a crossroads, uncertain of its direction. In the face of global crises, no one and no country can remain immune. Humanity has no choice but to work together in solidarity and pursue harmonious coexistence. It is precisely based on such profound thinking that in March 2013, General Secretary Xi Jinping, for the first time, proposed at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations that human beings live in the same global village, in the same time and space where history and reality meet, and are increasingly becoming a community with a shared future in which each has a stake in the other. In September 2015, at the General Debate of the 70th Session of the United Nations General Assembly, the overall framework of "five-in-one" for building a community with a shared future for mankind was clarified. In January 2017, General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered a speech at the United Nations Office at Geneva, proposing the overall goal of building "five worlds." In June 2018, the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs established the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, summarizing Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy as "ten upholds," one of which is to uphold the promotion of building a community with a shared future for mankind with the aim of maintaining world peace and promoting common development. At the Central Conference on Work Relating to Foreign Affairs held in December 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping further systematically expounded the "four beams and eight pillars" (四梁八柱 - sì liáng bā zhù, "four beams and eight pillars," the main structural framework) of the scientific system for building a community with a shared future for mankind.

A community with a shared future for mankind means that the future and destiny of each nation and each country are closely linked, sharing weal and woe, and working together to turn the planet where we were born and raised into a harmonious family, and to turn the aspirations of people of all countries for a better life into reality. It is not about replacing one system with another, nor about replacing one civilization with another. Rather, it is about countries with different systems, different ideologies, different histories and cultures, and different levels of development sharing interests, rights, and responsibilities in international affairs, forming the greatest common denominator for building a better world.

The goal of promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind is to build a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, and clean and beauty. Lasting peace is to realize the common aspiration of the people of all countries to reject war and seek peace. Maintaining world peace is a responsibility that every country should shoulder. Countries should build partnerships of dialogue rather than confrontation, of partnership rather than alliance, respect each other, engage in equal consultation, and resolutely abandon the Cold War mentality and power politics. Universal security is aimed at the practice of some countries pursuing absolute security and building their own security on the instability of other countries. All parties should foster a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security, coordinate responses to traditional and non-traditional security threats, and oppose all forms of terrorism. Common prosperity means making the cake of the world economy bigger and distributing it better, so that the people of all countries can share the fruits of development. Countries should adhere to the concept of "I am good, you are good, and everyone is good," create favorable conditions for the common development of mankind, jointly promote the development and prosperity of all countries, and let the fruits of development benefit all countries. Openness and inclusiveness means adhering to exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations, so that all countries can grow and progress together. Different civilizations should coexist harmoniously and complement each other, jointly providing spiritual strength for human development. Clean and beauty means adhering to green and low-carbon development, seeking a path of sustainable development, building an ecological system that respects nature and pursues green development, and protecting the Earth, the home on which humanity depends for survival.

The principle of promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind is extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits. Global affairs should be discussed by all, international rules should be jointly formulated and observed by all countries, and the fruits of governance should be shared by all, completely abandoning the law of the jungle and power politics. Major countries should act like major countries, provide more global public goods, assume major-country responsibilities, and demonstrate major-country commitment. Practice the common values of all mankind of peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom. Promote the building of a new type of international relations, adhere to mutual respect, fairness and justice, and win-win cooperation, and blaze a new path of state-to-state interaction. Jointly build the Belt and Road with high quality, deepen connectivity and strategic alignment among countries, and promote the development of all countries and the modernization of the world. Increase the representation and voice of developing countries. Strengthen global governance of artificial intelligence to ensure that AI is for good and benefits all humanity.

Promoting an equal and orderly multipolar world and a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization is the necessary path to building a community with a shared future for mankind. We advocate an equal and orderly multipolarity, which means adhering to the equality of all countries, big or small, effectively promoting the democratization of international relations, ensuring that the multipolarization process is generally constructive, and that all countries can find their own place and play their due role in it. Economic globalization is an irreversible trend of the times. We advocate a universally beneficial and inclusive economic globalization, which means responding to the common aspirations of all countries, especially developing countries, solving the development imbalances between and within countries caused by the global allocation of resources, promoting a globalization that is conducive to the development of all countries, especially developing countries, while supporting countries in finding development paths that suit their own national conditions, and maintaining the growth momentum and vitality of the world economy.

A community with a shared future for mankind is the common cause of all humanity. It is not a solo performance by one country or one family, but a chorus of all countries in the world. Under the personal planning and guidance of General Secretary Xi Jinping, the concept of building a community with a shared future for mankind has received response and support from more and more countries, expanding from a Chinese initiative to an international consensus, transforming from a beautiful vision into rich practice, and developing from a conceptual proposition into a scientific system. It is increasingly demonstrating the ideological power to lead the times and pointing the way forward for a world in turmoil and change. At present, more than 30 countries and more than 10 regions have reached consensus with China on building a community with a shared future. The China-Indochina Peninsula and Central Asia regions have achieved full coverage at both bilateral and multilateral levels. The China-Africa community with a shared future has been elevated to the "all-weather" level. The building of communities with a shared future in various fields such as cybersecurity, climate change, and health is steadily advancing. The concept of a community with a shared future for mankind has been written into UN General Assembly resolutions for nine consecutive years and into many multilateral documents, becoming a glorious banner guiding the progress of the times.

The four major global initiatives provide strategic support for promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

Within the framework of a community with a shared future for mankind, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative, the Global Security Initiative, the Global Civilization Initiative, and the Global Governance Initiative. These four major initiatives are the four pillars of the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind, the systematic international public goods that China contributes to the world in the new era, and China's solutions to the global challenges facing humanity.

Facing the major issue of promoting global development, a major challenge for humanity, in September 2021, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Development Initiative when addressing the General Debate of the 76th Session of the United Nations General Assembly via video. The initiative aims to accelerate the implementation of the United Nations 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, promote stronger, greener, and healthier global development, cultivate new drivers of global development, and build a global community of development. The Global Development Initiative advocates adhering to development as a priority, adhering to a people-centered approach, adhering to universal benefit and inclusiveness, adhering to innovation-driven development, adhering to harmony between man and nature, and adhering to an action-oriented approach. Since the initiative was proposed, it has received support and participation from more than 130 countries and international organizations. More than 80 countries have joined the Group of Friends of the Global Development Initiative. Various types of development funds totaling over 23 billion US dollars have been mobilized, and more than 1,800 cooperation projects have been carried out. We have held the High-level Dialogue on Global Development and established the Global Development Promotion Center, making tangible contributions to promoting global development.

Facing the complex international and regional security situation and security governance challenges, in April 2022, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Security Initiative at the opening ceremony of the Boao Forum for Asia Annual Conference. The initiative aims to eliminate the root causes of international conflicts, improve global security governance, encourage the international community to inject more stability and certainty into a turbulent and changing world, and achieve lasting world peace and development. The Global Security Initiative emphasizes that security is a prerequisite for development and that humanity is an indivisible security community. It advocates that countries adhere to a vision of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security; adhere to respect for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries and non-interference in internal affairs; adhere to compliance with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter; adhere to taking seriously the legitimate security concerns of all countries; adhere to peacefully resolving differences and disputes between countries through dialogue and consultation; and adhere to maintaining security in both traditional and non-traditional domains. The initiative has received support and appreciation from more than 130 countries and international and regional organizations, and its core concepts have been written into more than 140 bilateral and multilateral documents. We actively promote the implementation of the Global Security Initiative, build a more balanced, effective, and sustainable security architecture, and blaze a new path of security that features dialogue rather than confrontation, partnership rather than alliance, and win-win rather than zero-sum. We initiated the establishment of the Group of Friends for Peace on the Ukraine crisis, facilitated the restoration of diplomatic relations between Saudi Arabia and Iran and the reconciliation among Palestinian factions, promoted a ceasefire between Cambodia and Thailand, mediated multiple rounds of peace talks among parties involved in the Myanmar conflict, and played a constructive role in the conflicts between the United States, Israel, and Iran, making China's contribution to maintaining common and universal security.

Facing the greatest reality of the diversity of world civilizations and the urgent need to transcend the clash of civilizations, in March 2023, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Civilization Initiative at the CPC in Dialogue with World Political Parties High-level Meeting. The initiative aims to promote mutual understanding and affinity among the people of all countries and to promote inclusiveness and mutual learning among all civilizations. It jointly advocates respect for the diversity of world civilizations, jointly advocates the promotion of the common values of all mankind, jointly advocates attention to the inheritance and innovation of civilizations, and jointly advocates strengthening international people-to-people and cultural exchanges and cooperation. It strives to create a new situation of people-to-people exchanges, cultural integration, and mutual understanding among countries, making the garden of world civilizations colorful and vibrant. We actively build a network for dialogue and cooperation among civilizations, initiate the Conference on Dialogue of Asian Civilizations and the Forum of Ancient Civilizations, and promote the United Nations General Assembly to establish the International Day for Dialogue among Civilizations, building bridges for exchanges and mutual learning among civilizations of all countries.

Facing the major proposition of what kind of global governance system to build and how to reform and improve the global governance system, in September 2025, General Secretary Xi Jinping proposed the Global Governance Initiative at the "Shanghai Cooperation Organization Plus" meeting. The initiative aims to work with all countries to build a more just and equitable global governance system and jointly march towards a community with a shared future for mankind. The Global Governance Initiative advocates upholding sovereign equality, insisting on equal participation, equal decision-making, and equal benefit for all countries in global governance, promoting the democratization of international relations, and enhancing the representation and voice of developing countries. It advocates abiding by international rule of law, comprehensively, fully, and completely complying with the purposes and principles of the UN Charter and other universally recognized basic norms of international relations, and ensuring the equal and uniform application of international law and international rules. It advocates practicing multilateralism, adhering to the global governance concept of extensive consultation, joint contribution, and shared benefits, firmly upholding the status and authority of the United Nations, and effectively playing the irreplaceable and important role of the United Nations in global governance. It advocates a people-centered approach, reforming and improving the global governance system, ensuring that the people of all countries jointly participate in global governance and share the fruits of global governance, and better safeguarding the common interests of all countries. It emphasizes an action-oriented approach, adhering to systematic planning and overall promotion, coordinating global actions, fully mobilizing resources from all sides, creating more visible results, and avoiding governance lag and fragmentation through pragmatic cooperation. The Global Governance Initiative provides a systematic plan for reforming and improving global governance. It has received response and support from nearly 160 countries and international organizations, and more than 60 countries have actively joined the Group of Friends of Global Governance. We have promoted the historic expansion of the BRICS cooperation mechanism and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, supported the African Union's accession to the G20, and established the International Organization for Mediation, with more than 40 founding member states.

The reason why the four major global initiatives are widely welcomed is, in the final analysis, because they meet the needs of the times and conform to the aspirations of the people. The four major global initiatives advocate promoting prosperity through development, ensuring stability through security, enhancing mutual trust through civilization, and seeking justice through governance. They aim to build a world of lasting peace, universal security, common prosperity, openness and inclusiveness, and clean and beauty, and to promote the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. We must deeply understand the great significance of the four major global initiatives, continue to promote their in-depth and practical implementation, and guide the major changes in the world to develop and evolve in the correct direction of building a community with a shared future for mankind.

Promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind through concrete actions of major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics.

Promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind is the core concept of Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy and the lofty goal pursued by major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics in the new era. At present, China is in the best period of development since modern times, and the world is undergoing major changes unseen in a century. The two are intertwined and interact with each other. We must enhance our historical initiative, raise our political stance, effectively serve high-quality development, effectively resolve external risks and challenges, and help China continue to gain strategic initiative in fierce international competition.

Adhere to strengthening strategic confidence. Since the reform and opening up, the fundamental reason for all our achievements and progress is that we have blazed the path of socialism with Chinese characteristics, formed the theoretical system of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and established the socialist system with Chinese characteristics. Adhering to confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics reflects the national will, national spirit, and national image of China in the new era, and is the source of strength and foundation of belief for our external work. Diplomatic work is an important part of the cause of socialism with Chinese characteristics. We must adhere to taking socialism with Chinese characteristics as the foundation to enhance strategic confidence.

Resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests. This is the starting point and ultimate goal of major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, and also the sacred mission of Chinese diplomacy. The Communist Party of China and the Chinese people have grown and become strong through struggle. The courage to struggle and the ability to be good at struggle have always been the fine tradition and distinctive feature of New China's diplomacy. At present, China is in a critical period of comprehensively advancing the building of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation through Chinese-style modernization, with unprecedented risks and challenges. External work must enhance risk awareness, strengthen bottom-line thinking, grasp the laws in the midst of change, seek advantages and avoid disadvantages in chaos, strive for the initiative in struggle, clarify positions and draw red lines on issues involving the core interests of the country, and fully demonstrate the determination and will to resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests.

Promote the building of a community with a shared future with neighboring countries. Thoroughly implement the spirit of the Central Conference on Work Relating to Neighboring Countries, uphold the concept of amity, sincerity, mutual benefit, and inclusiveness, and a shared future, consolidate strategic mutual trust with neighboring countries, and support regional countries in steadily pursuing their own development paths. Deepen development integration, build a high-level connectivity network, and strengthen cooperation on industrial and supply chains. Jointly maintain regional stability, actively mediate to cool down and stabilize hot-spot issues, carry out security and law enforcement cooperation, and respond to various risks and challenges. Expand exchanges and communication, facilitate personnel exchanges, and consolidate the foundation of public support.

Maintain overall stability in major-country relations. Implement the important consensus reached by the heads of state of China and the United States, expand dialogue and cooperation in various fields, carry forward the spirit of struggle, improve the ability to struggle, resolutely safeguard national sovereignty, security, and development interests, and promote a constructive and stable strategic relationship between China and the United States. Consolidate the high-level political mutual trust and strategic coordination between China and Russia, deepen and expand pragmatic cooperation in various fields, and jointly maintain international strategic stability. Develop relations with Europe on the basis of mutual respect, seeking common ground while reserving differences, openness and cooperation, and mutual benefit and win-win.

Deepen solidarity and cooperation with Global South countries. Promote the implementation of the outcomes of the Beijing Summit of the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, successfully hold the "China-Africa Year of People-to-People Exchanges," negotiate and sign agreements on economic partnership for common development with African countries, promote the comprehensive empowerment effect of the "zero-tariff" policy for African countries having diplomatic relations with China as soon as possible after its implementation, and continuously inject new impetus into the development of China-Africa relations. Enhance solidarity and mutual trust with Arab countries, advance the negotiations on the China-Gulf Cooperation Council Free Trade Agreement, and push China-Arab cooperation in various fields to a new level. Promote the implementation of the "five major projects" for building a China-Latin America and the Caribbean community with a shared future, and consolidate and expand the achievements of China-Latin America and the Caribbean cooperation.

Advance the reform of the global governance system. Firmly practice multilateralism, uphold the authority and status of the United Nations, and actively play the role of a permanent member of the Security Council. Promote the high-quality development of "Greater BRICS Cooperation," and advance the strategic layout of the "five BRICS pillars" in an integrated manner. Implement the outcomes of the Tianjin Summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and build the "SCO family" well. Actively participate in and lead global climate governance, improve rules and mechanisms in emerging fields such as artificial intelligence, "sea, air, space, and cyberspace," promote the political settlement of hot-spot issues, and build a more just and equitable global governance system.

Promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation. Strengthen strategic alignment with partner countries, deepen "hard connectivity" of infrastructure, "soft connectivity" of rules and standards, and "heart-to-heart connectivity" with the people of partner countries. Improve the layout of a multidimensional connectivity network, and coordinate the advancement of major landmark projects and "small yet smart" livelihood projects. Enhance the development level of the China-Europe (Asia) Railway Express, and accelerate the construction of the New International Land-Sea Trade Corridor. Deepen pragmatic cooperation in trade, investment, industry, and people-to-people exchanges, and expand cooperation in fields such as green development, artificial intelligence, digital economy, health, tourism, and agriculture.

Expand high-standard opening up. Successfully host the 33rd APEC Economic Leaders' Meeting, fully participate in G20 cooperation, and promote the reform of the global economic and financial governance system. Align with high-standard international economic and trade rules, steadily expand unilateral opening up and institutional opening up, and accelerate the process of regional and bilateral trade and investment agreements. Uphold the multilateral trading system with the World Trade Organization at its core, oppose all forms of unilateralism and protectionism, resist discriminatory and exclusive standards and rules, and maintain the stable and smooth functioning of global industrial and supply chains.

Strengthen the protection of overseas interests. Continuously strengthen the construction of the rule of law in foreign affairs, and continuously enhance and improve the ability to counter sanctions, interference, and "long-arm jurisdiction." Actively build a "five-in-one" overseas security protection system involving the central government, local governments, embassies and consulates abroad, enterprises, and citizens, strengthen the risk early warning, prevention and control, and protection mechanisms for overseas interests and investments, strengthen international cooperation in security and other fields, and safeguard the legitimate rights and interests of Chinese citizens and legal persons abroad. Promote cooperation with relevant countries to combat transnational crime, especially telecommunications and online fraud.

Unswervingly adhere to the centralized and unified leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core over diplomatic work, and implement the diplomatic strategic deployments determined by the Party Central Committee. This is the most distinctive feature of major-country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics, and also our greatest political advantage in overcoming all risks and challenges. We must unite more closely around the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, adhere to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, especially Xi Jinping Thought on Diplomacy, deeply understand the decisive significance of the "two establishes," enhance the "four consciousnesses," strengthen the "four confidences," and achieve the "two upholds." With concrete actions and achievements, we will create favorable conditions for advancing the building of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation, and make greater contributions to promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind!

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Guiding the healthy development of emerging human rights fields

By: 毛俊响

In June of this year, the State Council Information Office released the National Human Rights Action Plan (2026–2030) (hereinafter referred to as the fifth phase of the National Human Rights Action Plan), which proposes to "guide the healthy development of emerging human rights fields," profoundly responding to the new challenges and new opportunities for human rights protection brought about by technological progress and social change, responding to the people's expectations for higher-quality development and more comprehensive human rights protection, and reflecting the direction of development of our country's human rights protection cause as it keeps pace with the times.

Since the Second World War, the international community, on the basis of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations human rights covenants, has gradually formed a universal list of human rights. But human rights are historical, concrete, and realistic. At present, a new round of global technological revolution and industrial transformation is bringing profound changes to production methods and social structures, giving rise to many new interest claims, and new extensions of the concept of human rights are constantly emerging. On the one hand, the level of human rights protection and the scope of the human rights system are often constrained by specific economic and social conditions and cultural traditions. On the other hand, rights are essentially interest claims directed at the state, society, and other people. For an emerging interest claim to be transformed into an emerging human right that the state respects and guarantees, it must satisfy two basic conditions: desirability and feasibility. The so-called desirability means that this emerging interest claim has gained social recognition, possesses a certain universal cultural concept or moral foundation, or is supported by a social consensus constrained by economic and social development; the so-called feasibility means that the social cost of respecting, protecting, and realizing this emerging interest claim is bearable under the current economic and social conditions of the country, and that its institutional construction and policy implementation are currently feasible or operable.

