Summary: The article reports that China and the United States are both great nations, and their peoples have long engaged in friendly exchanges with deeply intertwined interests. It states that the two countries should be partners rather than rivals. The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can fully exist or act simultaneously without conflict, complement each other, and benefit the world.
Summary: The article argues that China must build a fertility-friendly society centered on supporting family development, as outlined in the 15th Five-Year Plan and guided by General Secretary Xi Jinping's directives. It contends that fertility support policies must shift from focusing on individuals to families, given profound changes in family structures and increased social risks. The piece identifies high costs of marriage, housing, and child-rearing as key constraints, calling for a "combined approach" of reducing burdens and providing incentives. It proposes measures such as improving childcare subsidies, expanding affordable 0-6-year-old childcare services, and launching a project to enhance awareness of the value of marriage and childbearing. The author, identified as Director of the China Population and Development Research Center, concludes that a fertility-friendly society is a systematic project requiring policy coordination, cultural cultivation, and social co-construction.
Summary: The article argues that unhealthy tendencies and corruption are intertwined and mutually reinforcing, with malfeasance serving as the hotbed for corruption and corruption intensifying conduct problems, causing serious harm to the Party, state, and people. It cites General Secretary Xi Jinping's expositions and the Party Central Committee's decisions, including the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee's requirement to improve the mechanism for jointly investigating and jointly governing unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems. The author emphasizes that joint investigation and joint governance must be advanced as an organic whole, implementing "must-ask and must-verify" in investigation, adjudication, and disposition links, while strengthening institutional, educational, and supervisory measures to eradicate the soil for corruption. The piece highlights that the root cause of both malfeasance and corruption lies in the wavering of ideals and convictions, and calls for consolidating the overwhelming victory in the anti-corruption struggle through integrated advancement of not daring, not being able, and not wanting to be corrupt. The author is Deputy Director of the Scientific Research Department of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance).
Summary: The article argues that economic work must be viewed through a political lens, as it underpins popular support and the country's long-term stability and security. It cites General Secretary Xi Jinping's emphasis on strengthening political awareness and implementing Party Central Committee decisions in economic work. The piece stresses that seemingly trivial economic matters, such as the "vegetable basket," are political issues affecting people's vital interests, and warns against "GDP worship." It calls for upholding the Party's overall leadership over economic work, coordinating development and security, and guarding bottom lines in food, energy, and industrial supply chains. Leading cadres are urged to improve political judgment and execution to advance high-quality development and Chinese modernization.
Summary: The article discusses how German "hidden champion" enterprises—small and medium-sized firms with global leadership in niche fields—are accelerating their integration into the Chinese market, driven by operating pressures in Germany and the appeal of China's market scale, complete industrial chains, and institutional safeguards. It notes that these enterprises are deepening investments, expanding local production and R&D, and forming industrial clusters in regions like the Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta. The motivations include Germany's tight domestic environment, China's robust demand and innovation scenarios, and supportive cooperation conditions. Looking ahead, the article highlights continued growth potential, deepening innovation collaboration with Chinese firms, and a solid foundation for long-term cooperation despite new competition and Germany's "de-risking" policy concerns. The author is the Director of the Sino-German Cooperation Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences.
Summary: Morocco's geopolitical position at the Europe-Africa and Mediterranean-Atlantic juncture has enabled a distinctive transitional development path, making it a key hub for Europe-Africa trade and a fulcrum for Global South cooperation. Its advantages include hub-location connectivity, control of over 70 percent of global phosphate reserves, and historical proximity to Europe, which underpinned industrial and regulatory integration. In 2021, King Mohammed VI promulgated the "New Development Model (2021-2035)," launching a transition that built a territory-wide free trade system, including agreements with both the European Union and the United States, and optimized port-adjacent business environments. This facilitated the relocation of high-end industries from firms such as Airbus, Boeing, Renault, and Peugeot, with automobile exports exceeding 15.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2025. Morocco has also achieved social stability, universal social security reform, and regional initiatives like the "Atlantic Initiative" to empower African development and South-South cooperation.