Compared with the previous four phases of the National Human Rights Action Plan, the fifth phase of the National Human Rights Action Plan proposes to guide the healthy development of emerging human rights fields, and takes human rights protection in the digital age and the implementation of corporate human rights responsibilities as two focal points for implementing this requirement. The former centrally embodies the profound impact of technological change on the field, content, and methods of human rights protection: digital space not only expands the channels for realizing traditional rights but also gives rise to entirely new interest claims and risk forms, making it the most concentrated and cutting-edge area of emerging interest claims; the latter breaks through the traditional "individual-state" binary framework, extending the duty bearers of human rights protection from the state to social forces such as enterprises, responding to the reality that in the era of economic globalization and platform economy, corporate behavior has an increasingly deep impact on individual rights, and represents an important expansion of the human rights governance system in the dimension of subjects. To guide the healthy development of emerging human rights fields, we must follow the basic laws of human rights protection, actively respond to the new human rights protection issues brought about by digital technology, and also clarify and standardize corporate human rights responsibilities at the institutional level, so that the expansion of rights claims matches the capacity of institutional supply.

First, make every effort to advance human rights protection in the digital age. Human rights protection in the digital age is an important part of emerging human rights fields and an unavoidable issue of the times. On the one hand, the widespread application of digital and intelligent technology gives rise to new quality productive forces, reshapes production and lifestyles, extends the field of human rights protection into digital space, endows traditional human rights with new digital forms, and greatly expands the breadth and depth of traditional human rights protection. For example, the freedom to seek and publish information has been greatly expanded due to the existence of digital space; massive amounts of data and information undoubtedly expand people's actual ability to obtain information freely, and online platforms also provide a vast space for publishing personal views and disseminating various types of information that physical platforms cannot match. However, the application of digital and intelligent technology also brings challenges and even risks to the protection of traditional human rights such as personal information, privacy rights, and property rights. If legal regulation does not keep up or improve in a timely manner, privacy rights and other human rights may be infringed upon. In recent years, the United Nations Human Rights Council and the United Nations General Assembly have successively adopted resolutions on the protection of privacy in the digital age, and the international community's attention to human rights protection in the digital age is continuously deepening.

On the other hand, the application of digital and intelligent technology brings global challenges such as digital security risks, personal information leakage, and the widening digital divide, and also gives rise to some emerging interest claims with strong characteristics of the digital age, such as the right to digital identity and data property rights, which concern the dignity and freedom of every person in digital space. The fifth phase of the National Human Rights Action Plan proposes to adhere to the principles of development orientation, goodness for the people, fairness and justice, and inclusiveness and universal benefit, to give full play to the role of digital and intelligent technology and data elements in enriching people's lives and improving people's well-being, to use digital and intelligent technology to create a better life and promote people's free and comprehensive development. This is an inevitable move to meet the needs of human rights protection in the digital age. In this process, it is necessary to keep pace with the pace of technological evolution, promptly improve the safety regulatory framework for new technologies and new business forms, and build a multi-level risk prevention institutional system; it is also necessary to continuously narrow the digital divide between different groups and different regions, promote the equalization of digital public services, strengthen the cultivation of digital literacy and digital rights awareness, give full play to the role of digital and intelligent technology and data elements in enriching people's lives and improving people's well-being, and achieve a positive interaction between rights protection and economic and social development.

Second, promote enterprises to implement human rights responsibilities. The expansion of the extension of the human rights concept includes both the increase in the types of rights themselves and the expansion of the subjects of rights protection. The reason for including "promoting enterprises to implement human rights responsibilities" as an important aspect of implementing the requirement to "guide the healthy development of emerging human rights fields" is precisely because it expands the subject framework of human rights protection, which is an institutional innovation and practical development of great significance both for theoretical research on human rights and for human rights governance. At the theoretical level of human rights, traditional human rights theory is mainly built on the "individual-state" binary relationship; human rights are mainly institutional designs used by individuals to guard against state power, and the state is the duty bearer that respects, protects, and realizes human rights. As the influence of social subjects such as enterprises in economic activities continues to expand, the impact of their behavior on individual rights becomes increasingly significant, and the traditional theoretical framework that relies solely on the state to fulfill obligations can no longer fully respond to practical needs. The proposal of the corporate human rights responsibility system is precisely a beneficial expansion of traditional human rights theory in this context, further indicating that it has gradually become a consensus that social subjects such as enterprises bear the responsibility to respect and protect human rights.

At the level of human rights governance, corporate human rights responsibility has become an important issue that domestic human rights governance and global human rights governance must address. Facing the complex environment in which individual countries have politicized, instrumentalized, and weaponized human rights issues in recent years, domestic enterprises should take the initiative, actively formulate and publicly release policies and commitments to fulfill social responsibilities, and conduct prudent assessments of their own business management activities and supply chain risks. At the same time, the legal and policy system for corporate social responsibility should be further improved, guiding enterprises to earnestly respect and protect human rights while pursuing economic benefits. The fifth phase of the National Human Rights Action Plan proposes to formulate and improve laws, policies, and judicial measures related to corporate social responsibility, improve the corporate social responsibility guidelines and the corporate social responsibility evaluation system in government procurement, and enhance enterprises' awareness and ability to fulfill human rights due diligence. This is precisely an institutional response to this governance need. In the process of promoting enterprises to implement human rights responsibilities, efforts should be made to build a mechanism that coordinates institutional constraints on corporate human rights responsibilities with internal self-awareness; it is necessary to form rigid constraints through improving laws and regulations, and also to stimulate the endogenous motivation of enterprises to fulfill responsibilities through standard guidance, information disclosure, third-party evaluation, and other means.

In addition, enterprises implementing human rights responsibilities is not only an institutional requirement at the domestic governance level but also an important practical path for our country to participate in global human rights governance. The fifth phase of the National Human Rights Action Plan clearly requires promoting enterprises to implement human rights due diligence in foreign economic and trade cooperation and investment. At present, our country has accumulated relatively rich practical experience in this field and has the conditions and the responsibility to play a greater role in global human rights governance. We should continue to take the various measures in the fifth phase of the National Human Rights Action Plan to promote enterprises to fulfill human rights responsibilities as an opportunity, continue to exert efforts in summarizing experience, improving institutions, and promoting implementation, continuously transform the practical exploration of corporate human rights responsibilities into replicable and promotable institutional achievements, and provide solid practical support for building a more fair, just, and reasonable global human rights governance system.

(The author is the Executive Director of the Human Rights Research Center of Central South University)

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Small-scale legislation tackles challenges in protecting rights of over-age workers.

By: 沈建峰

Actively responding to population aging concerns the overall national development and the well-being of hundreds of millions of people. As the process of population aging in our country accelerates, more and more workers who have exceeded the statutory retirement age are still employed. They create value through labor, yet have long faced the predicament of insufficient legal protection. On July 1 this year, the Interim Provisions on the Protection of Basic Rights and Interests of Over-age Workers (《超龄劳动者基本权益保障暂行规定》) (hereinafter referred to as the Interim Provisions) were formally implemented. The Interim Provisions stipulate the specific content of the protection of basic rights and interests of over-age workers, the diverse tools for allocating rights and interests, and the relief mechanisms for infringement of rights and interests, etc. They are an important institutional achievement of the system for protecting the rights and interests of over-age workers, and also an important practice in the field of labor legislation of adhering to a problem-oriented approach and carrying out small-cut legislation (小切口立法).

The labor legislation approach centered on labor relations faces practical challenges. Since the reform and opening up, our country has adopted a labor legislation approach centered on labor relations. This approach is mainly reflected in the following aspects. First, labor legislation is mainly carried out around labor relations, with labor relations law being regarded as the basic form of employment relationship law, while employment relationships outside labor relations lack corresponding institutional arrangements. Legislation in the field of employment in our country did not start from employment contracts or service contracts, but from labor contracts. In 1986, the State Council formulated the Interim Provisions on the Implementation of the Labor Contract System in State-Owned Enterprises (《国营企业实行劳动合同制暂行规定》), and in the same year the General Principles of the Civil Law of the People's Republic of China (《中华人民共和国民法通则》) was promulgated, which contained no provisions on service contracts. In 1995, the Labor Law of the People's Republic of China (《中华人民共和国劳动法》) made clear provisions on labor contracts; in 1999, the Contract Law of the People's Republic of China (《中华人民共和国合同法》) was formulated, which also did not make special provisions on employment contracts, but left the issue of labor employment to labor legislation, forming a pattern where civil legislation does not cover general employment rules. This phenomenon continued into the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China (《中华人民共和国民法典》). The result of this legislation is that employment relationships outside labor relations, except for individual contract types, are to a certain extent in a state of having no law to rely on. According to the provisions of current labor laws, over-age workers cannot establish a labor relationship, but rather a civil service relationship, which is subject to civil law. However, civil law has no specific provisions on service relationships, and only some principled clauses can be applied by reference.

Second, the granting of labor rights and interests is closely linked to labor relations; without a labor relationship, it is difficult to apply the various provisions of labor laws. This institutional design played an important role in a specific historical period in establishing the subject status of workers, regulating the employment behavior of employers, and maintaining the stability and order of labor relations. However, it has also brought about some issues that require attention. For employment without a labor relationship, the protection of rights and interests lacks a clear legal basis; at the same time, there is a significant difference in the degree of legal protection between employment with and without a labor relationship, and disputes arising from the determination of labor relations occur from time to time. Therefore, over-age workers face the following problem: after reaching retirement age, they cannot establish a labor relationship, making it difficult to apply the various provisions of labor laws, and their basic rights and interests in terms of labor remuneration, rest and leave, labor safety and health, and work-related injury protection lack clear legal support.

Small-cut legislation provides an effective path to solve the problem of protecting the rights and interests of over-age workers. In response to the above issues, an approach of stratified and categorized adjustment of labor relations and systematic institutional design from the perspective of employment relationships has begun to emerge, but at the operational level there are still many issues that need further clarification. In recent years, the field of labor legislation in our country has begun to explore a new method, namely carrying out problem-oriented small-cut legislation. The 2021 work report of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress stated: "Focus on specific fields and special issues, actively carry out 'small-cut' legislation, and expand the methods and paths of legislative work." The State Council's 2026 Legislative Work Plan (《国务院2026年度立法工作计划》) also pointed out: Deepen the application of the "fast, flexible, small-cut" (小快灵) legislation rapid response mechanism. Carrying out small-cut legislation in the labor field means not taking the determination of labor relations as a prerequisite for the protection of rights and interests, but directly designing institutions for the specific rights and interests protection needs of specific groups.

In recent years, our country has had such successful practices in the labor field. The Regulations on Guaranteeing the Payment of Wages to Migrant Workers (《保障农民工工资支付条例》) formulated in 2019 focused on addressing the problem of wage arrears for migrant workers, directly designing a special system for the core right of wage payment, regardless of whether there is a labor relationship between the parties, providing special protection for the wage payment rights of rural residents who provide labor for employers, and ensuring implementation through the labor security supervision mechanism, achieving remarkable results. The Decision on Implementing Gradual Delayed Statutory Retirement Age (《关于实施渐进式延迟法定退休年龄的决定》) passed by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress in 2024, targeting the realities of population aging and the extension of the working population's lifespan, made targeted adjustments around the retirement age, also reflecting a problem-oriented legislative approach. The Interim Provisions issued this time are another important manifestation of this approach in the field of over-age workers. It targets the prominent problems faced by workers who have exceeded the statutory retirement age and provide subordinate labor under the management of employers, and by enumeration clarifies the specific content of the basic rights and interests they should enjoy, such as labor remuneration, rest and leave, labor safety and health, work-related injury protection, and the relief channels for these rights.

Problem-oriented small-cut legislation is actually a refined adjustment of employment relationships by stratification and categorization. It can be either a special single-item legislation, such as the Interim Provisions, or a special provision for the protection of specific rights of workers or specific categories of workers during the process of amending or formulating other laws, for example, the specific provisions on democratic management of employees during the amendment of the Company Law of the People's Republic of China (《中华人民共和国公司法》). The ongoing legislation on the protection of basic rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment and the revision of the paid annual leave system also continue the problem-oriented legislative approach. This flexible form of legislation enables this approach to function at different levels and in different fields, becoming an effective path for currently improving the system for protecting workers' rights and interests.

Promote the institutional improvement of the protection of rights and interests of over-age workers with systematic thinking. The issuance of the Interim Provisions provides important institutional support for the protection of the rights and interests of over-age workers, but it should also be recognized that a single regulation cannot solve all the problems of protecting the rights and interests of over-age workers, nor can it replace the overall improvement of the labor legal system. Although problem-oriented small-cut legislation can quickly and targetedly solve prominent problems in the labor field, if it lacks systematic thinking, it may also bring the risk of legal fragmentation. The report of the 20th National Congress of the Communist Party of China emphasized the need to "enhance the systematic, holistic, coordinated, and timely nature of legislation." While fully affirming the positive significance of small-cut legislation, it should also be examined and advanced within the overall framework of the labor legal system.

Strengthening the systematic nature of labor legislation also conforms to the trend of codification in legislation in recent years. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "The Civil Code provides a very good example for the codification of legislation in other fields. We must summarize the experience of compiling the Civil Code and, at the appropriate time, promote the codification work in legislative fields where conditions are ripe." After the completion of the Civil Code of the People's Republic of China, the Ecological Environment Code of the People's Republic of China (《中华人民共和国生态环境法典》) was successfully issued this year. Currently, the codification of the labor field is also being actively demonstrated and explored. And systematicity is one of the most basic characteristics of a code; one of the technical goals to be achieved by codification is to have a clear and complete internal system and external system. Against this background, labor legislation should also adhere to systematic thinking, while promoting small-cut legislation, accumulate conditions for the further improvement of the labor legal system.

Regarding the protection of the rights and interests of over-age workers, promoting institutional improvement requires focusing on three levels of issues. First, the perspective should be expanded from labor relations legislation to employment relationship legislation. Current labor legislation lacks systematic institutional arrangements for employment relationships outside labor relations, such as those of over-age workers. In the future, while continuing to improve labor relations legislation, the shortcomings in legal norms for general employment relationships should be gradually filled. Second, the distinction between labor relations and service relations should be taken as the basic framework, and refined institutional design should be carried out for the specific rights and interests needs of workers under different employment forms. Although over-age workers currently do not meet the standards for establishing a labor relationship, the objective reality that they provide subordinate labor under the management of employers determines that it is legitimate and necessary for them to enjoy basic labor rights and interests protection. The Interim Provisions adopt exactly this approach on this issue, that is, while acknowledging the legal fact that over-age workers do not meet the standards for establishing a labor relationship, they are granted necessary labor rights and interests protection through special provisions. Third, attention should be paid to the coordination and cooperation of legal norms at various levels. As a departmental regulation, the Interim Provisions have a relatively low level of effectiveness and have certain limitations in function. In the future, on the basis of summarizing the experience of implementing the Interim Provisions, it is necessary to promote the gradual improvement of relevant systems at the level of administrative regulations and even laws, so that the protection of the rights and interests of over-age workers can obtain more sufficient and more stable legal support.

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Regulate E-commerce Platform Subsidies in Accordance with Law

By: 郭文博

In recent years, promotional slogans such as “hundred-billion subsidies” and “lowest price across the entire network” have appeared with increasing frequency in the daily operations of e-commerce platforms. As subsidy methods have become normalized and intensified, related market disorder has also increased markedly. For example, some platforms’ advertised “hundred-billion subsidies” do not live up to their name (名不副实, míng bù fù shí - “the name does not match the reality,” not living up to its name), packaging long-term marketing activities as huge concessions for specific major promotion nodes; some platforms fail to disclose key information such as subsidy rules and promotion periods in prominent positions, making it difficult for consumers to judge the true discounts; and some platforms unilaterally exempt themselves from statutory responsibilities in their rules, or exclude consumers’ right to negotiate. This kind of “involution-style” competition that uses subsidies as the main means not only distorts the market pricing mechanism for goods, but also squeezes the reasonable profit margins of merchants on the platforms. Some platforms even shift the entire cost of subsidies onto merchants, trapping them in the dilemma of “no traffic if prices are not lowered, losses if prices are lowered.” Regulating e-commerce platform subsidy behavior in accordance with the law, and promoting e-commerce platforms to shift from “competing on price” to “competing on quality and service,” is of great significance for stabilizing business expectations, stimulating market vitality, and promoting the healthy development of the platform economy.

The Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China (中华人民共和国反不正当竞争法), revised in 2025, clearly stipulates that “platform operators shall not force or covertly force operators within the platform to sell goods at prices below cost in accordance with their pricing rules, thereby disrupting market competition order.” The Internet Platform Price Behavior Rules (互联网平台价格行为规则), implemented in April this year, explicitly require platform operators to effectively regulate subsidy behavior, “carry out subsidy promotions fairly and impartially, and shall not falsely or exaggeratedly publicize the amount and intensity of subsidies,” and “display subsidy and related promotion activity rules in prominent positions, clearly indicating information such as subsidy targets, subsidy methods, participation conditions, start and end times.” In June this year, the State Administration for Market Regulation published the Ten Provisions on Subsidy Behavior Norms for Food Delivery Platforms (Draft for Comments) (外卖平台补贴行为规范十条（征求意见稿）), specifically targeting food delivery platforms, requiring platforms not to exclude or restrict market competition through long-term, large-scale subsidies. This series of institutional arrangements has initially constructed a framework of subsidy behavior norms covering various types of e-commerce platforms. However, overall, these norms still have certain shortcomings at the specific implementation level. First, the criteria for identifying key elements are not yet sufficiently detailed. Although existing norms set prohibitive provisions, the operational standards for concepts such as “long-term, large-scale subsidies,” “below cost,” and “force or covertly force” are still unclear, which may lead to excessive discretion in law enforcement and relatively large differences in the handling results of different regions and different cases. Second, the supporting subsidy information disclosure system is not yet complete. For example, a recent notice from the Beijing Municipal Market Regulation Bureau (北京市市场监督管理局) regarding its talks with five e-commerce platforms showed that some platforms refused to provide actual subsidy amounts on the pretext of “long-term marketing activities,” and some platforms did not display activity rules in prominent positions, indicating that the binding force of existing information disclosure requirements is still insufficient. Third, there is insufficient institutional supply for ex-ante prevention and in-process intervention. The current regulatory model still mainly relies on ex-post investigation and punishment, whereas the market damage caused by subsidy competition has already formed and spread before investigation and punishment, making it difficult to repair the distorted competitive landscape in the short term, and the operational losses of damaged entities are also difficult to effectively compensate through ex-post penalties. Fourth, there is still an imbalance between the cost of illegality and the gains from illegality. The traffic growth and market share expansion gains obtained by platforms through activities such as subsidies are extremely substantial, and the cost of illegality is far lower than the gains from illegality, making it difficult to form an effective deterrent. In response to the above problems, efforts should be coordinated at the levels of improving rule supply, enhancing law enforcement effectiveness, and strengthening responsibility implementation, to build a full-chain rule-of-law system covering ex-ante norms, in-process supervision, and ex-post accountability.

Refine legislative standards and enhance the operability of legal rules. According to the provisions of the Anti-Unfair Competition Law of the People’s Republic of China and the Internet Platform Price Behavior Rules, “selling below cost” is the red line for illegal subsidy behavior by e-commerce platforms. When determining individual cases in law enforcement practice, multiple factors such as the nature of the transaction subject, production scale and type, market and sales conditions, production efficiency and technology, and the quality of goods or services are often comprehensively considered. In cases involving e-commerce platform subsidies, because the platform simultaneously involves multiple businesses such as goods sales, traffic distribution, and technical services, the determination of “below cost” is more complex. Whether the traffic costs, technical service costs, etc., incurred by the platform to facilitate transactions should be included in costs, and how they should be included, currently lacks unified and clear operational norms. This requires the competent authorities to issue more specific guiding opinions within the existing legal framework, taking into account the operational characteristics of the platform economy, to clarify the basic principles and scope of cost attribution in the context of platform subsidies, so that the determination of “below cost” has an objective basis and is not easily circumvented by platforms through financial attribution methods. At the same time, for uncertain concepts such as “long-term” and “large-scale,” operable reference standards should also be set in combination with industry realities, such as comprehensively considering factors like the duration of subsidies and the proportion of subsidy amounts to the platform’s revenue from that business, so that law enforcement has relatively unified judgment criteria.

Improve the subsidy information disclosure mechanism and fill regulatory gaps. The Internet Platform Price Behavior Rules require platforms to disclose information such as subsidy rules, participation conditions, and start and end times. However, in practice, the binding force of this rule is still not strong enough. Some platforms avoid explaining the actual investment in subsidies on the grounds of “long-term marketing activities,” making it difficult for consumers to judge whether the subsidy amounts advertised are real, and regulatory authorities also lack the basic information to judge the legitimacy of subsidy behavior. It should be recognized that whether the subsidy amounts are real, where the funds come from, and how the parties share them—these pieces of information are directly related to whether consumers are misled by false advertising, and also to whether regulatory judgments can be based on reliable factual foundations. Within the existing legal framework, it is necessary to further refine the specific requirements for information disclosure, clarify the main scope of information that platforms should provide when carrying out subsidy activities, and at the same time investigate and punish acts such as fabricating subsidy amounts and obscuring activity rules in accordance with the law.

Implement legal responsibilities and form a tiered legal accountability system. The clarity of legal responsibilities is not only a punishment for violators, but also conveys clear compliance expectations to various business entities. For procedural violations or minor circumstances that have not caused actual competitive harm, it is appropriate to issue warnings through means such as administrative talks and orders for rectification, reflecting both the inclusiveness and prudence of supervision and providing enterprises with space for compliance adjustment. For serious illegal acts with obvious subjective malice, long duration, large subsidy scale, and that have already caused effects of excluding or restricting competition, the case should be transferred to anti-monopoly investigation procedures in accordance with the law, and penalty measures such as fines and confiscation of illegal gains should be applied. To achieve effective connection between the two, it is necessary to establish clear criteria for identifying the circumstances of violations, incorporating factors such as subsidy duration, fund scale, and market exclusion effects into consideration, while also standardizing case transfer and procedure conversion mechanisms to avoid arbitrariness in law enforcement, so that legal accountability is both precise and forceful.

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Leverage tax services to build a unified national market

By: 孙群

Building a unified national market is a major strategic deployment made by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council. The Henan Provincial Tax Service fully implements the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions on building a unified national market, follows the work deployments of the Party Committee of the State Administration of Taxation and the Henan Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, closely adheres to the basic requirements of "five unifications, one opening," systematically plans, precisely implements policies, and vigorously ensures implementation, contributing Henan tax strength to the construction of a unified national market.

Unify the basic systems of the market, consolidate the rule-of-law foundation of the unified market. Adhere to using institutional unification to lead market unification, promote comprehensive standardization of tax rules and credit systems, and create a stable, fair, and predictable institutional environment for market entities. First, improve the tax law system, solidify the institutional foundation of the unified market. Closely follow the national tax legislative process, proactively undertake the implementation of superior laws in Henan, have submitted to the Provincial People's Congress for the issuance of 6 supporting local regulations, issued 4 provincial government regulations and 2 provincial government normative documents; submitted for the abolition of 2 provincial government regulations, ensuring that the national tax system is unified and standardized in Henan. Second, strictly review tax-related documents, uphold the bottom line of fair competition supervision. Fully implement the fair competition review and macro-policy orientation consistency review systems, have reviewed a total of 251 tax normative documents, and put forward over 80 review opinions. Adhere to conducting a special cleanup of tax-related documents that impede the unified market and fair competition once a year, have reviewed a total of 594 document items, eliminating problems such as local protection, regional barriers, and policy differentiation from the institutional level. Third, improve the tax payment credit system, create a trustworthy business environment. Actively integrate into the national credit system construction, fully implement tax payment credit assessment. In 2025, the province had 2.6296 million assessed entities, of which A-level and B-level taxpayers accounted for 46.1%, and the tax payment credit structure continued to optimize. Deepen "bank-tax interaction" (银税互动), help enterprises convert tax payment credit into financing capital, providing loans of 121.75 billion yuan to 311,500 enterprises in 2025, a year-on-year increase of 16.9%, further optimizing the trustworthy tax business environment.

Unify market infrastructure, smooth efficient channels for factor flow. Focus on removing key elements of infrastructure construction for logistics, capital flow, and information flow, take tax digital reform as the lead, build modern tax infrastructure supporting the unified national market. First, implement tax incentives for logistics, strengthen hub support capacity. Focus on the construction of Zhengzhou Airport Economy Zone, China-Europe Land Port, and Zhoukou Inland River Port hubs in Henan, precisely implement the "three exemptions and three half-reductions" corporate income tax preference for public infrastructure such as airports, railways, highways, ports, and water conservancy, and the policy of halving the urban land use tax for land used for bulk commodity storage facilities by logistics enterprises. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, tax reductions and exemptions supporting transportation logistics and infrastructure construction amounted to 15.612 billion yuan. In 2025, the total foreign trade volume of Zhengzhou Airport Economy Comprehensive Experimental Zone reached 493.5 billion yuan, helping the regular operation of China-Europe freight trains and efficient cross-border logistics. Second, promote invoice digital reform, build a unified data foundation. Fully implement invoice digital reform, effectively break down data barriers between provinces, industries, and internal/external. Since its launch, a total of 1.179 billion invoices have been issued, serving 3.3503 million market entities, achieving compliant, efficient, and traceable operation of invoice data in the unified national market. Third, deepen cross-regional inter-provincial handling, reduce institutional transaction costs. Focusing on "efficiently completing one task," take the opportunity of being among the first batch of national cross-regional inter-provincial handling pilots, establish 207 tax-collection-and-payment interactive service operation centers. In 2025, the province handled 59,400 cross-regional transactions, including 46,300 within the province and 13,100 across provinces. Sanmenxia in Henan, Weinan in Shaanxi, and Yuncheng in Shanxi established a cross-regional coordination mechanism for the "Yellow River Golden Triangle" of Henan-Shaanxi-Shanxi, handling 513 inter-provincial transactions; Tongbai County and Sui County in Hubei signed a list of 187 inter-provincial handling items, creating a Henan-Hubei inter-provincial service model; the Xinyang Municipal Tax Service set up a "Suzhou-Xinyang Cross-Province Exclusive Service Zone," solving problems for 287 Suzhou-invested enterprises, promoting regional economic cooperation.

Unify the scale of government behavior, standardize the boundaries of power operation. Focus on resolutely rectifying behaviors such as local protection, policy distortion, and illegal tax attraction, intensify the governance of tax-related chaos in investment attraction, "invoice economy," unclear boundaries of rights and responsibilities, etc., clearing institutional obstacles for the construction of a unified national market. First, rectify tax-related chaos in investment attraction, purify the market competition ecosystem. Seriously implement the State Administration of Taxation's "four must-nots" (四个不得) disciplinary requirements, jointly establish a "four joint" (四个联合) governance mechanism for illegal investment attraction with the Henan Office of the Ministry of Finance, promote the Provincial Development and Reform Commission and the Provincial Department of Finance to interview the responsible comrades of the Development and Reform and Finance departments of nine prefectures and cities, forming a Henan mechanism. Formulate work guidelines, compile policy collections, curb vicious investment attraction, tax source diversion, and destruction of the unified market from the institutional level, significantly reducing suspicious data on illegal investment attraction in the province, effectively mitigating risks. Second, severely crack down on false invoice issuance, maintain tax collection and management order. Strive for high-level promotion by the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government, jointly issue the "Henan Province 'Invoice Economy' Problem Departmental Joint Rectification Work Implementation Plan" with nine departments. Solidly carry out centralized rectification and risk verification, adopt comprehensive investigation and punishment measures for enterprises with abnormal growth in invoice issuance volume and significantly low tax burden rates, effectively prevent and resolve tax risks related to the "invoice economy" through comprehensive rectification. Third, refine the four-level list of rights and responsibilities, clarify the boundaries of law enforcement authority. Systematically sort out and form 15 templates of the list of rights and responsibilities for three law enforcement levels of provincial, municipal, and county tax authorities and their dispatched agencies, formulate and publicize over 1,300 tax rights and responsibility lists at the four levels of province, city, county, and sub-bureau, precisely define the scope of authority of tax authorities at all levels. At the same time, build a dynamic management system covering the entire process of "evaluation—collection—optimization—promotion," set 28 evaluation rules, strengthen the management and application of the rights and responsibilities list, truly achieve the goal of "no law enforcement outside the list, fulfill responsibilities within authority," laying a solid foundation for unifying the scale of tax law enforcement and standardizing law enforcement procedures.

Unify market supervision and law enforcement, maintain fair competition market order. Adhere to the national chessboard concept, promote regional coordination and standardized law enforcement, effectively maintain a fair, competitive, standardized, and orderly market order. First, unify regional law enforcement benchmarks, break down cross-regional law enforcement barriers. Actively implement the State Administration of Taxation's regional law enforcement coordination deployment, implement the "Central and Southern Region Tax Administrative Penalty Discretion Benchmark," achieving unified tax administrative penalty standards, scales, and calibers across "six provinces and one city" including Henan and Guangdong, effectively solving problems such as cross-regional law enforcement differences and inconsistent discretion. Second, strengthen platform economy supervision, promote online and offline fairness. Strictly implement the "Regulations on the Reporting of Tax-Related Information by Internet Platform Enterprises," urge platforms such as e-commerce, live streaming, and local life services in the province to report tax-related information according to law, promoting the healthy development and fair competition of the platform economy. Third, prevent individual income tax source diversion, guard the bottom line of the unified tax system. Implement without compromise the new regulations on the collection of individual income tax on income from the transfer of restricted shares of listed companies by individuals, block local competition for tax sources and vicious competition, all 395 securities institutions in the province withhold individual income tax according to the new model, solidifying the fair competition tax system bottom line of the unified national market.

Unify factor resource markets, promote efficient and free flow of factors. Focus on key factors such as labor, capital, technology, and data, precisely remove tax-related bottlenecks in factor flow, promote the free flow and efficient allocation of factors across regions, industries, and entities. First, ensure the flow of human factors, help stabilize employment and protect people's livelihoods. Precisely implement tax and fee preferential policies for employment and entrepreneurship for key groups, retired soldiers, college graduates, and people with employment difficulties, jointly issue with the Provincial Department of Human Resources and Social Security the "Notice on Standardizing the Certification of Enterprises Hiring Key Groups for Employment," sign an agreement on the exchange mechanism of tax-related information for self-employed retired soldiers' employment and entrepreneurship with the Department of Veterans Affairs, break down departmental information silos, and facilitate enterprises and individuals to conveniently enjoy policy dividends. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, the province implemented tax reductions and exemptions of 24.472 billion yuan to promote employment and entrepreneurship policies, effectively supporting the rational flow and optimal allocation of human resources. Second, stimulate the vitality of the capital market, serve the development of the real economy. Implement tax preferential policies supporting capital markets, financial markets, and venture capital, guide more capital to flow to fields such as technological innovation, green development, infrastructure, and people's livelihood security. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, accumulated tax reductions and exemptions related to financial capital markets amounted to 138.825 billion yuan, effectively improving the efficiency of capital factor allocation. Third, support the flow of technology and data, empower innovation-driven development. Fully implement tax and fee preferential policies for technological innovation, technology transfer, and transformation of scientific and technological achievements, focus on key industrial chains and innovation chains, provide full-process policy guidance and convenient services, and promote the accelerated transformation of innovation achievements into actual productivity. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, tax reductions of 37.358 billion yuan were granted to 10,400 high-tech enterprises, helping Henan build a national innovation highland.

Continuously expand opening up to the outside world both domestically and internationally, serve the domestic and international dual circulation. Closely follow major opportunities such as the joint construction of the "Belt and Road" and the implementation of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), continuously optimize foreign-related tax services, deeply integrate into and serve the new development pattern of domestic and international dual circulation. First, optimize export tax rebate services, stabilize the basic foundation of foreign trade development. Deepen the facilitation reform of export tax rebates, precisely empower the development of new foreign trade formats, and target support for the construction of cross-border e-commerce, bonded logistics, free trade pilot zones, and comprehensive bonded zones. During the "14th Five-Year Plan" period, accumulated export tax rebates (exemptions) exceeded 136.8 billion yuan, effectively alleviating enterprise capital pressure and stabilizing the basic foundation of Henan's foreign trade. Second, treat domestic and foreign-funded entities equally, create a fair competition environment. Strictly implement tax policies for stabilizing foreign investment and foreign trade, adhere to equal policy sharing, equal services, and unified supervision for domestic and foreign capital, state-owned and private enterprises, and local and non-local enterprises. Establish a "one-on-one" exclusive tax service mechanism for foreign-funded enterprises, implement various tax and fee preferences without compromise. Since the "14th Five-Year Plan," accumulated tax reductions and exemptions for foreign-funded enterprises in the province amounted to 18.6 billion yuan, continuously creating a market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized tax business environment. Third, create foreign-related service brands, help enterprises develop cross-border operations. Innovatively create the service brand "Tax Road Connect · Henan Connect All Directions" (税路通·豫通八方), open the column "Tax Road Connect · Henan Connect All Directions Cross-border Tax Service Direct Train" on the provincial bureau's official website. In May 2026, carry out themed activities for over 200 "going global" enterprises in the province to invest in African countries, guiding enterprises to pay taxes according to law and operate in compliance. Rely on the fiscal-tax-bank- treasury horizontal联网 system and the RMB cross-border payment mechanism, realize full-process electronic tax payment in RMB, providing strong guarantees for Henan to create a market-oriented, law-based, and internationalized first-class business environment.

(The author is the Secretary of the Party Committee and Director of the Henan Provincial Tax Service of the State Administration of Taxation.)

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Promoting Industry-Academia-Research Integration and Innovation in Healthcare

By: 杜继臣

When science and technology prosper, the nation prospers; when science and technology are strong, the nation is strong. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized strengthening the principal position of enterprises in innovation, building innovation consortia with close cooperation between upstream and downstream, promoting integrated innovation of industry, academia, and research, and accelerating the transformation of scientific and technological achievements into actual productive forces. The medical and health industry is a strategic industry related to the national economy, people's livelihood, and national security, and is also an important battleground for cultivating new quality productive forces (新质生产力). Currently, China's medical and health innovation system is at a critical stage of transitioning from "quantitative accumulation" to "qualitative leap", and from "factor-driven" to "innovation-driven". Promoting integrated innovation of industry, academia, and research in the medical and health field is the core lever to bridge the "last mile" between technology and industry, and is also an inevitable requirement for central enterprises to serve the national strategy and fulfill the "three roles" (三个作用) of scientific and technological innovation, industrial control, and security support.

Looking globally, scientific and technological innovation in the medical and health field is unprecedentedly active, and industrial competition is increasingly fierce, placing higher demands on China's medical and health scientific and technological innovation, forcing us to accelerate the construction of an efficient and collaborative industry-university-research innovation system. Compared with universities and research institutes, enterprises have irreplaceable unique advantages in discerning market demand, defining product forms, leading R&D directions, organizing engineering development, and promoting market application. Enterprises, especially state-owned backbone enterprises represented by central enterprises, are not only deep participants on the front line of the market, but also an important component of the national strategic scientific and technological force. In the medical and health field, which is technology-intensive, strictly regulated, and diverse in demand, central enterprises have advantages such as a full industry chain layout covering "medical treatment, pharmaceuticals, equipment, rehabilitation, and elderly care", and cross-regional resource integration, enabling them to most keenly perceive technology iteration trends and industry pain points, and efficiently transform national strategic needs, real industry pain points, and market development signals into "topics" for technological innovation. Therefore, fully leverage the role of central enterprises in building an integrated innovation system of industry, academia, and research in the medical and health field, ensuring that R&D activities start from major national strategic needs and real application bottlenecks, and end with high-quality products and services that can be industrialized and popularized. Central enterprises, by taking the lead in forming high-level innovation consortia, systematically integrate the basic research advantages of universities, the technical R&D expertise of research institutions, and the engineering capabilities of upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain, carry out organized research around clear goals, achieve precise alignment and efficient coordination of the innovation chain, industry chain, capital chain, and talent chain, greatly improve the efficiency of innovation resource allocation and the success rate of achievement transformation, and ultimately transform the "key variable" of scientific and technological innovation into the "maximum increment" of high-quality industrial development.

Improve the governance mechanism for collaborative innovation of industry, academia, and research in the medical and health field, and consolidate the principal position of enterprises in innovation. First, improve the governance system for scientific and technological innovation. Promote the construction of high-level innovation consortia with central enterprise medical and health groups as the main body, and with extensive participation from universities, research institutes, and high-tech enterprises, make good use of the dual advantages of state-owned capital and the market, and close the loop of "demand-R&D-application". Second, strengthen the demand-oriented scientific research organization model. Promote the efficient aggregation of innovation resources such as projects, data, and talent, and establish a collaborative industry-university-research mechanism of "enterprises (clinical) set the questions, scientific research answers, and the market grades the papers". Central enterprise medical and health groups should base themselves on their own advantages, systematically integrate clinical resources and research needs in the fields of pharmaceuticals, equipment, medical services, and health management, build cross-sector and cross-regional collaborative innovation networks, and establish and improve institutional arrangements conducive to deep integration of industry, academia, and research in terms of organizational structure, resource allocation, and assessment and evaluation. Third, increase investment in basic research and common technology research. Implement tax preferential policies for enterprise investment in basic research, treat enterprise basic research investment as profit for assessment and add-back, guide enterprises to set up special basic research funds, encourage qualified enterprises to build frontier technology research institutes, and appropriately advance the layout of research on major scientific issues that may give rise to transformative medical and health technologies.

Leverage the integrated advantages of central enterprise medical and health groups' multiple industry sectors to build a highland for integrated innovation of industry, academia, and research. First, build a full-chain collaborative innovation ecosystem. Central enterprise medical and health groups have a complete industrial ecosystem from R&D to clinical, from manufacturing to service, and should fully leverage this unique advantage to build an integrated innovation closed loop of "R&D-pilot testing-clinical-manufacturing-application". Relying on the nationwide coverage of hospitals at all levels and grassroots medical service networks, establish a collaborative promotion mechanism for clinical trials, significantly shortening the clinical trial cycle for innovative medical devices and major new drugs; leverage the advantages of pharmaceutical commerce and logistics distribution networks, establish fast market access and large-scale application channels for innovative products, forming a complete value realization chain from technological innovation to commercial success. Second, build cross-industry collaborative innovation platforms. Integrate the R&D resources of the group's internal sectors such as pharmaceuticals, equipment, medical treatment, and elderly care, join forces with high-level research hospitals, top research institutes, and upstream and downstream enterprises in the industry chain to jointly build innovation platforms such as the National Clinical Medical Research Center and the National Technology Innovation Center, promote frontier technology research, key technology breakthroughs, and common technology application, and enhance the ability to integrate and drive innovation resources in the medical and health field. Third, deepen international scientific and technological exchanges and cooperation. Actively participate in global medical and health technology governance, take the lead in organizing and implementing the "Belt and Road" health science and technology innovation cooperation special project, promote domestic innovative drugs and equipment to "go global", and enhance China's international voice and rule-making power in the medical and health field while serving the overall national diplomacy.