Summary: The article examines the Netherlands' catering food safety supervision system, which ranks fifth globally in the 2022 Global Food Security Index, attributing this to a collaborative framework of enterprise self-inspection, third-party assistance, and government oversight. It details how the Dutch system addresses challenges such as regulatory resource imbalances and hollowed-out operator responsibility through measures including professional third-party simulated inspections, official qualification certification with "whitelist" incentives, and a government bottom-line guarantee with multi-stakeholder coordination. The piece highlights the role of the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority in certifying third-party institutions and maintaining differentiated supervision, while noting the European food safety testing market exceeds 60 billion US dollars. It concludes with lessons for improving multi-stakeholder co-governance, emphasizing the need to break single-handed government supervision inertia, rely on market-based incentives for ex-ante prevention, and build complete regulatory accountability systems to prevent interest collusion.
Summary: The article discusses how government affairs intelligent agents, as promoted by the State Council's "AI+" action, are enabling a new model of collaborative governance by breaking down departmental data silos and restructuring business processes around tasks rather than functions. These agents empower pre-emptive risk control and broaden governance participation by linking government with market, society, and grassroots actors, as exemplified in community-based smart elderly care. However, challenges remain, including data-sharing bottlenecks, digital formalism, and the urban-rural digital divide. The piece calls for systematic measures to coordinate digital infrastructure, improve collaborative institutions, uphold human-machine collaboration, and anchor applications in local livelihood scenarios to ensure effective, people-centered governance.
Summary: The article argues that AI anxiety, especially among young people, stems from fear of the unknown and uncertainty about employment and personal value, rather than fear of technology itself. It asserts that AI is an "efficiency assistant" that cannot replace human deep judgment, empathy, or creativity, and that what is eliminated is those who refuse to learn, not workers themselves. The piece calls for a rational mindset, urging people to harness AI for empowerment and focus on core human abilities like critical thinking and innovation. It recommends strengthening socialist ideological discourse, improving AI ethics and employment systems, and fostering a rational social atmosphere to help individuals adapt. Ultimately, it concludes that technological development aims to enhance human well-being, and people should proactively embrace change to achieve mutual growth with AI.
Summary: The article argues that AI security risks in China are evolving into systemic and compound threats, necessitating a shift from individual-link regulation to full-lifecycle prevention and major risk governance. It calls for improving the legal and regulatory system to define major security risks, clarify responsibility for intelligent agent behavior, and establish a risk-oriented classified and tiered regulatory mechanism. The piece also advocates for a technical monitoring system covering the entire AI lifecycle, a risk early warning system with clear indicators and tiering standards, and an emergency response system for major security incidents. Proposed measures include consolidating the primary responsibility of AI service providers, establishing multi-department collaborative assessment mechanisms, and formulating differentiated disposal measures such as function restriction and interface suspension. The article emphasizes closed-loop management of risk identification, early warning, response, and review, while balancing security control with development vitality.
Summary: The Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China, held in September 1956, made creative explorations in ruling party building, focusing on safeguarding Party unity and solidarity, maintaining close ties with the masses, integrating theory with practice, and combining ideological education with institutional restraint. Deng Xiaoping's "Report on the Revision of the Party Constitution" stressed that the Party's position in power caused it to face a new test, while Mao Zedong's opening address placed "unity" at the core of the congress's tasks. The congress wrote "Party unity and solidarity" into the Party Constitution as "the life of the Party" and incorporated the "mass line" for the first time, requiring continuous carrying forward of this tradition. Liu Shaoqi emphasized systematic efforts to raise the Party's level of Marxism-Leninism and the need for a complete legal system, leading to the establishment of control commissions with Dong Biwu as secretary. These achievements provide historical reference for advancing full and rigorous self-governance of the Party in the new era.