Improve the market-based allocation mechanism for innovation factors, and enhance the matching efficiency between resource supply and industrial demand. First, build a diversified technology financial service system. Central enterprise medical and health groups should explore the establishment of technology venture capital funds, expand financial support for early and mid-stage scientific research projects in the medical and health field, adhere to the concept of "long-termism", and cultivate frontier technologies with disruptive potential with patient capital. Second, improve the two-way flow mechanism for talent between industry, academia, and research. Break down barriers to talent flow between universities, research institutes, and enterprises, encourage scientific researchers to retain their establishment (编制) and go to enterprises to carry out industrialization research, and support high-level technical talents from enterprises to serve as industry professors at universities. Grant central enterprise medical and health groups greater autonomy in talent selection and recruitment, implement market-based salary and negotiated wage systems for urgently needed and scarce composite innovative talents, and build an income distribution mechanism that fully reflects the value of innovation factors such as knowledge and technology. Third, strengthen the open sharing of major scientific and technological infrastructure and platforms. Establish institutionalized channels for national-level medical and health science and technology infrastructure to be open to enterprises, and support enterprises to deeply participate in the planning, construction, and operation of medical and health science and technology infrastructure. Improve the open sharing mechanism for large-scale scientific research instruments and equipment and clinical trial resources, and promote in a market-oriented manner that the scientific research resources of universities and research institutes are more tilted towards enterprises.

Improve the ecological system for the transformation of scientific and technological achievements, and open up the "last mile" of industrialization implementation. First, improve the income distribution mechanism for achievement transformation. Implement the "Law of the People's Republic of China on Promoting the Transformation of Scientific and Technological Achievements" and its supporting policies, reward more than 70% of the income from the transformation of scientific and technological achievements to the service inventors and personnel who have made important contributions to the transformation, explore the establishment of pilot reforms for empowering service scientific and technological achievements, grant scientific researchers ownership or long-term use rights of scientific and technological achievements, and fully mobilize the enthusiasm of scientific researchers to participate in achievement transformation. Second, build concept verification and pilot testing verification platforms. Support central enterprise medical and health groups to take the lead in building concept verification centers and pilot testing maturation bases in the medical and health field, providing professional services such as technical feasibility verification, commercial prospect assessment, and engineering development for laboratory achievements, helping scientific research achievements successfully complete the industrialization leap. Third, innovate the review and approval system for medical devices and drugs. Continuously optimize the special review procedures and priority approval channels for innovative medical devices, improve the procurement and use policies for innovative products, and promote the accelerated entry of domestic innovative drugs and equipment into clinical application.

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the integration of industry, academia, and research in the medical and health field should adhere to goal orientation and effectiveness orientation, make concerted efforts in areas such as joint mechanism construction, joint platform building, joint technology tackling, joint talent cultivation, and joint ecosystem building, promote the integration of industry, academia, and research from loose cooperation to strategic coupling, from resource docking to systemic empowerment, and build a solid path for accelerating the formation of new quality productive forces in medical and health and consolidating the health foundation of Chinese-style modernization.

(The author is the Deputy Party Secretary, Director, and General Manager of Genertec Medical Health Holdings Co., Ltd. (通用技术集团医疗健康控股有限公司), and the Party Secretary, Chairman, and General Manager of Aerospace Medical Health Technology Group Co., Ltd. (航天医疗健康科技集团有限公司).)

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Establish and practice a correct view of political achievements to write the chapter of building a strong energy nation in the North China Oilfield

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Party wrote "building an energy-strong nation" into the proposal for the 15th Five-Year Plan, outlining a grand blueprint for the development of the energy industry. Building an energy-strong nation is an important support for advancing Chinese-style modernization. Central energy enterprises must integrate ensuring national energy security and assisting the construction of an energy-strong nation into the vivid practice of establishing and practicing a correct view on performance. The Party Committee of China National Petroleum Corporation Huabei Oilfield Company (中国石油华北油田公司) deeply studies and implements General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on establishing and practicing a correct view on performance, resolutely shoulders the strategic mission of building an energy-strong nation and empowering a better life, anchors the strategic goal of fully building a 10-million-ton equivalent comprehensive energy company and basically building a world-class modern energy enterprise during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, finds its positioning in serving national strategy, bravely undertakes the mission in ensuring national energy security, and strives to write the Huabei Oilfield chapter of energy-strong nation construction.

Serve national strategy, concentrate efforts to empower the construction of the "City of the Future." The establishment of Xiong'an New Area is a millennium plan and a major national event. The Party Committee of Huabei Oilfield Company has always regarded supporting the high-standard and high-quality construction of Xiong'an New Area as an unshirkable political responsibility and a concrete manifestation of practicing a correct view on performance, fully implementing the spirit of the Hebei Provincial Party Committee documents and the work deployment of the Group Company Party Group, and testing the view on performance in the choice between "advance and retreat." On the one hand, use ecological blank space to make room for the new area. Fully serving the construction of a modern city in Xiong'an New Area is not only the vision of a central energy enterprise but also a vivid practice of a correct view on performance. Persist in taking the accelerated withdrawal of oil and gas production facilities in Xiong'an New Area as the top political project, uphold concepts such as "withdraw a thousand oil wells, protect a city's new green" and "industrial transformation in exchange for the new area's ecology," do not talk about objective difficulties, do not compromise in tackling tough problems, coordinate resources and forces, accelerate the pace of implementation, shut down and seal wells and carry out ecological restoration at the highest standards, fully support the high-quality development of the "millennium plan," and ensure that all work withstands the test of practice, the people, and history. On the other hand, integrate green industries into the pulse of the new city. Deeply carry out evaluation of geothermal resources in Xiong'an New Area, verify the recoverable resources of the Diannan buried hill (淀南潜山), and consolidate the resource foundation for clean heating in the new area. Coordinate and leverage resource advantages outside the area, rely on the high-quality geothermal resources of the Renqiu (任丘) Chu'an buried hill, couple with the stable heat source of Renqiu's supercritical combined heat and power, promote "geothermal + thermal power" long-distance heating, and provide a new path for stable, clean, and economical heat use in the new area. At the same time, actively promote the construction of smart communities and smart environmental protection, and safeguard the blue-green interwoven city of the future as a "digital intelligence steward."

Hold the energy rice bowl firmly, actively build a new energy system. Energy supply assurance concerns the national economy and people's livelihood. The Party Committee of Huabei Oilfield Company regards enhancing efficient supply capacity as the mission of holding the energy rice bowl firmly and serving the national economy and people's livelihood, adheres to the direction of intelligence, greenness, and integration, and builds an energy supply system with better structure and greater resilience. In crude oil business, coordinate and promote the "three major projects" of stabilizing the reserve-production ratio, the old oilfield ballast stone, and further improving the recovery rate, accelerate the construction and production of Bayan (巴彦) and Baoding oilfields, and comprehensively consolidate the "ballast stone" for stable crude oil growth. In natural gas business, adhere to the simultaneous development of conventional gas and coalbed methane, expand the main base of coalbed methane in Shanxi, build new positions in Dacheng (大城), Erlian (二连), and Western Inner Mongolia (蒙西), strive to achieve gas production of 5 billion cubic meters by 2030, and consolidate the leading position of the largest medium-shallow coalbed methane field in China; the gas storage business aims to "strengthen winter supply assurance and protect the warmth of people's livelihood," accelerate the expansion and capacity achievement of existing storage facilities and the development and storage construction of buried hill reservoirs, and plan to build salt cavern comprehensive energy storage facilities. In new energy business, deeply implement the "343" green development strategy, build a high-level zero-carbon oilfield and the "Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei" geothermal heating large base, accelerate the construction of key projects such as new power systems, centralized wind power, and the Western Inner Mongolia carbon capture, utilization and storage (CCUS) large base, and actively build a new pattern of the energy industry with multi-energy complementarity, clean and low-carbon. While accelerating industrial development, coordinate high-quality development and high-level safety, strictly implement the "three management and three musts (三管三必须)" requirements, continuously promote the quality, health, safety, and environment (QHSE) improvement and tackling project, and firmly hold the bottom line of safety and environmental protection.

Innovation drives development, focus on cultivating new quality productive forces. To establish and practice a correct view on performance, one must not only look at the "form" of current development but also accumulate the "momentum" for long-term development. The Party Committee of Huabei Oilfield Company insists on laying a foundation, benefiting the long term, and increasing stamina, regarding scientific and technological innovation as a "latent achievement" with long-term value. Promote the deep integration of scientific and technological innovation and industrial innovation. Centering on what the country needs, what the industry trends toward, and what the transformation urgently requires, deploy innovation chains around industrial chains, rely on innovation chains to enhance value chains, deeply cultivate the "ten major scientific and technological innovation projects," and build a full-chain scientific research system from basic research to achievement transformation; aim at frontier fields such as ultra-deep exploration, unconventional large-scale development, and CCUS, strive to overcome a number of "bottleneck" technologies, and use hardcore scientific and technological achievements to accumulate momentum and empower energy transformation. Promote the coordinated linkage of artificial intelligence and production operations. Deeply implement the "AI+" special action, advance in parallel information technology reinforcement, digital empowerment, and intelligent development, carefully create digital basins and twin reservoir demonstration scenarios in Bayan, Shanxi coalbed methane, etc., and make digitalization truly become the core engine of new quality productive forces leading to multiplied oilfield benefits.

Deepen comprehensive and strict governance of the Party, comprehensively gather a strong joint force for doing business and starting undertakings. The Party Committee of Huabei Oilfield Company insists on governing the Party with the spirit of reform and strict standards, and improves the system for comprehensive and strict governance of the Party. Deepen the long-term mechanism of using learning to cast the soul, increase wisdom, correct conduct, and promote action, and promote the series of activities of performance view education and concept transformation to the grassroots, to teams, and to positions. Identify cadres under the guidance of practical work, resolutely break the "only numbers theory," let those who truly work hard be praised, and let those who seek quick success be punished. Persistently rectify conduct, enforce discipline, and combat corruption, improve the "three horizontals and five verticals (三横五纵)" supervision system, integratively promote the mechanisms of not daring to be corrupt, not being able to be corrupt, and not wanting to be corrupt, vigorously promote the Petroleum Spirit, Daqing Spirit, and Iron Man Spirit, guide the majority of Party members and cadres to adhere to long-termism, maintain strategic focus, do work that can withstand inspection by future generations, and transform the clean and upright political ecology into a strong joint force that escorts high-quality development.

The new journey entrusts new missions, and the new blueprint calls for new actions. The Party Committee of Huabei Oilfield Company will forge the correct view on performance into its bloodline, implement it into action, truly work hard and 久久为功 (jiǔ jiǔ wéi gōng - "persist for a long time to achieve success"), and on the new journey of striving to write the Huabei Oilfield chapter of energy-strong nation construction, deliver an excellent answer sheet that withstands the test of history to the Party and the people.
(Party Committee of China National Petroleum Corporation Huabei Oilfield Company)

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Folk aesthetics showcase the vitality of life.

By: 李修建

Folk aesthetics is rooted in the daily production and life of the common people, reflects their aesthetic tastes and value pursuits, and constitutes the part of the Chinese aesthetic system that is most down-to-earth and has the broadest mass foundation. Folk aesthetics possesses collectivity and functionality: a xintianyou (信天游, a type of Shaanxi folk song), a local opera, a clay doll, a paper window-cut — all are direct expressions of the people's emotions and collective expressions of life experience.

The traditional Chinese cosmological view of qi-transformation (气化论宇宙观) holds that all things are generated from qi and return to qi. The movement of heaven and earth, the alternation of the four seasons, the evolution of society, and the changes in human affairs are all due to the gathering, dispersing, and flowing of qi. The great Qing dynasty scholar Dai Zhen pointed out: "As for qi-transformation in relation to the myriad things, it can be summed up in one word — that is called ceaseless generation." Within the circulation of qi-transformation, life stretches on without end, and the myriad things are born and grow without cease. The beauty of ceaseless generation — the lively, unceasing vitality of the kite flying and the fish leaping — constitutes the core characteristic of Chinese aesthetics. Although ordinary commoners need not explore the subtle principles of qi-transformation like literati do, they have long integrated the concept of "ceaseless generation" into daily ethics and customs. The five bats holding the character for longevity cut on window lattices, the pomegranate bearing a hundred seeds embroidered on clothing fabrics, the pine and cypress planted in front of the house, the protective talisman pasted by the stove — everywhere these manifest the expectation for the continuation of life and the abundance of livelihood. They are the most simple practice of the beauty of ceaseless generation among the folk. Regarding this, we summarize it with two aesthetic categories: "liveliness" (热闹) and "joyousness" (喜庆).

"Liveliness" requires collective creation. In traditional China, agriculture was the main mode of production. Agricultural production closely followed the seasons — spring plowing and autumn harvesting both required group participation and collective labor. During the slack farming season, festival ceremonies and temple fair market gatherings were even more crowded with people, "drums and gongs thunder, firecrackers crackle, red flags flutter, and there are seas of people" — a scene of full liveliness. Especially during the Spring Festival, activities such as "holding liveliness" (办热闹), "stirring up the community fire" (闹社火), and parading gods and holding competitions take place across the country, with full participation, collective revelry, entertaining the gods and even more so entertaining people.

Liveliness is related to "red-hot" (红火). Red is the color of the sun and fire, bringing warmth and vitality to humanity, and is most relied upon by people, with obvious symbolic meaning. At weddings, the bride is always bathed in an atmosphere of "liveliness" and "red-hot," going through steps such as "stepping over the fire basin" and "stepping over the fire smoke," praying for a beautiful future life. The suona (唢呐, a double-reed wind instrument), imported from Central Asia, has long become a representative of Chinese national musical instruments. Its sound is high-pitched and piercing, most suitable for expressing jubilant and lively emotions. Whether at happy or sad events (red or white affairs) or festival ceremonies, the suona is always the lead instrument. In contrast, literati aesthetics appear quiet, secluded, cold, and still. The guqin (古琴, a seven-stringed zither), most beloved by literati, has a light and bland sound that requires concentrated quiet listening. Literati paintings always leave large areas blank, presenting a realm of loneliness and desolate coldness. Even in tea drinking, "fewer guests are considered precious," because "many guests create noise, and noise makes elegant interest scarce." But folk teahouses are crowded with people, bustling and noisy — they are the paradise of common folk.

Why do common folk like liveliness? First, as mentioned above, agricultural life requires collective labor. At specific seasonal times, the people all engage in group labor, with scenes of great fervor. For example, the scene depicted by Fan Chengda of the Song dynasty in Miscellaneous Rural Poems on the Four Seasons, No. 44: "Newly built threshing ground smooth as a mirror's face, every household threshes rice taking advantage of the frosty clear sky. Amid songs and laughter, a light thunder stirs, the sound of flails echoes all night until dawn." Farmers sow with hope and harvest with joy; over a long time, this accumulates into an aesthetic psychology that delights in liveliness. Second, from the perspective of the qi-transformation cosmology, the stability of the state, the growth of crops, the peace of life, and the health of the body all depend on the balance of yin and yin qi. Various problems faced by the state, society, and even individuals are attributed to the imbalance of yin and yang qi. Thus, the people hold various ceremonies — some pray to heaven, some worship earth, some revere gods, some drive away ghosts. "Drums beat with a thumping sound, reed pipes blow with a wailing tone. In green robe and locust-wood tablet stands the old shaman, in red blouse and embroidered skirt dances the young girl." The thunderous music of gongs and drums, the jubilant and fervent dances, the elaborate and gorgeous costumes, the mysterious and incomprehensible incantations — all aim to move heaven and earth, promote the circulation of qi, attract righteous qi, drive away evil qi, guide yang qi, neutralize yin qi, harmonize yin and yang, and ultimately bring abundant harvests of the five grains, wealth, sufficiency, peace, and health.

Next, let us look at "joyousness." Joyousness is related to liveliness; lively scenes are often joyous, with weddings being the most typical. Even funerals, especially for the elderly who have died of old age at home, are considered "happy funerals" (喜丧) and are conducted with liveliness and joyousness, without a sense of sorrow.

The sense of joyousness in festival ceremonies is created collectively by many literary and artistic forms, cultural elements, and cultural behaviors. In folk arts such as window flowers, paper-cuts, and woodblock prints, there are numerous auspicious patterns or auspicious designs, many of which make use of homophones — for example, fu lu shou (蝠, 鹿, 桃 — bat, deer, peach for blessings, emolument, longevity), wufu linmen (五福临门 — five bats at the door for the five blessings arriving), mashang fenghou (马上封侯 — horse and monkey for immediate ennoblement), duozi duofu (多子多福 — pomegranate, grapes, fish for many children and many blessings) — fully reflecting the subtlety of Chinese characters and the refinement of Chinese culture. Compared with literati painting, folk painting cannot leave blank spaces — just like cultivating fields, leaving no idle space, wasting no place. Only in this way can the fullness and completeness of life be expressed. Literati landscape painting is a static object, requiring "reclining travel" (卧游) for contemplation and "clarifying the mind to savor the Way" (澄怀味道). The images in folk painting, whether depicting daily life or festival ceremonies, are all in motion, noisy and lively, full of vitality and vigor. In the use of color, folk art often employs bright red and vivid green, multicolored and dazzling, giving a strong visual impact. Literati painting, on the other hand, regards ink and wash as supreme — "with the application of ink, the five colors are already present" — because the great Way is supremely simple and bland. The folk understanding of the Way is sought directly from daily life. The warmth and fiery red of the sun, the lush green of crops during the growth stage, and the golden yellow of the harvest season are the most common and delightful to them; therefore, these three colors are most frequently used. The forms in folk art often do not seek likeness; they are deformed and exaggerated. The performances in folk opera are also often wide-open and exaggerated, comical and ridiculous.

Chinese literary and artistic works, especially popular literature and art since the Song and Yuan dynasties — such as zaju (杂剧, variety plays) and novels — regardless of how tortuous and bizarre the plot or how bitter and坎坷 the fate of the characters, basically have a grand reunion ending. Loyal ministers are vindicated, good people receive good retribution, lovers are finally united, and evildoers are punished. Wang Guowei, in his essay "A Critique of Dream of the Red Chamber," pointed out that the Chinese spirit is secular and optimistic, and he further stated: "Therefore, the operas and novels that represent this spirit are everywhere imbued with this optimistic hue. Those that begin with sorrow end with joy, those that begin with separation end with reunion, those that begin with hardship end with success — without this, it would be difficult to satisfy the reader's heart. The Peony Pavilion's return to life and The Palace of Eternal Life's reunion are the most prominent examples." This narrative mode reflects the common people's longing for a harmonious world with order, justice, and warmth. Although life has its regrets, people always believe that after bitterness comes sweetness and that good and evil are requited; they are even more willing to satisfy their yearning for a beautiful life in the world of literary and artistic works. Thus, this joyous spirit permeates every aspect of literary and artistic creation, becoming a very distinctive marker in the Chinese aesthetic system.

In agricultural life, the Chinese people have developed a cultural character of peacefulness, inclination toward goodness, optimism, and open-mindedness. Reflected in literary and artistic works, besides the grand reunion ending, negative emotions, phenomena, or behaviors are often explained or resolved in a humorous and comical manner. Chinese works rarely contain the terrifying and bloody scenes found in Western works. For example, in Water Margin, when Lu Zhishen kills the town bully Zheng with three punches, it is very violent, but the text uses a series of metaphors: those three punches land "as if opening a sauce and oil shop," "as if opening a silk and satin shop," "as if holding a full hall water-and-land mass" — presenting it in scenes that the people love to see, so that the audience does not feel fear but instead has all senses of sight, hearing, and taste stimulated, feeling thoroughly satisfied. Another example: the Mulian opera, known as the "ancestor of a hundred operas," includes a scene called "Wuchang" (无常, the impermanent deity). Wuchang is thin and gaunt, wears a tall hat, has a pallid face, and is dressed in white, seizing the souls of the dead. The image is originally gloomy and terrifying, but the dramatic work treats it as a half-human, half-ghost, lively, witty, and highly humanized comical character, thereby alleviating the audience's anxiety about death and expressing the folk's reflection on life and their desire for justice.