Summary: The article examines the diplomatic wisdom behind the 1972 Sino-U.S. Shanghai Communiqué, issued during President Nixon's visit to China, which opened the process of normalizing bilateral relations. It attributes the communiqué's conclusion to common strategic needs, including the Soviet Union's military buildup and expansion, which pressured both the United States and China. The piece details the "diplomatic minuet" of signals and secret channels—such as Mao Zedong's invitation to Edgar Snow and the ping-pong diplomacy—that built trust and led to Kissinger's secret visits and Nixon's eventual trip. It highlights Zhou Enlai's proposal that the communiqué adopt the principle of "each side stating its own views," explicitly recording differences alongside common ground, a model embodying "seeking common ground while reserving differences." The communiqué marked the end of 23 years of hostility, included the U.S. acknowledgment that Taiwan is a part of China, and became a political foundation for stable Sino-U.S. relations.
Summary: The article discusses General Secretary Xi Jinping's speech on strengthening China's international communication capacity, emphasizing the need to build a strategic communication system with distinct Chinese characteristics. It outlines key tasks such as developing a Chinese discourse and narrative system, enhancing the "five forces" of communication effectiveness, and improving top-level design and coordination mechanisms. The piece stresses the importance of transforming China's development advantages into discourse advantages and presenting a true, multi-dimensional image of China. It also highlights the need for precise communication methods, people-to-people exchanges, and a strong contingent of specialized personnel. The article does not mention the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: This article, a preface by a Peking University professor to Han Yuhai's book *Tianxia: China That Embraces All Four Directions*, argues that a "grand view of history," as pioneered by Arnold Toynbee, reveals that China is the only surviving "worldwide state." Toynbee is cited as viewing Western-centric history as "small history" and the modern "nation-state" as a form for maximizing Western interests, contrasting it with the "worldwide state" that aims at the interests of all mankind and maintains peace. The author notes Toynbee's 1965 judgment that China, unlike the United States and the Soviet Union, has a realistic goal of unification and rejuvenation, and that the key to mankind's survival lies in what the new China does. The piece concludes that China's destiny, as defined by Mao Zedong, is the direction of mankind's advance, and that this can only be understood through the grand view of history and the struggle of the Communist Party of China.
Summary: The article argues that unhealthy tendencies and corruption are mutually reinforcing and share the same root cause, requiring integrated investigation and governance as mandated by the Party's 20th National Congress and the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee. It cites General Secretary Xi Jinping's expositions on the simultaneous investigation and governance of misconduct and corruption, emphasizing that unhealthy tendencies are the hotbed of corruption and that unchecked misconduct evolves into criminal behavior. The piece outlines mechanisms such as "must-ask and must-verify" in case handling, institutional, educational, and supervisory measures, and interconnected responsibilities to eradicate the soil for corruption. The author, Deputy Director of the Scientific Research Department of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, concludes that this integrated approach is essential to consolidate the overwhelming victory in the anti-corruption struggle.
Summary: General Secretary Xi Jinping is quoted on the importance of improving talent cultivation quality, framing student affairs work as political, strategic, and foundational for national defense and military industry universities. The article stresses that this work bears on the socialist direction of running schools, the mission of serving the country through military industry, and campus security and stability. It calls for strengthening value guidance, building security barriers, and enriching education vehicles in response to complex online environments and diverse social trends. The piece urges student affairs cadres to balance explicit and implicit education, offline and online education, and management with empowerment. The author is the Secretary of the Party Committee of Northwestern Polytechnical University.
Summary: The article expounds on the Confucian maxim "The gentleman seeks it in himself" from the *Analects*, presenting it as a complete logic of self-cultivation with four layers of meaning: cognitive self-awareness of turning the mind inward, self-discipline of being strict with oneself and lenient with others, the spirit of self-reliance and proactive action, and the life vision of magnanimity and humility. It contrasts the gentleman's inward-seeking with the petty man's outward blame-shifting, emphasizing that all growth and breakthrough stem from self-cultivation and self-empowerment. The piece concludes that this ancient wisdom offers the optimal path for resolving inner anxiety and achieving self-growth in contemporary society.