Besides liveliness and joyousness, other qualities such as completeness and harmony, vividness, intensity, etc., can all summarize the features of Chinese folk aesthetics, all embodying the beauty of ceaseless generation in Chinese culture. Although society is undergoing rapid change, this aesthetic pursuit and value system rooted among the folk are deeply engraved in the marrow of the Chinese people, have been passed down along the cultural lineage for thousands of years to the present day, will influence the Chinese people's aesthetic choices regarding life and art, and will continue to endure.

(The author is Vice President of the Chinese National Academy of Arts)

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Opening the "Romantic Mystery Box" of Harbin, the Summer Capital of Ice

By: 薛兰奎

Harbin’s winter is a fairy-tale play; Harbin’s summer is a symphony.

Coming to Harbin in winter, you can experience the “feeling no cold while in the cold” thrill at the Ice and Snow World, challenge the “eating popsicles outdoors in the depths of winter” icy refreshment on Central Street, and feel the “riding the earth’s gravity express” coolness at the Yabuli Ski Resort… This “romance stacking” sense of worthiness is the emotional-value gift package that the Ice City Harbin has prepared for its “little potatoes.”

And these are just part of the N-fold romance of the “Ice City Summer Capital.” How about we try coming to Harbin in summer? But be careful — when you open the “romance blind box,” you will be repeatedly struck by surprises.

First comes the “aesthetic romance” of lilac blossoms. From purple lilac and white lilac to Amur lilac and feather-leaf lilac, each has its own exclusive romantic code. In early summer in Harbin, the fragrance of lilacs is everywhere; it does not need the wind to carry it to drift into your heart. And the “innocence”-related meaning in its flower language is a romance of great testimonial significance for young people running on the road of love.

Watching the sunset on the banks of the Songhua River is a kind of “visual romance.” “Going to the riverbank” is a unique scene in Harbin. In the evening, clusters of people sit on the riverbank watching the sunset, with the fiery red western sky as the backdrop, the neoclassical Yangmingtan Bridge inlaid in it, plus the clear blue river water, boats shuttling, and gulls gathering — suddenly a painting of Monet’s Sunset on the Seine unfolds before your eyes, and you feel that Harbin’s nickname “Little Paris of the East” is truly well-deserved.

Summer coolness is becoming a “comfortable romance” that Harbin enjoys daily without noticing. They say that heaven has installed a “natural air conditioner” here; an average temperature of around 22°C makes Harbin’s summer a veritable “cool summer.” Without any 凡尔赛 (fán ěr sài - “Versailles,” humblebragging) we can say that in the vocabulary of Harbin people there is no term “escape the heat,” only “pass the summer.” No need for parasols, no need to find shade under trees — the feeling of “cooling off in your own shadow” is wonderfully delightful.

Rhythm and beat weave the “elegant romance” of the Music City. Harbin is a “City of Music” designated by UNESCO. The Harbin Summer Music Concert, founded in 1961, turns Harbin in summer into a city surrounded by musical notes. Not to mention the ice-silk-ribbon streamlined Harbin Grand Theatre, nor the hallowed Harbin Concert Hall of the “century-old Harbin Symphony,” nor the “East-West Twelve-Tone Combined” Music Park — Harbin people have long been accustomed to “strolling on piano keys.” In their daily life, every breeze seems to blow in time with the beat; the high-level romance created by music belongs to everyone here.

The beer festival’s “no beer, no joy” adds a “bold and unrestrained romance” to Harbin. Harbin is a city with a deep beer heritage; China’s first barrel of beer was born here. In 1988, the Harbin Beer Festival debuted simultaneously with the first International Beer Expo and has continued to this day, becoming the city’s brand party for summer leisure. On Sun Island, by the riverbank, at night markets… beer tents, beer gardens, beer bars… draft beer, fresh beer, ice beer… Amid high-decibel clamor, in wide-open spaces crowded with people, hops bloom, beer aroma spreads — skewering and “cheers-ing” is a self-forgetful romance, and happiness takes on a person-to-person transmission phenomenon.

Off-season ice appreciation and snow fun give you an unexpected “cool romance.” If the beer festival is a hit item in Harbin’s “romance blind box,” then the Dream Ice and Snow Pavilion is the hidden item. As the world’s largest indoor ice-and-snow theme park, the Dream Ice and Snow Pavilion is built with stored ice from the Songhua River, using a total of 20,000 cubic meters of ice, and maintains a constant temperature of -8°C to -12°C. Some call it a “Little Ice and Snow World.” The core significance of this attraction, which has the quality of “乾坤大挪移” (qián kūn dà nuó yí - “great shift of heaven and earth,” a magical transposition), is to allow tourists who missed Harbin’s ice-and-snow feast in winter to leave without regret, to immersively experience the wonder of the ice-and-snow fairy tale, and to feel the crossing sensation of the “ice and fire, two extremes” — going directly from 22°C above zero to 12°C below zero. Adults here rediscover the joy of childhood; children become elves in the fairy tale and sincerely exclaim, 不虚此行 (bù xū cǐ xíng - “this trip is not in vain,” a worthwhile journey).

The most culturally rich is the “poetic romance” brought by the cosmopolitan styles. Harbin is called the “Museum of World Architecture,” featuring more than ten architectural styles including Renaissance, Baroque, Art Nouveau, and Eclecticism. Central Street in Daoli District concentrates 75 European and European-style buildings, encompassing the essence of Western architectural art; architectural schools from 15th to 19th century Europe can all find their “traces” on this street over 1,000 meters long. The Chinese Baroque district in Daowai District, with its “foreign outside, Chinese inside” form, has become a representative work of Harbin’s East-meets-West architecture. Once, this place was lined with shops and bustling with carriages and horses, deeply harboring Harbin’s time imprints and century-old烟火 (yān huǒ - “smoke and fire,” the hustle and bustle of daily life). Now it has become a must-visit spot for Harbin tourism. Old stone roads, old brick walls, old wooden doors, old courtyards… those who stroll slowly through are all immersed in a unique elegance; the depth of time in the depths of the past is broken into lines of poetry that read smoothly.

The first realm of tourism is “finding differences”: seeing something different, seeing what has never been seen, experiencing the “little unfamiliarity” that exists only elsewhere. The second realm is “finding feelings”: picking up fragments of memory, replaying dusty past events, awakening the “little beauties” that once existed. The third realm is “finding romance”: letting the mind slow down, settle, and quieten, stepping into a fairy tale and becoming a character in it, achieving the “little fulfillment” that only exists in dreams.

Harbin’s “romance blind box” — if you don’t open it, nothing happens; once opened, it yields a string of surprises, both unexpected and reasonable, arriving so smoothly and seamlessly, with absolutely no sense of incongruity. Approach or enter this city, touch its grain and texture — every rut is filled with vicissitudes, and the romance you can experience and feel is far more than what I can think of and write down.

“交以道接以礼，近者悦远者来” (jiāo yǐ dào jiē yǐ lǐ, jìn zhě yuè yuǎn zhě lái - “Interact with the Way, receive with propriety; those near are pleased, those far come”). A city’s impression score mainly comes from first impressions, while the bonus points come from emotional multiplication. Behind the explosive popularity of “Erbin” is the warmth buff accumulated by the people here through sincerity and ordinary good deeds, making every “tourist” sincerely feel “the trip is not in vain.”

This city does not allow anyone to leave unhappy. Romancing you and making you happier is the hospitality that Harbin and its people have always upheld, are persisting in, and will forever maintain.

(The author is Vice Chairman of the Heilongjiang Writers Association)

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Zhen Yun Dongfang, Zhu Lian Zhongxi

By: 武星

Civilizations become colorful through exchange, and civilizations become rich through mutual learning. Exchange and mutual learning among civilizations are an important driving force for the progress of human civilization and the peaceful development of the world. Looking back on the long river of history, there are many figures who have made important contributions to promoting exchange and mutual learning between Chinese and Western civilizations, and Pearl S. Buck is one such representative. Zhou Enlai once said: "Pearl S. Buck is a famous novelist, the American who best understands China, and harbors deep feelings for the Chinese people. In terms of the War of Resistance against Japan, she sympathized with China and was a friend of the Chinese people." Former U.S. President Nixon praised her as "a human bridge connecting Eastern and Western civilizations." In 1998, former U.S. President Bush said during a visit to China: "My initial understanding of China, and later my admiration for China, was influenced by Pearl S. Buck, starting from reading her novels." Let us together enter the former residence of Pearl S. Buck in Zhenjiang and feel her connection with China.

Pearl S. Buck (1892–1973), American writer, philanthropist, and social activist, created more than 100 works in her lifetime, making her one of the most prolific writers in the world. She is well known for winning the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and the Nobel Prize in Literature. Pearl S. Buck was born in the United States, but her mother tongue was Chinese. In the United States, she was regarded as Chinese; in China, she was regarded as American. She lived in China for nearly 40 years in her life, with the longest period of residence in Zhenjiang. From childhood to maidenhood, from work to marriage, she lived in Zhenjiang for nearly 18 years in total. On her university registration card, she filled in her place of origin as Zhenjiang, China. Pearl S. Buck regarded Zhenjiang as her "Chinese hometown," and the people of Zhenjiang regard Pearl S. Buck as their own daughter.

The former residence of Pearl S. Buck is located at the top of Dengyun Mountain (登云山) in the west of Zhenjiang city. Built in the early 20th century, it is a two-story building with blue bricks and a wooden structure. Today, this place has become the Pearl S. Buck Cultural Park, mainly including the Pearl S. Buck Former Residence, the Pearl S. Buck Memorial Hall, the Pearl Book House, and several groups of Pearl S. Buck statues. In the Pearl S. Buck Cultural Park, there is a stone sculpture of an open book that is particularly eye-catching, engraved with the words "The Good Earth." This is Pearl S. Buck's most representative literary work, telling the story of ordinary people on the land of China about survival, suffering, and redemption. Since its publication in 1931, the "The Good Earth" trilogy has been translated into hundreds of different languages and has been continuously popular worldwide.

The plaque of the Pearl S. Buck Former Residence was inscribed by Shu Yi (舒乙), the son of Lao She. Pearl S. Buck had close contacts with famous figures in Chinese literature and art circles such as Lao She, Xu Zhimo, Mei Lanfang, and Lin Yutang. Shu Yi once wrote an article "Pearl S. Buck and Lao She" recalling, "Among all American colleagues, the one who had the best relationship with Mr. Lao She was Ms. Pearl S. Buck." Stepping inside the former residence, the first floor mainly consists of the living room, dining room, and nanny's room; the second floor mainly consists of Pearl S. Buck's bedroom and study, and the bedroom and study of her parents, Sai Zhaoxiang (赛兆祥) and Caroline (卡洛琳).

Pearl S. Buck's deep connection with China is directly related to two Chinese people she encountered. One was the nanny Wang Ma (王妈), who lived in the Sai family for 18 years and had a direct influence on Pearl S. Buck. Pearl S. Buck once recalled: "A kind and amiable Chinese woman's face, that face was not young, but to me it symbolized love and dignity" "When I took my first steps in life, what I tightly grasped was the index finger of this Chinese nanny." In a certain sense, Wang Ma was not only a nanny but also Pearl S. Buck's enlightenment teacher. The Chinese folk tales Wang Ma told, such as "Lady White Snake Floods Jinshan Mountain," "Meng Jiangnu," "The Cowherd and the Weaver Girl," "The Story of the Western Wing," touched Pearl S. Buck's young heart. The other was her tutor Mr. Kong (孔先生). In the entrance hall on the first floor of the former residence, a mural recreates the scene of Mr. Kong giving lessons. Mr. Kong originally lived in Beijing, was erudite, and came to Zhenjiang to avoid the chaos of war. When Pearl S. Buck was 10 years old, he became her tutor. Over three years, under Mr. Kong's education, Pearl S. Buck gained a preliminary understanding of Chinese history and culture, especially Confucian thought. The Chinese classical novels Mr. Kong taught, such as "Romance of the Three Kingdoms," "Water Margin," and "Dream of the Red Chamber," made Pearl S. Buck begin to develop a vague interest in novels.

Pearl S. Buck's family did not live in a closed foreigner's quarter in Zhenjiang but lived together with ordinary Chinese people. From a young age, she liked to go to nearby people's homes for meals, play house, celebrate the Lantern Festival, and set off firecrackers with Chinese children. At the foot of Dengyun Mountain, the open-air storytelling venue in front of the Dengyun Temple (登云寺) was a place the young Pearl S. Buck yearned for. She and her father listened to Wang Shaotang (王少堂)'s storytelling there. Wang Shaotang enjoyed the reputation of "King of Water Margin." Pearl S. Buck witnessed the exquisite performance of the art of Water Margin storytelling, which had an important influence on her. Out of her childhood love and admiration, starting in 1928, Pearl S. Buck spent five years translating "Water Margin" into English as "All Men Are Brothers," which was also the first complete English translation of "Water Margin."

Next to the former residence, the Pearl S. Buck Memorial Hall has been built. The memorial hall exhibits from six aspects: hometown Zhenjiang, literary hall, Chinese complex, charity and fraternity, eternal pearl, and green mountain former residence, helping us gain a systematic understanding of Pearl S. Buck's life. The people of Zhenjiang have deep feelings for Pearl S. Buck. They not only renovated the Pearl S. Buck Former Residence and built the Pearl S. Buck Cultural Park, but also named Pearl Road, Pearl Bridge, and Pearl Square in Zhenjiang city, and established the Pearl S. Buck Research Association, to commemorate this "daughter of Zhenjiang."

Apart from Zhenjiang, Pearl S. Buck also lived in Suzhou (宿州), Nanjing, Lushan, and other places in China. As she herself said, "My entire childhood was spent in China, and throughout my youth and as a woman, even until I passed half my life, my friends were all Chinese." She created a large number of literary works set in China, enthusiastically introducing Chinese culture to the West. On December 10, 1938, as the first woman in American history to win the Nobel Prize in Literature, Pearl S. Buck delivered a speech titled "The Chinese Novel" at the award ceremony. She said with deep feeling: "I belong to America, but it is precisely Chinese novels, not American novels, that determined my achievements in writing. My earliest knowledge of novels, how to tell stories and how to write stories, was learned in China. Not to acknowledge this today would be 忘恩负义 (wàng ēn fù yì - "forget kindness, betray righteousness," ungrateful) on my part."

Pearl S. Buck harbored deep feelings for the Chinese people and made important contributions to supporting the Chinese people's War of Resistance against Japan during the war. At the invitation of Soong Ching-ling, she became an honorary member of the "China Defense League," actively raising funds and medical supplies overseas to support the Chinese people's War of Resistance against Japan. She also signed a letter with Edgar Snow and others to the U.S. President, calling for the establishment of the "United China Relief," and she served as its chairperson, raising $5 million across the United States to send to China. In 1940, Pearl S. Buck returned to her "Chinese hometown" of Zhenjiang, Jiangsu, and collected a large amount of materials on the War of Resistance in a very short time. The following year, she completed "Dragon Seed" and published it in 1942. "Dragon Seed" is set against the background of the Nanjing Massacre, describing the tragic experiences of the Lin Tan (林郯) family in a small village west of Nanjing during the Japanese invasion of China and their story of rising up to resist. Its publication played a certain role in winning U.S. support for China's War of Resistance and in promoting the U.S. repeal of the Chinese Exclusion Act. In March 1942, Pearl S. Buck delivered a radio speech in Chinese on a foreign radio station: "I boldly expressed my confidence, saying that the Chinese will not surrender, and the Japanese cannot conquer them."

In 1962, at a conference in Philadelphia, USA, Pearl S. Buck said: "The Chinese are an outstanding people in human history. Now they are desperately engaged in modernization and industrialization. You can believe that they will complete their industrialization and modernization at lightning speed." When I walked out of the Pearl S. Buck Former Residence and Memorial Hall, this sentence kept echoing in my mind. At this time, China, just as Pearl S. Buck predicted, has completed the industrialization process that took Western developed countries hundreds of years in just a few decades, creating two miracles of rapid economic development and long-term social stability, and is continuing to forge ahead toward the goal of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.

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Leverage Scenario Advantages to Create New Forms of Intelligent Economy