Summary: The article argues that sports should become a way of life for the people, citing General Secretary Xi Jinping's emphasis on sports as vital for public health, economic development, and cultural soft power. It traces the evolution of China's sports industry from Mao Zedong's 1952 call to "develop sports and physical culture" to the current national strategy of fitness for all, highlighted by grassroots events like Guizhou's "Village Super League." The piece advocates for integrating sports into daily life, normalizing fitness through urban renewal and "15-minute fitness circles," and implementing precision services to meet differentiated public needs. It frames these efforts as essential to building a sporting powerhouse, advancing the Healthy China strategy, and supporting national rejuvenation. The article does not mention the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: The article traces the Mid-Autumn Festival's origins in China, its inclusion in the national intangible cultural heritage lists in 2006, and its historical spread overseas via calendar transmission and Chinese migration. It details how the festival was adopted in Japan, Korea, Vietnam, and among Chinese communities in Southeast Asia and beyond, adapting local customs like moon-viewing dumplings, songpyeon, and lantern parades. The piece quotes a Japanese thinker praising China's cultural influence and notes Japan's post-Meiji calendar reform altered its observance. It concludes that the festival, while sharing a common origin, has become a diverse global cultural symbol. The author is identified as a researcher at Beijing Union University and vice president of the Chinese Folklore Society.
Summary: The Fuzhou Shipyard, established in 1866, pioneered China's modern shipbuilding, naval construction, and maritime education, and was deeply tied to Taiwan's defense and development. It built warships, opened routes between Fuzhou and Keelung, and trained naval elites who defended Taiwan during the 1874 Japanese invasion. Shipyard figures like Shen Baozhen and Liu Mingchuan drove Taiwan's modernization, including the Keelung Coal Mine, the first railway, and the first cross-sea cable linking Fuzhou and Tamsui. The article frames the Shipyard's history as proof that Fujian and Taiwan are bound by blood and shared destiny, with integration being historically inevitable.
Summary: The article argues that China must build a fertility-friendly society centered on supporting family development, as the traditional "individual-family" support framework can no longer meet the needs of a transforming society. It calls for shifting fertility support policies from focusing on individuals to families, and for a "combined approach" of reducing burdens and providing incentives to address high marriage, housing, and child-rearing costs. The piece outlines measures including improving childcare subsidies, maternity insurance, leave systems, and an integrated 0–6 childcare service network. It also advocates for a friendly policy environment covering dating, marriage, childbearing, education, and elderly support, alongside a project to enhance awareness of marriage and childbearing values. The author is identified as Director of the China Population and Development Research Center and Chief Expert of the Health and Population Development Strategy Research Institute.
Summary: The Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) held a book donation ceremony in Mojiang Hani Autonomous County, Yunnan Province, donating 6,273 books valued at nearly 300,000 yuan to support grassroots governance and rural revitalization. The books were distributed to 15 townships, targeted villages, and local units including the county Party school and mass organizations. The activity aims to deepen cultural empowerment and implement the rural revitalization strategy by advancing "assisting both with intellectual and psychological development." Over more than a decade of targeted assistance, the Party School has invested over 3 million yuan in education, coordinated donations worth over 2.8 million yuan, and funded more than 1,100 students in need. The Party School pledged continued support to help high-quality resources reach the grassroots and contribute to Mojiang's modernization.
Summary: The Party School of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee is advancing in-depth education and training on Xi Jinping's thought on Party building, treating it as a required, regular, and key course in teaching. It is building a scientific class system by offering special courses across all main training classes and holding seminars and training classes, including a 2026 session for Party affairs and organization cadres. The school is also developing a complete content system, listing Volumes I and II of the *Selected Works of Xi Jinping on Party Building* as key readings and organizing a "1+14" course matrix based on the Fourteen Commitments. It is improving training methods through research-based and case-based teaching, creating on-site teaching routes along General Secretary Xi Jinping's footsteps in Anhui, and using modern technology to share high-quality resources with municipal and county Party schools. The report was written by Fan Ruyin.