By: 尹西明

General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that it is necessary to "create diversified application scenarios and high-level industrial clusters, promote the popularization, application, and iterative upgrading of self-developed technologies and products," and "adhere to the unity of winning through quality and leveraging economies of scale, make good use of the advantages of the ultra-large-scale market and rich application scenarios, cultivate more world-class enterprises and leading technologies, and unify the effective improvement of quality and the reasonable growth of quantity throughout the entire process of high-quality development." In 2025, the State Council's "Opinions on Deeply Implementing the 'AI+' Action" and the General Office of the State Council's "Implementation Opinions on Accelerating Scenario Cultivation and Opening to Promote Large-Scale Application of New Scenarios" were successively issued, with the latter formally incorporating scenarios as a new type of production factor into the national innovation system. The 2026 "Government Work Report" explicitly proposed for the first time to "create new forms of the intelligent economy," positioning it as a strategic direction for cultivating new quality productive forces and promoting high-quality development. The "15th Five-Year Plan" Outline further deploys "implementing large-scale application demonstration actions for new technologies, new products, and new scenarios, increasing the intensity of scenario cultivation and opening, and accelerating the large-scale development of emerging industries." This series of deployments has pointed the way for leveraging scenario advantages to create new forms of the intelligent economy.
The intelligent economy, as a new intelligent-native business form supported by digital-intelligent technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) and new infrastructure, driven by scenarios to integrate data, computing power, and algorithms, and promoting the commercialized large-scale implementation of intelligent terminals, intelligent agents, intelligent products, and intelligent services, is shifting its development focus from exploring technical concepts to systematic implementation guided by scenarios. Unlike the early extensive expansion that relied on parameter scale and computing power accumulation, it places greater emphasis on the connotative growth of "AI + thousands of industries," where application scenarios are the key bridge for AI to move from the "virtual world" into the "physical world" and transform into real productive forces. Currently, China's AI-empowered applications still face bottlenecks such as reliability shortcomings in professional scenarios, insufficient supply of high-quality scenario data, and difficulty in forming a commercial closed loop for AI applications. There is an urgent need to use scenarios as a carrier to drive the deep integration of technological innovation and industrial innovation, and to create new forms of the intelligent economy tailored to local conditions. According to policy targets, by 2027, the penetration rate of applications such as new-generation intelligent terminals and intelligent agents in China will exceed 70%, and by 2030, it will exceed 90%. This is not only a clear guide for scenario-driven development but also imposes urgent requirements on the ability to implement scenarios.
From competing on model parameters to creating scenario value
Scenarios are specific contexts used for systematically verifying the industrial application of new technologies, new products, and new business forms, along with supporting infrastructure, business models, institutional policies. They are bridges connecting technology and industry, linking R&D and the market, and are important carriers for promoting the integrated development of technological innovation and industrial innovation. With the breakthrough and wide-area application of large model technology, AI is rapidly accelerating from "Information AI," which mainly relies on language interaction and remains in the virtual world, towards "Physical AI," which can perceive and transform the physical world—this is referred to by the industry as the "second half of AI."
The first half of AI competed on parameter scale and computing power stacking, but the key to winning the second half lies in creating scenario value centered on people. The core proposition is to drive intelligence out of screens and laboratories, into the real world and complex scenarios, using scenarios to drive the value synergy of computing power, algorithms, and data, accelerating the large-scale, commercialized application of intelligent agents, intelligent terminals, intelligent products, and intelligent services in intelligent scenarios, forming productive forces that drive the high-quality development of the intelligent economy and intelligent society.
Looking globally, AI competition is shifting from breakthroughs in individual technologies to a systemic contest of industrial ecosystem effectiveness. Scenarios are increasingly becoming accelerators of technological innovation, springboards for industrial upgrading, and commanding heights of international competition. Only through fine-tuning and optimization in massive real-world scenarios such as manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and urban governance can general-purpose large models achieve value implementation from being "usable" to being "good to use." Without repeated tempering in real scenarios, technological innovations like large models and intelligent robots often remain in the laboratory, making it difficult to transform them into industrial competitiveness, let alone bring them into thousands of households and empower thousands of industries.
From embodied intelligence, brain-computer interfaces, and intelligent driving to quantum technology, competition for scenario dominance is becoming a strategic high ground for enterprises, regions, and even nations. The opening up of a high-value new scenario can directly drive the growth of the entire chain of intelligent agents, intelligent terminals, intelligent equipment, and intelligent services, giving rise to new economic growth points. It can be said that whoever masters large-scale, high-value strategic application scenarios will master the dominance of next-generation technologies and industries; whoever can first achieve the deep integration of AI with real economic scenarios will seize the first-mover advantage in the development of the intelligent economy.
Prominent shortcomings in scenario-driven intelligent economy development
Centered on the core link of scenarios, China currently faces four prominent shortcomings in the process of promoting the reasonable growth of quantity and effective improvement of quality in the intelligent economy and unifying them in high-quality development.
First, insufficient core technology support capability. AI still faces reliability issues such as hallucinations in professional scenarios. There are still shortcomings in underlying model algorithms, high-end chips, basic industrial software, and industrial intelligent agents for Physical AI, and the level of autonomous controllability in key links of the industrial chain urgently needs improvement. Second, low efficiency in data element circulation. Industry data standards are not unified, the supply of high-quality scenario datasets is insufficient, and the data security and compliance governance system still needs to be perfected. Third, insufficient depth of scenario supply and application. Barriers to industrial integration have not been broken, the connection between industry, academia, research, and application is not close enough, the cost of intelligent transformation for small and medium-sized enterprises is high, their motivation for transformation is insufficient, and there are blockages in technology diffusion and coverage of long-tail scenarios, making it difficult to form a sustainable commercial closed loop. Fourth, insufficient adaptability of the supporting governance system. New issues such as AI ethical risks, employment structure adjustment, industry regulatory rules, public safety, and social trust place higher demands on the modernization of governance.
In advancing the layout of the intelligent economy, all localities must adhere to adapting measures to local conditions and 久久为功 (jiǔ jiǔ wéi gōng - "persist for a long time to achieve success," to make unremitting efforts over time), focusing on avoiding three types of practical pitfalls. First, avoid campaign-style construction that "emphasizes hardware, neglects the ecosystem." Blindly launching large model and computing center projects while neglecting the exploration of application scenarios and linkage with local industries can easily form "intelligent computing bubbles" of inefficient duplicate construction. Second, avoid extensive development that "emphasizes technology, neglects governance." Insufficient attention to risks such as algorithmic bias, data privacy, deepfakes, public cognition, and psychological security may erode the foundation of social trust. Third, avoid homogeneous competition that "emphasizes attracting investment, neglects cultivation." Relying solely on policy incentives to attract external enterprises while neglecting the incubation of local enterprises and the intelligent transformation of traditional industries can easily lead to an industrial ecosystem that is "unaccustomed to the local environment." These pitfalls essentially stem from neglecting or misjudging the value of scenarios.
Using scenarios as a guide to develop new forms of the intelligent economy according to local conditions
Looking towards the "15th Five-Year Plan," the intelligent economy is accelerating from a top-level blueprint to an industrial reality. China possesses an ultra-large-scale market, the world's most complete industrial system, massive and diverse application scenarios, and trillion-level intelligent consumption potential, which are unique advantages for developing the intelligent economy. The core path to solving homogeneous development and "involution-style" competition lies in anchoring to real scenarios and insisting on adapting measures to local conditions. During the "15th Five-Year Plan" period, we must firmly grasp the opportunity of the transition from information intelligence to physical intelligence, use scenarios as a link to promote the two-way integration and iterative upgrading of artificial intelligence with thousands of industries, accelerate the transformation of the scenario advantages of the ultra-large-scale market into advantages in intelligent technological innovation and industrial competitive victory, shape new momentum for China's development, and provide strong support for fully entering the new stage of intelligent economy and intelligent society development and basically realizing socialist modernization by 2035.
Strengthen planning guidance and scientific evaluation, deepen central-local linkage and regional differentiated coordination. First, leverage the advantages of the new nationwide system to improve the top-level design of the intelligent economy. Perfect the national-level intelligent economy legislation, medium- and long-term planning, and industrial policy system, incorporate scenarios into the core elements of the intelligent economy and new industrial policy tools, create an open application innovation ecosystem for all domains and all scenarios, and cultivate and strengthen pioneering intelligent technology enterprises and clusters of leading enterprises. Second, establish a mechanism for overall coordination and dynamic evaluation. Construct a comprehensive evaluation system and risk early warning mechanism for intelligent economy development, implement "national chessboard" overall planning and dynamic allocation for key resources such as high-end computing power, basic models, and cross-industry, cross-field comprehensive major scenarios, and clarify the functional positioning of each region within the national unified large market. Third, at the local level, adhere to scenario orientation and prioritize practical results. Base development plans on local industrial foundations and resource endowments, establish an evaluation orientation that values scenario effectiveness over model parameters. Dynamically release "AI+" scenario lists and benchmark cases, promote new technologies and products such as intelligent robots, intelligent vehicles, intelligent phones, and quantum technology into factories, communities, and homes, allowing them to iteratively upgrade and release value in real scenarios such as industrial production, urban governance, and public services. Fourth, deepen regional coordination and complementary advantages. Explore a "two-way enclave intelligence" cooperation model where R&D, integration, and application each leverage their strengths in advantageous regions, forming a good pattern of differentiated development and coordinated linkage between the eastern, central, and western regions through mechanisms such as joint construction of industrial alliances, joint talent training, compliant data circulation, and collaborative scenario creation.
Adhere to the principal position of enterprises, cultivate intelligent-native enterprises, and build a new ecosystem for industrial development. First, accelerate the cultivation of intelligent-native enterprises. Support enterprises in embedding AI as the underlying logic of innovation and development, promote the transformation of organizational structures, product systems, production paradigms, and business models towards intelligent-native driving, and create new species of the intelligent economy. Second, jointly build an open-source and open technical ecosystem. Support pioneering technology enterprises, leading technology enterprises, etc., in jointly building an open-source technical ecosystem for general artificial intelligence (AGI) and other basic models and intelligent robots, open the technical foundation to global developers, small and micro enterprises, and one-person companies (OPCs) and other business entities, promote various entities to carry out scenario-based innovation based on open-source models, and form an innovation cycle of "technological breakthrough—scenario opening—ecosystem co-building—data feedback." Third, build a pattern of integrated development for large, medium, and small enterprises. Create a collaborative ecosystem of "pioneer leading, chain leader driving, platform empowering, and small and medium enterprises following," support industry-leading enterprises, especially state-owned enterprises, in opening intelligent infrastructure and intelligent application scenarios, encourage local governments to build "AI+ industrial communities," provide low-cost, low-threshold Model as a Service (MaaS), Agent as a Service (AaaS), and development tools, and support small and medium enterprises in deeply participating in intelligent transformation, becoming the main force of the intelligent economy development.
Accelerate the scenario-based circulation of data elements, and consolidate the data foundation of the intelligent economy. First, consolidate the foundation for scenario-based data supply. Formulate unified data standards for different industry scenarios, accelerate the construction of high-quality scenario datasets, promote cross-industry and cross-field data interconnection, and solve the "data silo" problem. Support local governments in building "scenario data spaces," promote the orderly opening of public data to enterprises under the premise of ensuring security and compliance, smooth the circulation channel of data from the production end to the application end, and provide solid underlying data support for precise human-machine scenario coordination. Second, improve the rules for scenario-based data circulation. Based on the characteristics of different industrial scenarios, explore differentiated rules for data rights confirmation, pricing, and trading by category, prioritize promoting scenario-based data rights confirmation and circulation pilot projects in industries with better basic conditions such as manufacturing, healthcare, finance, and transportation, smooth the circulation channels of data elements in real scenarios, promote the full release of data value in scenario applications, and accelerate the formation of a positive "data-model-scenario" flywheel. Third, improve scenario-based data security governance. Adhere to the equal emphasis on development and security, build a data security compliance system suitable for scenario characteristics, under the premise of ensuring data security and privacy protection, use application scenarios to drive the integrated coordination of data, computing power, and models, and fully stimulate the development vitality of new business forms and new tracks such as the token economy, embodied intelligence, and the low-altitude economy.
Promote the inclusive sharing of intelligent scenarios and capabilities, and lead global intelligent economy governance. First, create high-level, open "China scenarios." Build and open to the outside world a batch of high-value, high-standard benchmark application scenarios, use scenarios as a gravitational force to gather global innovation resources, and attract international high-end talents and high-quality enterprises to China for innovation cooperation. Second, deepen practical multilateral and bilateral cooperation in the intelligent field. Rely on multilateral mechanisms such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organization, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, as well as relevant bilateral cooperation channels, promote the co-building and sharing of intelligent scenarios and capabilities, and expand the space for intelligent economy cooperation. Third, lead global intelligent governance with pioneering governance. Support university research institutes, think tanks, and industry associations in making China's voice heard and contributing China's solutions in areas such as intelligent economy theoretical research, open-source ecosystem construction, technical standard setting, and ethical norm construction, enhance China's rule discourse power in the global intelligent economy through open cooperation, and forge a path of high-quality, sustainable, open, and inclusive intelligent economy development.

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Enhance Political Competence Throughout the Entire Process of Building the Cadre Force

By: 李明祥

Studying and implementing Xi Jinping’s thought on Party building (习近平党建思想) is an important political task for the entire Party for the current period and the period to come, and “improving political ability” is an important component 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 improving political ability, elucidating the contemporary connotation, important status, and practical path of political ability, providing fundamental guidance and a guide to action for strengthening the construction of political ability among leading cadres in the new era and forging a cadre contingent capable of shouldering the heavy task of modernization. At present, the entire Party is deeply engaged in study and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of political performance, and local leading bodies at all levels will be undergoing successive changes of leadership. Studying well and implementing well General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on improving political ability, placing the improvement of cadres’ political ability in a more prominent position and grasping it firmly and substantively, is of great and far-reaching significance for promoting leading bodies and leading cadres at all levels to deeply comprehend the decisive significance of the two establishments (两个确立 - “two establishments,” referring to the establishment of Xi Jinping’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole, and the establishment of the guiding role of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era), strengthen the four consciousnesses (四个意识 - “four consciousnesses,” i.e., consciousness of the need to maintain political integrity, think in big-picture terms, follow the leadership core, and keep in alignment with the central Party leadership), fortify the four confidences (四个自信 - “four confidences,” i.e., confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture of socialism with Chinese characteristics), achieve the two upholds (两个维护 - “two upholds,” i.e., uphold General Secretary Xi Jinping’s core position on the Party Central Committee and in the Party as a whole, and uphold the Central Committee’s authority and its centralized, unified leadership), advance on the new journey of the “15th Five-Year Plan” with a correct view of political performance, and better advance the construction of Chinese-style modernization.

Deeply comprehend the rich connotation and practical requirements of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on improving political ability

General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important expositions on improving political ability, with strong theoretical self-awareness and profound strategic vision, scientifically answer major questions such as “what is political ability,” “why improve political ability,” and “how to improve political ability.” They are lofty in intent, rich in connotation, and profound in thought, enriching and developing Marxist political theory and Party-building theory, and possessing powerful truth force and practical might.

It pioneered the concept of political ability. Facing the severe challenges of the four major tests (四大考验 - “four major tests,” i.e., tests of governance, reform and opening up, the market economy, and the external environment) and the four dangers (四种危险 - “four dangers,” i.e., dangers of slackening in vigilance, being divorced from the people, corruption, and incompetence) in the new era, at the special topic democratic life meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee on the Three Stricts and Three Honests (三严三实 - “Three Stricts and Three Honests,” i.e., be strict in cultivating one’s moral character, using power, and disciplining oneself; be honest in planning matters, starting undertakings, and being a person), General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward “political ability,” emphasizing that one must be a clear-minded person politically and that political ability must be strong. The concise formulation of this concept creatively elevated capacity building to a political height, integrated political requirements into the content of capacity building, adapted to the requirements of the new era and new journey, aimed at forever maintaining the Party’s advanced nature and purity, strengthened the Party’s construction in response to the demands of the times, and met the practical needs of building a strong cadre contingent, possessing distinct originality and symbolism. The 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China clearly put forward the major proposition of “Party political construction,” emphasizing that Party political construction is the fundamental construction of the Party, determining the direction and effect of Party construction, that Party political construction must be placed first, and that Party political construction must be taken as the overarching guide. These major judgments highlight the extreme importance of Party political construction and its important position in the great new project of Party construction. This is a major innovation in Marxist Party-building theory, of great and far-reaching significance.

It enriched and developed the connotation of political ability. At the First Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out that attention must be paid to improving political ability, especially the ability to grasp direction, grasp the general trend, and grasp the overall situation, as well as the ability to maintain political composure, steer the political situation, and prevent political risks. At the sixth collective study session of the 19th Central Political Bureau, General Secretary Xi Jinping further emphasized that implementing Party political construction in the construction of the cadre contingent requires continuously improving the ability of leading cadres at all levels, especially senior cadres, to grasp direction, grasp the general trend, and grasp the overall situation, and the ability to distinguish political right from wrong, maintain political composure, steer the political situation, and prevent political risks. At the concrete practical level, it requires highly condensing political ability into political judgment, political comprehension, and political execution, forming a structured and systematic generalization. These important expositions enrich and perfect our Party’s understanding and grasp of political ability, establishing a logically rigorous, dialectically unified, and mutually supportive “list of elements” of political ability, which has become the core yardstick for measuring cadres’ political quality.

It indicated the status and role of political ability. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly pointed out that among all the abilities of leading cadres, political ability is the first and foremost, and the most important ability for performing duties is political ability; he required cadres, especially young cadres, to improve seven abilities (七种能力 - “seven abilities,” i.e., political ability, investigative and research ability, scientific decision-making ability, reform and tackling ability, emergency response ability, mass work ability, and implementation ability), among which the first is political ability; he emphasized that cadres at all levels must comprehensively improve the political ability, leadership ability, and work ability that are compatible with advancing Chinese-style modernization, also placing political ability first. These important expositions elucidate the internal logic between political ability and all of a cadre’s abilities; it is both the “master switch” in the cadre ability system and the “steering wheel” that guides the correct functioning of various abilities, marking that our Party’s understanding of the laws of cadre capacity building has reached a new height.

It revealed the practical landing points of political ability. Starting from the Party’s political attributes, political mission, and political pursuit, General Secretary Xi Jinping elucidated that political ability, when concretized and put into action, is first embodied in firmly adhering to the correct political direction. He pointed out that improving political ability requires upholding the leadership of the Communist Party of China and the socialist system of China, and resolutely implementing the Party’s basic theory, basic line, and basic strategy, indicating that the issue of direction is the fundamental issue of political ability. It is embodied in the practice of advancing reform, development, and stability, requiring cadres at all levels to bear in mind the “greatest concerns of the country” (国之大者) and the “great plans of the Party” (党之大计), and to regard advancing Chinese-style modernization as the greatest politics, highlighting the clear orientation that political ability must focus on central tasks. It is embodied in practicing the Party’s original aspiration and mission, emphasizing taking the people’s standpoint as the fundamental political standpoint, placing the people in the highest position in the heart, calibrating the value coordinates and solid foundation of political ability. It is embodied in strictly observing discipline and rules, requiring that one must have reverence for the Party’s political discipline and political rules, continuously enhance political composure, discipline composure, moral composure, and anti-corruption composure, clarifying the bottom-line requirements of political ability, and so on. These important expositions deepen the practical pertinence and practical orientation of the standards for good cadres in the new era, providing more distinct and clear practical landing points for accurately judging cadres’ political performance, scientifically evaluating cadres’ political responsibility, and conducting in-depth and substantive investigation of cadres’ political quality.

It clarified effective paths for improving political ability. Based on a profound grasp of the laws of cadre growth, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that ability is not something that can be achieved once and for all or overnight; it must be continuously upgraded and constantly expanded. Based on consolidating the ideological foundation of political ability, he pointed out that theoretical maturity is the foundation of political maturity; for cadres to grow, they must strengthen the armament of Marxist theory. Seizing the fundamental strategy of tempering Party spirit, he required educating and guiding cadres to strengthen Party spirit cultivation, build a solid foundation of faith, and integrate speaking politics throughout the entire process of Party spirit training. Highlighting the key lever of practical tempering, he emphasized that improving political composure and political ability depends on study, but even more on political experience and practical training, taking the fiery practice as the best classroom. Focusing on giving play to the gatekeeping role of Party organizations, he proposed that political standards are a hard bar; the political and integrity checks must be passed; using one person well can inspire a large group; cadres must be subject to all-round management, and so on. These important requirements run through the ideological tempering, political experience, practical training, and professional training of cadres, constructing a comprehensive, systematic, and holistic work chain for improving cadres’ political ability, providing the correct path and scientific guidance for organizations to cultivate good cadres who are politically competent.

Fully recognize the extreme importance of improving cadres’ political ability on the new journey of the new era

On the new journey of the new era, the more the cause of the Party and the state develops forward, the more important and urgent it becomes to strengthen the construction of cadres’ political ability. It concerns the Party’s leadership, the direction of the banner, the quality of the contingent, and the rise and fall of the cause. It is the key to answering the fundamental questions of whom to align with, for whom to struggle, and whom to obey.

An important guarantee for maintaining the centralized, unified leadership of the Central Committee. Maintaining the centralized, unified leadership of the Central Committee is concrete and practical. It requires cadres at all levels to fully implement the organizational principle of “four obediences” (四个服从 - “four obediences,” i.e., the individual is subordinate to the organization, the minority is subordinate to the majority, the lower level is subordinate to the higher level, and the entire Party is subordinate to the Central Committee) with high political consciousness, resolutely implement the various systems for maintaining the centralized, unified leadership of the Central Committee, improve and strictly implement the implementation mechanisms for the Central Committee’s major decisions and deployments, and practice the two upholds with concrete actions. The organizational line serves the political line; the fundamental landing point is reflected in maintaining the Central Committee’s authority to have the final say and be the sole authority, in promoting the thorough implementation of the Party’s theories, lines, principles, and policies without any discount, and in ensuring that the Party’s overall leadership is as solid as a rock. The political responsibility of the organizational departments is to make every Party member and cadre a reliable force loyal to the Party’s core, loyal to the Party’s faith, loyal to the Party’s cause, and loyal to the Party’s organization; to make all Party organizations at all levels sound and competent; to form a tight organizational system that is connected from top to bottom and has strong execution; and to ensure the Party’s leadership is “like the body commanding the arm, like the arm commanding the finger.”

An important prerequisite for promoting the establishment and practice of a correct view of political performance. Cadres must comprehend and implement well the general requirements of the study and education: “establishing the Party for the public, benefiting the people, making scientific decisions, and working hard and practically.” This tests cadres’ political ability. When organizational departments grasp the issue of cadres’ view of political performance, the key is to run the requirements of a correct view of political performance throughout the entire process of cadre work, firmly establish a correct orientation for employing people and for work, discover and use those cadres who can establish and practice a correct view of political performance, resolutely not use cadres with a deviated view of political performance, make “relying on politics to stand firm, relying on real performance to speak” the most distinct value orientation of the cadre contingent, and promote cadres at all levels to have both consciousness and ability, to produce political performance for the people with a correct view of political performance, and to produce political performance through hard work.