Summary: Yang Ming, executive vice president of the Provincial Party School (Academy of Governance), attended and delivered a speech at the symposium, which studied Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and implemented the national conference of presidents (deans) of Party schools. The meeting stressed upholding the principle that Party schools are run under the Party's banner, making the study of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era the primary political task, and firmly supporting the Two Establishments and achieving the Two Upholds. It called for standardized teaching and training, proactive scientific research, pragmatic team building, and solid strict governance of the school. Responsible comrades from 13 municipal Party school academies and the Kunshan Branch made exchange speeches on implementing central and provincial Party committee deployments.
Summary: The Hubei Provincial Party Committee Party School held a special reading class from September 1 to 10 on "Deeply Studying and Comprehending Xi Jinping's Thought on Party Building, Comprehensively Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Services for Fulcrum Construction," focusing on implementing the provincial party committee's deployment on building the Wuhan Regional Science and Technology Innovation Center and accelerating the completion of the important strategic fulcrum for the rise of the central region. Participants studied the *Selected Works of Xi Jinping on Party Building* and the plenary session communiqué through special guidance, expert-led study, and branch discussions, aiming to identify entry points for the Party school to serve fulcrum construction. Xiao Yang of the Political Science and Law Teaching and Research Department emphasized that the Party school podium should be a bridgehead for interpreting the Party's innovative theories and publicizing provincial deployments, while Hao Huayong, director of the Economics and Economic Management Teaching and Research Department, said they would polish special courses on scientific and technological, industrial, and financial innovation and turn the province's development front into a "living classroom." The Academic Affairs Office planned to organize experiential teaching along General Secretary Xi Jinping's footsteps, and the Information Management Office agreed to expand the Hubei Cadre Online College to deliver high-quality courses to grassroots Party schools. The Party school will transform the reading class achievements into concrete actions, offering systematic courses, strengthening organized research and decision-making consultation, and contributing to the high-level construction of the Wuhan Regional Science and Technology Innovation Center and the strategic fulcrum for the rise of the central region.
Summary: The Party School of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the CPC (Shandong Academy of Governance) has implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses on Party school work, deepened organized scientific research, and achieved three consecutive years of growth in policy advisory reports approved by provincial and ministerial leaders from 2023 to 2025. The school established a Decision Advisory Department, promulgated implementation opinions and development plans, and optimized organizational models to improve scientific research and management capabilities. It has built normalized cooperation mechanisms with over 20 provincial departments, holding quarterly joint topic selection meetings and publishing "Hot Topic Dynamics" monthly to align with decision-making needs. The school promotes "open-door think tank building" through collaborative models such as "Party School + Department" and "Party School + University," establishing vertical linkage mechanisms across provincial Party schools. In 2025, three achievements won the Second Provincial Government Decision Advisory Award.
Summary: The Heilongjiang Provincial Party Committee Party School held a themed education meeting on September 18 for the 2026 autumn semester, where Education Director Shi Yanze conveyed relevant documents and set requirements for teaching work. The meeting stressed that 2026 is the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan, requiring staff to enhance political awareness, guard against ideological risks, and strictly manage student reporting procedures and classroom discipline. It also called for scientific treatment of artificial intelligence in teaching, accurately defining its boundaries to prevent derivative risks. Additionally, the meeting emphasized improving work quality through collective lesson preparation, encouraging young teachers to attend main training programs, and strengthening classified guidance for research and policy consultation. Attendees included all teaching and research department teachers, Academic Affairs Office party members and cadres, and heads of various offices and the Cadre Education Research Center.
Summary: Chen Huizong, Executive Vice President in charge of daily work of the Party School of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the CPC, presided over a special meeting to hear opinions on student management and deploy work for the autumn semester. The meeting stressed that student management is key to achieving training goals and bridging teaching and learning. It put forward "four requirements": having a "model," a "measure," a "method," and "rules" for student management. These include leading by example, combining strict management with care, coordinating with teaching work, and adhering to strict governance of the school. Responsible persons from the Academic Affairs Office, Civil Servant Training Office, Student Work Office, and Cadre and Teacher Further Education Institute attended.