An important foundation for building a cadre contingent loyal to the Party. Among the thousands of requirements for cadre contingent construction, being politically competent is the first and foremost. Only when one is strong politically will cadres not suffer from “calcium deficiency” in spirit, will not contract “osteomalacia,” and can forge an “indestructible body.” With the support of political ability, cadres can transform loyalty to the Party into concrete actions, unswervingly listen to the Party and follow the Party, stand clear-cut on major issues of principle, be fearless in the face of trials of wind and waves, be steadfast in the face of various temptations, and be reliable, capable, trustworthy, and reassuring at critical moments. When organizational departments perform the duty of selecting cadres, the first thing is to pass the political check, take political ability as an important yardstick for measuring cadres, make loyalty to the Party the purest political background and the most distinct political character of cadres at all levels, and ensure the overall high quality of the contingent with high political standards.

An important support for promoting high-quality economic and social development. High-quality development is the hard truth of the new era, and it is also a major political task that cadres at all levels must firmly shoulder. Whether it is adhering to the new development concepts of innovation, coordination, greenness, openness, and sharing, or coordinating quality and efficiency, supply and demand, economy and people’s livelihood, development and security, all require cadres to have strong political ability, be good at grasping the “time” and “trend” of high-quality development from a political height, observe and analyze economic and social problems with a political perspective, calculate not only the economic account but also the political account, and consciously integrate local and departmental work into the overall situation of high-quality development. Serving economic and social development is an important mission of organizational departments; they must improve the ability of cadres at all levels to promote high-quality development, more consciously think about problems, make decisions, and handle affairs in accordance with the new development concepts, find the development positioning, innovate ideas and measures, and tackle and solve difficult problems with higher political skills, ensuring that high-quality development proceeds steadily and far.

An important foundation for preventing and defusing various risks and hidden dangers. Whether a cadre possesses strong political ability often becomes the key factor determining the evolution and direction of risks. Cadres with strong political ability possess relatively strong strategic composure, bottom-line thinking, and fighting spirit; they can see through phenomena to the essence from a political height, perceive opportunities in advance, judge trends, see the big from the small, accurately characterize, properly handle various risks and challenges with superb fighting skills, and firmly grasp and steer the overall situation in complex and chaotic circumstances. When organizational departments educate and train cadres, they must take enhancing cadres’ political foresight, political sensitivity, and political discernment as an important task, focus on strengthening the cultivation of fighting spirit and fighting ability, promote cadres to better grasp the overall situation and general trend, make accurate judgments, prevent and defuse risks, play the first move, fight the active battle, and ensure that all work produces good political orientation, political influence, and political effects.

Integrate the systematic improvement of cadres’ political ability into the entire process of selection, education, management, and use

To improve cadres’ political ability, it is necessary to deeply implement the important requirements proposed by General Secretary Xi Jinping for establishing the “five major systems” (五大体系 - “five major systems,” i.e., systems for quality training, knowing people and affairs, selection and appointment, strict management, and positive incentives) of cadre work, run political requirements through them, promote systematically, apply comprehensive measures, and continuously forge “good steel” politically.

Strengthen the education and training of political ability, and promote the consolidation of the foundation of loyalty to the Party. Persistently use Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to solidify the soul, strictly implement the “first agenda” (第一议题) and theoretical study systems, make the Party’s innovative theory the primary and mandatory training content, do a good job of regular training, especially basic training, promote cadres to master the fundamental skills, and strengthen political loyalty. Do a solid job of study and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of political performance, always focus on key tasks, promote the integration of study, investigation, and rectification, promote normalization and long-term effectiveness, guide cadres at all levels to examine political performance from a political height, and practice the two upholds with concrete actions of deep study, thorough understanding, true investigation, and real rectification. Implement a plan to improve the political ability of leading cadres, optimize the task arrangements, class settings, methods, and mechanisms of cadre education and training around the connotation of political ability, and promote the overall improvement of the political literacy of the cadre contingent. Deepen Party spirit education, excavate and make good use of red resources, establish a mechanism linking Party spirit education and Party spirit analysis, and promote cadres to regularly purify their political souls and sweep away political dust. Give play to the crucible role of intra-Party political life, establish and improve a quality control mechanism for democratic life meetings, cultivate a positive and healthy intra-Party political culture, and let cadres purify their Party spirit and strengthen their bodies in serious criticism and self-criticism.

Deepen the assessment and evaluation of political ability, and promote the assumption of the responsibility of aligning and benchmarking. Persist in taking the in-depth and substantive investigation of cadres’ political quality as an important lever. Around the five aspects emphasized by General Secretary Xi Jinping—political loyalty, political composure, political responsibility, political ability, and political self-discipline—refine the evaluation elements of political quality according to the characteristics of cadres at different levels, in different fields, and in different positions, strive to conduct an all-round investigation of cadres’ political performance, explore the establishment of a retrospective investigation and evaluation mechanism for the view of political performance after leaving office, and promote cadres to benchmark against everything politically and compare against everything. At the level of leading bodies, focus on investigating the political ecology, conduct annual assessments of political effects in performing duties, make analysis and judgments on political construction, political life, the atmosphere of employing people, and strict governance of the Party, and determine evaluation grades. Make good use of the means of assessing political performance in high-quality development, closely combine assessing people with assessing affairs, qualitative and quantitative, strengthen political requirements, and compact political responsibilities. Innovate measures for investigating and understanding cadres’ social performance, focusing on investigating political morality, professional ethics, social morality, and personal private morality, promptly grasp cadres’ family affairs and property, promptly report social activities, promptly investigate social relations, and promptly verify social public opinion.

Highlight political ability in selecting the worthy and capable, and promote the establishment of the yardstick of both moral integrity and professional competence. Persist in taking political ability as the core element for evaluating whether a cadre is competent, adhere to the principle of both moral integrity and professional competence, with moral integrity first, take political requirements as the first yardstick, strictly pass the checks on politics, conduct, ability, work style, and integrity. Do a good job of the change of leadership in local leading bodies, take political ability as an important consideration in the allocation of the leading body, look not only at the matching degree of professional ability but also at the compatibility of political ability, and enhance the overall political function of the leading body. Strengthen the supervision of the atmosphere of the change of leadership, and for those cadres who make friends with political swindlers and political brokers, engage in speculation and manipulation, and take crooked paths, not only must they not be promoted or reused, but they must also be seriously investigated and dealt with, ensuring that the entire process of the change of leadership is clean and upright. Promote the normalization of cadres being able to go up and down, take the situation of implementing political requirements as the decisive factor for cadres’ entry, exit, promotion, and retention, make organizational adjustments with real determination and toughness, and lead the orientation of starting undertakings and doing work with the correct orientation of employing people. Regularly conduct retrospective investigations of the selection process for “promotions despite illness” (带病提拔 - “promotions despite illness,” i.e., promoting cadres who have problems), increase the intensity of investigation and handling of problems in selecting and appointing people in violation of regulations, and ensure that excellent cadres with both moral integrity and professional competence are selected.

Strictly correct and rectify political ability, and promote the strict adherence to the foundation of standing and governing. Persist in putting the Party’s political discipline and political rules first, improve the normal supervision and inspection mechanism of cadres’ political behavior, increase the intensity of supervision and inspection of the implementation of the system for reporting major matters, the system for reporting personal matters, and democratic centralism, continuously monitor and focus on solving the “seven have-s” (七个有之 - “seven have-s,” i.e., seven types of problematic behavior such as having ulterior motives, having no discipline, etc.). Promote the concretization, precision, and normalization of political supervision, explore the establishment of a political supervision list that closely follows cadres’ job responsibilities and sees people and things, and continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of political supervision. Establish a factual record of cadres’ negative political performance problems, improve the mechanism for joint gatekeeping of cadres’ political problems, deeply analyze the political stance, political principles, political responsibility, and other aspects reflected in cadres’ professional work, accurately grasp the nature of the problems, promptly discover political problems and correct political deviations. Carry out political rectification and training for prominent problems, focus on solving common political problems exposed in inspections, case investigations, etc., and promote correction and orientation. Improve the mechanism for the coordination of various types of supervision, make good use of the joint meeting system for cadre supervision work, explore the establishment of a big data platform for supervision and a judgment and early warning system, improve the list of shared supervision information, and form an overall synergy of cadre supervision.

Grasp the practical training of political ability, and promote the stimulation of the ability to take responsibility and act. Persist in taking practice as the best stage for cadres’ political experience, improve the mechanism of “learning by doing, doing by learning,” through cross-level, cross-regional, cross-field mutual exchange and temporary assignments, plan to send cadres to grassroots frontlines, major special projects, project construction, and other demanding positions to undergo tempering, continuously improve the leadership ability, thinking ability, and practical ability to handle problems from a political and overall perspective. Take the ability to do mass work as an important aspect of improving political ability, supervise the implementation of the system of contact points at the grassroots level, highlight the requirements of the “four down-to-grassroots” (四下基层 - “four down-to-grassroots,” i.e., propaganda down to the grassroots, investigation down to the grassroots, reception of letters and visits down to the grassroots, and on-site office work down to the grassroots) in daily management, send newly appointed cadres and outstanding young cadres to petition departments for training, and promote cadres at all levels, especially young cadres, to firmly stand on the mass standpoint and be good at mass work. Focus on cultivating cadres’ fighting spirit and fighting ability, send cadres to the frontlines of major struggles such as reform and tackling, grassroots governance, emergency response, and disaster relief, promote the enhancement of awareness of preventing political risks, and enrich political wisdom and accumulate political experience in the practice of confronting tough issues and engaging in real struggles. Actively build platforms such as making contributions in posts and “horse racing and competition” (赛马比拼), explore the implementation of mechanisms such as “posting challenges and taking command” (揭榜挂帅) for major tasks and group tackling, so that those who want to do things have a stage, those who can do things have an arena, and those who accomplish things have a podium. Improve the benign interactive mechanism of “two-way responsibility” (双向担当) where cadres take responsibility for the cause and organizations take responsibility for cadres, explore the establishment of a system of due diligence exemption and fault tolerance and correction covering all fields, establish a timely reward mechanism for cadres, maximize the stimulation of cadres’ enthusiasm for starting undertakings and doing work, and make daring to take responsibility and being able to act become a common practice in the cadre contingent.

(The author is a member of the Standing Committee of the Jilin Provincial Committee of the Communist Party of China and Minister of the Organization Department)

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Accelerate the development of a basin-wide flood and waterlogging disaster defense system.

By: 孙福宝

River water systems nurture life, support development, and carry civilization; they are important carriers for the construction of a Beautiful China in the new era. Water security is a major matter concerning the long-term stability of the country. On June 30, 2026, a meeting of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee studied and deployed flood control and drought relief work, emphasizing the need to ensure flood control safety for major rivers, large rivers, and large lakes. Currently, under the superimposed influence of global climate change and human activities, extreme rainstorm and flood events occur frequently, and China's basin-wide floods and waterlogging are presenting new characteristics such as stronger extremity, more significant compounding, and wider chain effects. Accelerating the construction of a scientifically complete, systematic and efficient basin-wide flood disaster defense system has become an important measure to proactively prevent extreme weather risks and build a solid public safety barrier, as well as an important task to coordinate development and security and to safeguard high-quality development with high-level security.

Deeply understand the great significance of defense system construction.

Enhance extreme disaster defense capabilities and effectively protect the safety of people's lives and property. Currently, global climate change continues to intensify, and extreme rainstorm floods breaking through historical hydrological thresholds and conventional flood control standards have become the new normal, resulting in mountain torrent outbreaks, small and medium river flooding, urban waterlogging and geological disasters overlapping at multiple points, and a chain of rapid alternation between drought and flood, with disaster evolution faster and impact chains longer. The traditional disaster prevention and reduction model, which mainly relies on point-based management and decentralized response, can no longer cope with the risks of basin-wide flood disasters. Only by establishing and improving a comprehensive basin-wide defense system can regional barriers be broken, risks be accurately identified and controlled, and the safety of people's lives and property be effectively protected.

Improve the modern basin governance system and comprehensively enhance the effectiveness of river system governance. Contemporary basin-wide flood governance is increasingly systematic, requiring not only coverage of upstream and downstream, left and right banks, and urban and rural areas, but also coordinated response from multiple departments such as water resources, emergency management, meteorology, natural resources, housing and urban-rural development, and transportation. It is a typical cross-regional, cross-departmental systematic project. The traditional governance model based on administrative units exposes governance shortcomings such as poor regional connectivity, insufficient departmental coordination, and disconnection between engineering and non-engineering measures, and can no longer meet the requirements of a modern governance system. Only by building an integrated defense system with the basin as a whole can the governance structure be optimized, the effectiveness of coordinated dispatch be enhanced, and risk prevention and control be transformed from passive emergency response to proactive prevention, from single-point disposal to systematic governance, comprehensively improving the comprehensive prevention and modern governance level of flood disasters.

Build a solid safety barrier to safeguard long-term high-quality development. Since reform and opening up, with the deepening of China's urbanization process, population, industries, and infrastructure have continuously concentrated in the economic belts along rivers, resulting in half of the country's population and most resources being concentrated in flood protection areas near rivers that are vulnerable to flood threats. At the same time, lifeline projects such as transportation, electricity, communications, and water supply are crisscrossed, and the transmission and amplification effects of basin-wide flood risks have significantly increased. Once extreme flood conditions occur, secondary disasters are easily triggered, severely impacting the stable operation of the economy and society. Only by establishing and improving a basin-wide flood disaster defense system, controlling basin risks at the source, and making up for safety shortcomings can the impact of flood disasters on industrial development, urban operation, and people's livelihood security be effectively prevented and mitigated, building a solid safety barrier for high-quality economic and social development.

Accurately grasp the prominent problems currently faced.

Since the founding of New China, the Party and government have attached great importance to the construction of river flood control projects. To date, 95,000 reservoirs have been built, 318,000 kilometers of embankments have been constructed, and the total storage capacity of flood detention and storage areas exceeds 100 billion cubic meters, significantly improving the capacity to prevent and control flood disasters. However, looking to the future, the following three issues still need to be resolved.

The basin-wide coordination mechanism and collaborative governance effectiveness still need to be improved and enhanced. At the present stage, China's flood disaster prevention and control is still mainly based on administrative units, and the integrated basin-wide coordination and collaboration mechanism is not yet perfect, mainly manifested in: flood control and drainage standards, and early warning and response levels are not yet fully unified between upstream and downstream, left and right banks, and urban and rural areas; in some areas, emergency response is delayed, and the unified command and effective social mobilization mechanism at critical moments is still absent; the whole-process management mechanism before, during, and after the flood season is not yet mature, and when dealing with large-scale basin-wide flood risks, the effectiveness of overall basin-wide coordinated dispatch and collaborative disposal still needs to be fully released; comprehensively strengthening the control of river and lake flood discharge space faces practical challenges. In short, there is still considerable room for improvement in regional connectivity and overall linkage.

Systematic monitoring capabilities and risk early warning capabilities still need to be continuously strengthened. Significant progress has been made in the construction of China's basin-wide flood risk monitoring and early warning system, but there are still many weak links, mainly manifested in: the layout of monitoring stations in some mountainous basins, small and medium river channels, and remote areas is not sufficiently balanced, and the full coverage and real-time nature of rainfall, water regime, and engineering condition data collection are still insufficient. The hydrological monitoring coverage of small and medium rivers with flood control tasks is less than 60%, leaving monitoring gaps; risk assessment mostly relies on traditional empirical models, and the accuracy of predicting compound and chain disasters caused by extreme weather and the rapid alternation of drought and flood dangers needs to be improved; the transmission chain of targeted push of early warning information to households is not smooth enough, the tightness of early warning response linkage at all levels and regions is insufficient, and the "call-response" mechanism for imminent disaster early warning still has a "last kilometer" implementation problem. These issues still need to be resolved one by one in future work.

Engineering defense resilience and grassroots prevention and control capabilities need to be further enhanced. Currently, China's basin-wide flood control engineering system has been established with a solid foundation, but there are still some structural and regional shortcomings. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, in accordance with the "Overall Plan for the Governance of Small and Medium Rivers Nationwide" jointly issued by the Ministry of Water Resources and the Ministry of Finance, China implemented systematic governance of 3,741 small and medium rivers, but small and medium rivers that have not yet undergone systematic governance still account for about 50%. Among existing flood control projects, there is still room for improvement in the flood control standards of some embankments, the level of reservoir hazard management, and the construction of supporting facilities for mountain torrent ditches; the balanced development of urban and rural flood control and drainage capacity is insufficient, with lagging construction of urban underground drainage pipe networks and many arrears in drainage facilities. In addition, grassroots end disaster prevention and reduction infrastructure still needs to be strengthened, the professional quality and practical combat capability of township and village-level emergency teams need to be improved, and the public's awareness of risk avoidance and self-rescue and emergency response capabilities need to be enhanced.

Systematically advance the construction of the defense system.

Strengthen basin-wide coordination and collaboration, and improve the full-area linkage governance system. First, strengthen the unified command and joint dispatch mechanism for the basin, improve the overall coordination function of the basin flood control headquarters, establish a coordinated dispatch mechanism for upstream and downstream, left and right banks, and main and tributary streams, promote joint dispatch of urban water systems and rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, and enhance the overall disaster prevention and reduction effectiveness of the engineering system. Second, deepen cross-departmental business collaboration and cross-regional joint prevention and control, strengthen information sharing and business collaboration among departments such as water resources, emergency management, meteorology, natural resources, housing and urban-rural development, and transportation, build a disaster prevention and reduction working mechanism with unified command and hierarchical responsibility, regularly carry out cross-regional joint exercises and training, and improve emergency rescue coordination capability and practical combat level. Third, coordinate the dynamic linkage of flood control planning and fortification standards, solve problems such as mismatch between flood control and drainage standards and inconsistent calculation methods in national standards such as the "Standard for Flood Control," establish a dynamic assessment and update mechanism, promote coordination of multiple standard parameters and cross-departmental linkage, incorporate extreme weather response into assessment, and achieve effective alignment of basin and urban flood control and drainage standards.

Optimize the monitoring network layout and build a basin-wide intelligent defense system. First, densify the multi-dimensional "space-air-ground-water-engineering" monitoring and perception network. For monitoring weak areas such as mountainous areas and complex underlying surfaces, optimize the layout of the rainfall and water regime monitoring network, integrate meteorological satellites, rainfall measurement radar, drone inspections, and ground-based observations, and build a high spatiotemporal resolution disaster dynamic perception system to achieve three-dimensional monitoring of the entire process of rain in clouds, rain on the ground, river runoff, and flood evolution. Second, rely on the dual engine of "large models + big data" to empower, strengthen the deep integration of high-quality earth science data and flood disaster large models, deepen the application of artificial intelligence in multi-source data mining, imminent disaster early warning, and trend prediction, promote the transformation of disaster prevention and reduction from post-event induction to "data + mechanism-driven" forward-looking intelligent early warning, and improve forecast accuracy and scientific decision-making capability. Third, open up the "last kilometer" of early warning information transmission and response, improve the linkage mechanism of early warning release and emergency response, establish a targeted push and household-level early warning transmission chain, improve the "call-response" mechanism that reaches grassroots responsible persons directly and the mass monitoring and prevention mechanism, and achieve a collaborative upgrade from traditional "human defense" to "human defense + technical defense + intelligent defense."