Summary: The Guangdong Provincial Party School (Academy of Governance) Philosophy Annual Conference was held in Zhanjiang on September 12, co-organized by the Provincial Party School and the Zhanjiang Municipal Party School, with Zhou Feng and He Luyang attending and delivering speeches. The conference marked the tenth anniversary of General Secretary Xi Jinping's speech at the Symposium on Philosophy and Social Sciences Work, emphasizing the need to accelerate the construction of an independent knowledge system for Chinese philosophy and social sciences. Party schools were urged to uphold the Two Integrations, base themselves on Guangdong practice, and break free from Western-centric academic dependence. The conference also stressed the primary political task of researching and disseminating Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and the responsibility of providing high-quality decision-making consultation. Keynote reports were delivered by Professor Zhu Huiyu and Professor Xue Xiujun, with over 80 participants attending.
Summary: The Party School of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee held a meeting of its Party Building Work Leading Group to study Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and General Secretary Xi Jinping's instructions on establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, summarizing the effectiveness of its study and education and deploying work to consolidate and expand the results. Fan Yongbin, Executive Vice President, presided over the meeting and delivered a speech. The meeting emphasized deepening theoretical learning, rectification, work style tempering, and institutional improvement, and called for transforming learning results into a driving force for the school's high-quality development. It required all faculty and staff to run the establishment and practice of a correct view of political achievements through the entire process of running the school, aiming for new breakthroughs in basic training, research output, system linkage, and service support. The meeting also stressed adhering to the Party school's original aspiration of "cultivating talents for the Party and offering counsel for the Party" to better serve the province's high-quality development.
Summary: Tang Zhuo, Executive Vice President of the Party School of the CPC Gansu Provincial Committee, led research on student management work and presided over a symposium, focusing on building a close and clean relationship between teachers and students. The meeting emphasized that student management is an important link for achieving the Party school's training goals, requiring strict implementation of institutional rules and reliance on institutional rigidity to hold the bottom line. It noted positive results in recent years but also identified problems such as deviations in ideological cognition and gaps in institutional implementation, urging lessons from negative cases to nip problems in the bud. The meeting required implementing the four-character guideline of "close, clean, strict, and practical" to build a wholesome teacher-student relationship, with departments improving political positioning and management efficiency to support high-quality cadre education and training.
Summary: The Harbin Municipal Party Committee Party School held its first "delivering courses to the grassroots" activity for the 2026 autumn semester at the Daowai District Party Committee Party School, aiming to consolidate the "1+18" city-wide Party school system and extend high-quality teaching resources to grassroots levels. Lecturer Wang Honglei delivered a special lecture titled "Unswervingly and Steadily Following the Path of Food Security with Chinese Characteristics," systematically interpreting the significance, core essence, and practical direction of China's food security work. The lecture guided grassroots Party members and cadres to raise their ideological understanding and enhance their consciousness of fulfilling duties. Participating trainees stated the course had prominent themes and rich content, and they would transform what they learned into work motivation. The Party school will continue advancing such activities and deepen mechanisms for teaching exchange, scientific research collaboration, joint talent cultivation, information sharing, resource sharing, and service integration.
Summary: Chen Yang, member of the Standing Committee of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee, head of the Organization Department, and president (dean) of the Municipal Party School (School of Administration), attended and delivered a speech at the themed event "Footprints — Glory Illuminates the Original Aspiration, Earnest Practice Forges First-Rate Excellence," which celebrated the 42nd Teachers' Day. Hu Shucheng, vice president (vice dean) in charge of routine work, presided over the event. Chen Yang stressed the need to thoroughly implement the spirit of the National Conference of Presidents (Deans) of Party Schools (Schools of Administration), adhere to being clear and outspoken in stance in speaking about politics, cultivate talents for the Party, offer counsel for the Party, strengthen the school with talent, and strive for first-rate excellence in all endeavors. The event was structured in three chapters — "Clarifying the Heart," "Tempering the Heart," and "Uniting the Heart" — and used themed storytelling, achievement displays, special interviews, scenario performances, and video shorts to review the school's development and inspire Party School personnel to act with practical, earnest diligence.
Summary: The article discusses how the Party School of the Dehong Prefecture Committee of the CPC in Yunnan Province has adopted coordinated measures to improve scientific research at county-level Party schools, addressing problems such as low project approval rates, weak research teams, and difficulty publishing results. It details mechanisms including paired assistance for project applications, a "joint special project" launched in 2026 with the Prefecture Federation of Social Sciences, and a tiered cultivation system that has yielded 7 prefecture-level and 21 county-level project approvals. The piece also describes two-way talent exchanges, such as backbone teachers serving as deputy principals at county-level schools and young teachers training at higher-level Party schools, including at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee. To ease publication difficulties, the school uses its journal *Dehong Forum* and helps submit articles to outlets like the *Yunnan Daily*, while also supporting decision-making consultation reports, one of which was adopted by central authorities in April 2026. The author is identified as the head of the Scientific Research Section of the Prefecture Committee Party School.
Summary: The article outlines how the Party School of the Chaoyang District Committee in Beijing is implementing national defense education for all people, as mandated by the 15th Five-Year Plan and the National Defense Education Law. It describes building a modern national defense education classroom with theoretical, equipment experience, and simulated shooting areas, officially listed as a Beijing National Defense Mobilization Publicity and Education Base in March 2026. The piece emphasizes constructing a curriculum system focused on ideological guidance, practical training, and situational experience, alongside strict militarized management and confidentiality protocols. The goal is to embed national defense education into cadre training, using the "key minority" to drive broader awareness and support regional development. The article does not mention the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: The article discusses how the Party School of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the CPC is implementing Xi Jinping's call to maintain a holistic perspective in Party school development, focusing on advancing think tank work through systematic integration. It outlines a three-pronged approach: building a coordinated think tank work system with universities, research institutes, and government departments; integrating decision-making consultation forces through project-based research; and consolidating support through team building and talent cultivation. The piece details mechanisms such as joint meetings, rapid response systems for major themes, and collaborative research with institutions like Sun Yat-sen University and the Guangzhou Daily. The author, identified as the Executive Vice President of the Party School, emphasizes transforming think tank outcomes into governance effectiveness through disciplinary co-construction and organized research.
Summary: The article describes how the Party School of the Rizhao Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China in Shandong Province is building a distinctive brand for cooperative Party school training, guided by the newly revised "Regulations on the Work of Party Schools (Academies of Governance) of the Communist Party of China." Since 2025, the school has undertaken more than 270 cooperative training sessions and trained over 27,000 trainees, while strengthening its training brand through on-site teaching routes, out-of-city training, and service to local development. It integrates training resources by expanding the scope of training, improving teaching quality through lectures from experts and leading cadres, and enhancing school management with a dedicated coordination team. The school also expands training pathways by revitalizing resources, innovating publicity through "online promotion + offline visits," and strengthening overall planning and coordination between municipal and county levels. The article does not mention the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: The Party School of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region Party Committee has made the "Three Together" practical exercise—living, eating, and working with the masses—a compulsory component of Party spirit education for young and middle-aged cadre training classes. The school standardizes teaching arrangements, expands teaching sites across various village types, and has organized 33 batches of 1,575 cadres to participate since 2008. Trainees stay in farming households, participate in labor, conduct public sentiment research, and help resolve grassroots difficulties, with strict process management and disciplinary requirements. A school-local linkage mechanism and whole-cycle documentary management ensure the exercise's effectiveness, with trainees producing over 30 research reports in the past three years. The author is a member of the School (Academy) Affairs Committee and Director of the Training Department of the Party School.