Consolidate the engineering and grassroots foundation, and enhance the overall safety resilience of the basin. First, improve top-level design and optimize the layout of the flood control engineering system. Align with the national water network construction, comprehensively promote measures such as "expanding drainage, increasing storage, controlling risks" and "combining storage and discharge," and build a modern engineering system with coordinated linkage of reservoirs, river embankments, and flood detention and storage areas. Second, accelerate the filling of engineering shortcomings and enhance overall defense capability. Focus on substandard embankments, weak governance of small and medium rivers, and urban flood control and drainage shortcomings, promote classified construction to standards and systematic renovation, and accelerate the elimination of historical arrears. Incorporate climate change into engineering planning and fortification standard systems, take into account both conventional and extraordinary flood defense, promote dynamic verification and flexible upgrading, and build a resilient engineering system adapted to extreme water conditions. Finally, consolidate the grassroots foundation and build a solid end defense line. Fully implement the strategic deployment of tilting resources toward the grassroots and sinking forces to the front line, strengthen the professional construction and regular practical exercises of township and village-level emergency teams, enhance initial response capability, personnel risk avoidance and evacuation capability, and rescue capability under extreme conditions; strengthen public disaster prevention and reduction science popularization and self-rescue and mutual rescue capability building, give play to the exemplary role of grassroots Party organizations and the vast number of Party members and cadres, and build a grassroots safety protection network of mass prevention and mass governance, collaborative linkage.

(The author is the Director of the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (中国科学院地理科学与资源研究所).)

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Actively Prevent and Control Public Opinion Risks in "Traffic Cities"

By: 刘晓敬

"Traffic cities" (流量城市) are cities that, through sustained, high-heat, and large-scale dissemination of digital content, aggregate information flows, data flows, capital flows, people flows, and logistics, and transform them into tangible economic and social value. With the rapid development of intelligent technology, "traffic cities" , relying on the production field of the public opinion sphere, while achieving deep integration and high-frequency flow of virtual and real elements and driving a leap in comprehensive urban competitiveness, also amplify the complexity, fragility, and transmissibility of urban public opinion. Effectively preventing and controlling public opinion risks in "traffic cities" is an inevitable requirement for enhancing and testing the modernization of governance capacity, and is an even more important guarantee for improving people's well-being, development quality and efficiency, and urban resilience.

The public opinion risks of "traffic cities" exhibit the following three typical characteristics. First, high density of triggers, diverse communication subjects, and more sensitive risk activation. Compared with other cities, "traffic cities" inherently possess attributes of high attention and instantaneous passenger flow aggregation. While generally actively conducting online promotional activities such as short video marketing, they are subject to long-term attention from numerous groups including store-exploring bloggers, cultural tourism MCNs, local self-media, tourists, and internet celebrities seeking to ride the wave of popularity. Conflicts such as public resource crowding and consumption disputes frequently arise among the three parties of citizens, tourists, and operators. A single complaint about forced solicitation, a traffic jam, a price hike for meals, or a conflict over queuing—these offline trivialities are easily captured, edited, and amplified, becoming fertile ground for the gray traffic industry chain, creating an extremely high number of public opinion risk trigger points. Second, two-way linkage between virtual and real, instantaneous resonance online and offline, and wider diffusion of risks. Public opinion in "traffic cities" possesses tangible value for consumption decision-making, economic binding force, and city-wide supervisory power. Once negative urban events, false information, etc., ferment online, they bring about real-world problems such as damage to the cultural tourism market, hindered commercial activities, questioned business environment, declining urban reputation, and increased pressure for maintaining stability. Conversely, any offline deficiencies, such as inadequate urban public service capacity, poor inter-departmental coordination, or slow emergency response, once disseminated, immediately become new public opinion hotspots. This creates a vicious cycle of mutual guidance and continuous amplification of risks online and offline. Third, clear regional labels, easy polarization of public opinion evolution, and more far-reaching impact of risks. "Traffic cities" have formed solidified urban IPs, and the public has a low tolerance threshold for their mistakes. If governance, service, or attitude standards fall short of expectations, it can easily trigger the collapse of the city's "persona" (人设). A single unexpected incident can rapidly evolve into an attack and criticism targeting the entire city, inciting regional antagonism and exacerbating public opinion division. Furthermore, negative labels persist in public perception over the long term; whenever the same time point recurs or similar phenomena appear, periodic negative public opinion emerges, causing a crisis of urban credibility.

Current challenges in preventing and controlling public opinion risks in "traffic cities". First, numerous and highly fragmented information dissemination channels create pressure for front-end prevention and guidance. Self-media creators and tourists can publish city-related content at any time. Under the traffic logic of platforms favoring controversial topics, some accounts lodge unreasonable complaints, amplify contradictions, artificially create conflicts, stage scripts, and engage in false hype, causing related public opinion to explode across the entire network instantly. Various types of information circulate across platforms and spread across regions, with weak regulatory binding force under territorial jurisdiction. Relying solely on territorial management departments for inspection and disposal makes it difficult to achieve precise prevention and comprehensive guidance in the budding stage of public opinion, leaving room for improvement in front-end source governance. Second, online and offline risks are intertwined, and cross-domain collaborative disposal still requires磨合 (móhé - "grinding in," adjustment and coordination). Public opinion prevention and control involves numerous departments including propaganda, cyberspace affairs, public security, urban management, emergency response, cultural tourism, livelihood industries, sub-district offices, and grassroots grids, highlighting prominent cross-domain and cross-departmental characteristics. The existing system suffers from issues such as fragmentation between different sectors and levels (条块分割), blurred responsibility boundaries, dispersed authority and responsibility, poor verification and handover, and inconsistent response rhythms. Mechanisms for information sharing, regular consultation, digital collaboration, and joint prevention and joint disposal are not yet sound, creating governance gaps where "each manages a segment, making it difficult to manage the whole" (各管一段、难管全域). Third, the pace of heat cultivation does not fully match the pace of urban quality improvement, and mechanisms for resolving risk source hazards need improvement. There is a regular imbalance between the speed of online hotspot outbreaks in "traffic cities" and the speed of expanding offline urban supporting facilities, supervision, and governance capacity. Cities generally prioritize promotional hype, vying to create cultural tourism traffic IPs, but supporting public opinion risk assessments, carrying capacity calculations, and conflict mitigation plans lag behind. With insufficient capability for clue detection and graded early warning, it is impossible to predict and resolve risk hazards in advance, such as overloaded public services, lack of scenic spot flow limits, absence of price supervision, disorderly live streaming in public spaces, and conflicts between resident and tourist rights. Furthermore, lacking a front-end risk circuit-breaking mechanism, cities can only passively handle public opinion that has already erupted.

Effectively preventing and controlling public opinion risks in "traffic cities" is a fundamental task for coordinating development and security, and balancing instantaneous traffic with long-term retention. Facing the above challenges, multiple measures need to be taken to build a solid protective barrier against online public opinion risks: on the one hand, effectively prevent various negative issues arising from heat; on the other hand, use public opinion risk prevention and control to drive the improvement of urban governance capacity, striving to steadily transform short-term online heat into long-term good reputation, achieving the long-term conversion of online attention into offline industry, population, and capital.

Build a front-end risk clue detection system. First, establish a city-wide, all-time public opinion risk discovery and early warning platform. Based on big data and cutting-edge artificial intelligence technologies, set up keyword libraries in areas such as city-related livelihood, traffic overload, tourist traps, urban management conflicts, and regional antagonism. Regularly conduct retrospective analysis of historical public opinion data, holiday tourism peaks, and events at similar destinations, constructing a platform for monitoring multi-dimensional urban traffic dynamic changes and issuing public opinion risk warnings. Second, build a co-governance mechanism involving the city, platforms, and society. Promote the establishment of efficient collaboration channels between territorial management departments and mainstream platforms for information exchange and joint analysis. Set up a one-click reporting portal, encouraging citizens, tourists, and cultural tourism operators to report accounts engaging in improper profit-seeking behavior through traffic, providing positive incentives after verification, and broadening channels for supervising source violations. Third, establish a front-end guidance team and content reserve. Accumulate a large amount of high-quality, multi-angle, vivid positive promotional materials, and recruit local positive-energy self-media, cultural tourism bloggers, etc., as civilian guidance forces. For one-sided, radical, or false short videos that have just begun to ferment, promptly push authoritative content such as real-time scenes and policy interpretations to clarify false noise and positively guide public opinion.

Improve the online and offline public opinion risk prevention and control mechanism. First, establish a "one-stop" (一站式) cross-departmental information sharing and joint analysis and judgment mechanism. Break down cross-departmental data silos, integrate multiple forces, achieve unified collection, analysis, push, and distribution of public opinion information, ensuring the speed, timeliness, and accuracy of public opinion reaching all departments. For nascent, trending, and sensitive public opinion, quickly organize joint analysis and judgment, analyzing and predicting public opinion dynamics and development trends. Regularly conduct retrospective analysis of typical cases, and for phenomena of buck-passing caused by overlapping functions, scientifically clarify boundaries and optimize processes. Second, optimize the "dual-lead" (双牵头) online and offline mechanism and the "special task force" (专班化) disposal mechanism for major risks. Online, propaganda and cyberspace affairs departments take the lead in guiding public opinion; offline, the business department responsible for the incident takes the lead in solving practical problems, forming a linkage mechanism where online promptly responds to concerns and provides precise guidance, while offline quickly verifies facts and solves problems according to laws and regulations. For major traffic incidents, establish cross-departmental special task forces, forming a work network with no blind spots horizontally and no breaks vertically. Third, promote cross-regional public opinion risk governance collaboration. Under national coordination, strengthen cross-regional public opinion risk prevention and control collaboration in areas such as online thematic dissemination, public opinion guidance, reporting and rumor refutation, within city clusters, river basins, inter-provincial (municipal) borders, and industrial chain coordination regions, establishing a collaboration framework to enhance the effectiveness of combating online illegal activities. Optimize a comprehensive prevention and control mechanism with the place of origin of the public opinion as the leading entity, the areas affected by its spread cooperating, and media, platforms, experts, netizens, etc., participating.

Build a whole-process, full-cycle governance chain for traffic risks. First, establish a traffic carrying capacity assessment and risk early warning mechanism. Before major cultural tourism events, exhibitions, and holiday tourism peaks, conduct carrying capacity assessments, systematically calculate transportation capacity, accommodation supply, and scenic spot/exhibition hall carrying capacity, provide early warnings for risk points such as industry issues and tripartite contradictions that may trigger public opinion incidents, and formulate relevant contingency plans. Second, establish a synchronous dispatch mechanism for traffic heat and governance response. When the city's heat index rises rapidly, immediately activate the governance capacity expansion plan. Based on assessment results, scientifically set "flow limit" (限流) standards and safety circuit-breaking thresholds. When the passenger flow at a single check-in point or the volume of negative online discussions reaches the carrying capacity threshold, promptly optimize local cultural tourism traffic promotion on short video platforms and temporarily limit or divert tourists. Third, establish a mechanism for using risk hazard ledgers to promote the improvement of urban governance effectiveness. For each identified hazard and emerging risk, in the implementation of the whole-process management from discovery, assignment, rectification, acceptance, to case closure, carry out special rectification and regular疏导 (shūdǎo - "dredge and guide," mediation and guidance) for recurring problems. Deeply explore the common problems and inherent laws reflected in public opinion, summarize governance experience, empower policy optimization, and transform online public opinion into a source of living water (源头活水) to promote scientific policy-making in urban construction.

(The author is the Director of the Chongqing Online Public Opinion Research Center of the Chongqing Academy of Social Sciences)

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Promote integration of migrant children into urban life

By: 白婧

The urbanization process is profoundly reshaping China's demographic landscape, and has also given rise to a large-scale special group — the children accompanying migrant parents (流动人口随迁子女). How to enable these "migrating flowers" to share the sunshine and rain under the same blue sky concerns not only the well-being and expectations of millions of families, but also the quality and foundation of the new type of urbanization. The "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the Provision of Basic Public Services by the Place of Permanent Residence" (关于推行常住地提供基本公共服务的实施意见) issued by the State Council proposes six key tasks concerning education, housing, social security, medical care, employment, and basic safety-net services for the children accompanying non-registered permanent residents (未落户常住人口). The migrant population is the main body of non-registered permanent residents; the relevant deployments actively respond to the development demands of the migrant population, providing a solid institutional guarantee for promoting the better integration of this group's accompanying children into cities and sharing a better life.

Currently, doing a good job of integrating the children accompanying migrant parents into cities has profound and significant practical implications. First, it is an inherent requirement for promoting fair development. Educational equity is the starting point of social equity. The equal enjoyment of urban public services such as education, medical care, and social security by accompanying children can break the resource allocation barriers attached to household registration, bridge the gap in public services between urban and rural areas and between regions, guarantee the basic development rights and interests of minors, clear obstacles to the development of migrant families, and consolidate the foundation of social fairness and justice. Second, it is a key measure for maintaining social stability. The migrant population is an important force in urban construction; the issue of settling accompanying children directly affects the vital interests of the migrant worker group. Properly solving the problems of schooling, housing, and social integration, and dispelling the 后顾之忧 (hòu gù zhī yōu - "worries about the rear," concerns about family left behind) of the migrant population, can reduce conflicts and disputes in the field of people's livelihood, resolve group estrangement, build social consensus, and consolidate the stable defense line of grassroots social governance. Third, it is an inevitable path for advancing the new type of urbanization. Solving the human problem is key to advancing the new type of urbanization. Population mobility often exhibits the characteristic of family-based migration; whether the migrant population can truly take root in cities largely depends on whether their accompanying children can equally enjoy urban education, life, and development resources. Promoting the integration of migrant children into cities, unblocking the bottlenecks of urbanization at the family level, and removing institutional barriers to factor circulation can make up for the shortcomings in urban-rural integration in people's livelihood, smooth the two-way flow channels of urban and rural populations, revitalize the demographic dividend, empower the coordinated allocation of urban and rural resources, and assist the coordinated high-quality development of urban and rural areas.

In recent years, various localities have continuously improved the policy system and optimized service supply, achieving phased results in the work of guaranteeing the urban integration of children accompanying migrant parents. First, optimizing schooling services and breaking down enrollment barriers. Various localities have actively implemented policies for taking entrance exams in different places, simplified enrollment materials such as residence permits and employment certificates, promoted online registration and "one-network processing" (一网通办) services, and abolished the threshold for school selection for accompanying children; they have coordinated the allocation of public school places, expanded, renovated, and built primary and secondary schools and inclusive kindergartens, expanded educational resources, ensured that school-age children are enrolled as they should be, and achieved equalization of educational rights. Second, consolidating the safety net for housing and building a solid foundation for life. They have coordinated with housing, human resources and social security, and other relevant departments to implement housing policies, opened up government-subsidized rental housing and talent apartments to migrant families, and lowered the threshold for renting; they have optimized the residence registration process for the migrant population, implemented convenient services for utilities and medical insurance, made up for shortcomings in living facilities, reduced the living burden on migrant families, and stabilized the basic living guarantees for accompanying children. Third, promoting the universal sharing of resources and assisting urban integration. They have built volunteer service platforms for after-school care, public-interest study tours, and psychological support, making up for the shortcomings in after-school care for accompanying children; they have carried out public-interest educational assistance, homework tutoring, and parent-child activities to resolve the estrangement of growing up in a different place; they have implemented equal universal policies for medical care, culture, and sports, opened up urban venue resources, dispelled identity barriers, and guided accompanying children to integrate into urban life and grow up healthily in body and mind.

While affirming the achievements, it is still necessary to see that there is still room for phased improvement in the integration of accompanying children into cities. On the one hand, the promotion of equalization of public services is not deep enough; in some places, livelihood services such as education and entrance exams, cross-regional medical insurance, and housing security are still tied to household registration; the supply of services between regions and between urban and rural areas is uneven, and the level of same-city same-quality services needs to be improved. On the other hand, guidance for group integration is relatively weak; some accompanying children frequently move across regions, lack the ability to adapt to urban and rural life, and lack a sense of belonging to the city. In addition, there are certain shortcomings in the growth support system; accompanying youth who have entered the employment stage lack skill reserves, have insufficient employment stability, and long-term development guarantees and living support are still imperfect. Various problems are intertwined and superimposed, and systematic policies are urgently needed to solve them.

Promote the equalization of public services and break down institutional barriers to integration. First, focus on the goal of same-city development for accompanying children, implement the mechanism for providing public services by the place of permanent residence, break the rigid model of tying public resources to household registration, and promote the full coverage of livelihood services such as education, medical care, and housing security for migrant families. Improve the linkage guarantee mechanism for the permanent resident population, and implement the system linking fiscal appropriations and land supply to the size of the permanent resident population. Second, focus on the difficult points of educational equalization to optimize entrance examination policies, coordinate and revitalize existing public school places and inclusive preschool education resources, and fully smooth the channels for accompanying children to enroll locally and take entrance exams in different places. 因地制宜 (yīn dì zhì yí - "according to local conditions," adapting measures to local circumstances) relax the territorial restrictions on the high school entrance examination and college entrance examination, connect the guarantee chain from preschool, basic education to high school, and effectively guarantee the equal right to education of accompanying children. Third, make up for the shortcomings in cross-regional medical insurance guarantees, specially optimize the cross-regional medical insurance settlement mechanism for migrant families, streamline the filing and reimbursement approval processes, and reduce the cost of cross-regional medical treatment. Coordinate the allocation of public resources in urban agglomerations, promote cross-regional coordinated medical treatment, and solve the problem of uneven geographical distribution of high-quality livelihood resources.

Strengthen empowerment for growth and development, and build a solid foundation for long-term integration. First, based on the full life cycle of accompanying children's growth, build a collaborative education system involving families, schools, and communities; coordinate with human resources and social security departments and vocational education institutions to customize suitable training courses, offer practical skills teaching around industrial labor demand, and make up for the capability shortcomings of older accompanying youth. Open a green channel for skill certification for accompanying children, break down geographical and household registration review barriers, and open up the transition channel from schooling to employment. Second, precisely deliver special employment services, offer special services such as job fairs, career assessments, and career guidance for school-age accompanying graduates, and unblock difficulties in job seeking. Implement the same-city policies for social insurance and housing provident fund, explore the abolition of restrictive clauses based on household registration, make up for the basic safety net for youth employment, and eliminate obstacles to integration in cross-regional employment. Third, balance employment quality improvement and entrepreneurship empowerment, build an integrated platform for academic planning, employment assistance, and entrepreneurship incubation, and solve the problems of career confusion, weak skills, and unstable employment among accompanying youth. Implement special support policies for cross-regional entrepreneurship, implement measures such as subsidized financing, tax and fee reductions, and venue relief, and escort accompanying children to take root in cities and develop steadily.

Deepen grassroots governance and cultivate urban identity. First, incorporate the work of caring for accompanying children into the scope of normalized community governance, achieve undifferentiated local services and full coverage of care guarantees. Revitalize community party and mass positions and childcare spaces, provide normalized after-school care and daytime care services, and build a nearby and convenient care network. Second, build platforms for same-city integration and interaction, rely on cultural and sports activities, volunteer services, and neighborhood co-building activities to narrow the distance between new and old residents, and dispel regional prejudice and household registration estrangement. Refine the list of local care services for accompanying children, clarify the rights, responsibilities, and service items of assistance, and promote the standardization and equalization of care guarantees. Third, improve the long-term assistance mechanism, carry out normalized psychological counseling and hardship assistance, make up for the shortcomings in emotional care, dispel the sense of alienation from growing up in a different place, continuously enhance accompanying children's sense of belonging to the city and sense of identity, and let the warmth of the city support the stable happiness of millions of migrant families.

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