Summary: The Simingshan Branch of the Party School of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the CPC has implemented an "one lesson, three lectures" on-site teaching model led by docents, witnesses, and teachers to address problems such as fragmented use of scenes and superficial theoretical interpretation. The model focuses on "what to teach, who teaches, and how to teach," tapping local resources in Yuyao to create teaching sites centered on red heritage, culture, and development themes. It builds a collaborative teaching process involving context sorting, practical corroboration, and theoretical elevation, and promotes immersive participation, topic-based discussions, and targeted internalization to form a closed loop of thinking. The branch has developed 4 provincial-level and 7 municipal-level on-site teaching demonstration sites, and has undertaken more than 130 on-site teaching sessions annually for commissioned classes from Party schools at all levels over the past three years. The article does not discuss the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: The article recounts the origins and legacy of the classic revolutionary song "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August," created in 1929 by Luo Yinqing, a Communist Party member and school principal in Jinzhai County, to celebrate the establishment of Soviet governments in the Dabie Mountains. The song, set to the local folk tune "Eight-Section Brocade," was commissioned by Li Tiyun, a leading Party official, and first performed at the founding meeting of the First District Soviet Government. It spread widely across revolutionary base areas, was adapted over time, and was later included in the music-and-dance epic *The East Is Red*. The article emphasizes the song's enduring cultural and revolutionary significance, highlighting its role in mobilizing masses and soldiers. No mention is made of the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: This article is a literary reflection on the imagery of the autumn wind in Tang poetry, drawing on verses from poets such as Du Fu, Li Bai, and Bai Juyi to evoke its varied moods in rural and urban settings. It describes how the wind moves through countryside halls, courtyards, and dreams, and how it stirs homesickness and melancholy in the city, citing lines like Zhang Ji's "In Luoyang city I see the autumn wind." The piece also traces the wind's presence across early, mid, and late autumn, linking it to seasonal transitions and poetic sentiment. It concludes that the autumn wind blows through both physical spaces and the lines of Tang poetry, enriching the experience of time. The article does not mention the United States or U.S.-China relations.
Summary: The article explores the cultural and culinary significance of water-basin lamb soup, a Shaanxi specialty distinct from lamb paomo, and traces its preparation, regional variations, and folk customs. It highlights the dish's aliases, such as "June Freshness," and its ties to local heritage, including its listing on the Shaanxi provincial intangible cultural heritage list for Pucheng and Chengcheng. The piece also connects the soup to historical figures like Wang Ding and Yang Hucheng, and describes its modern evolution in Xi'an, where it adapts to contemporary tastes. The article emphasizes the soup's role in fostering community and reflecting the character of the loess-plateau people. No mention is made of the United States or U.S.-China relations.
China and the United States are both great nations, and the Chinese people and the American people are both great peoples. The peoples of the two countries have long engaged in friendly exchanges, and the interests of both sides are deeply intertwined. The two countries should be partners rather than rivals. The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and making America great again can fully exist or act simultaneously without conflict (并行不悖, bing xing bu bei - "parallel, walk, not, oppose"), complement each other, and benefit the world.
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The population issue has always been a comprehensive, long-term, and strategic issue bearing on the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that we must "advance the comprehensive reform of fertility policies, service management systems, family development support systems, and governance mechanisms," and that "we must promote the building of a fertility-friendly society." The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, focusing on promoting high-quality development of the population, clearly deploys key tasks such as improving fertility support policies, improving the childcare service system, improving family development policies, and fostering a fertility-friendly environment, pointing the way forward for building a fertility-friendly society centered on supporting family development. The family is the basic cell of society and an important subject of population reproduction. As China's population development enters a new normal and family structures and functions undergo profound changes, accelerating the improvement of the family development support policy system and actively building a fertility-friendly society is both an inherent requirement for meeting the people's growing needs for a better life and an inevitable choice for supporting Chinese modernization with high-quality population development.
Fertility support policies need to shift from focusing on individuals to focusing on families
The family is the basic unit connecting the individual and society and the stable cornerstone of social governance. With the accelerated advancement of industrialization, urbanization, smartization, and marketization, the external environment faced by traditional family development and its functions of production, child-rearing, and education have undergone profound changes. Building a support system centered on family development has increasingly become an urgent requirement of population work in the new era.
The accelerated evolution of the digital intelligent society is reshaping the technological and social conditions for family development. The new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is advancing in depth, and the application of general-purpose technologies such as artificial intelligence, gene technology, and new energy is accelerating. Individuals' employment patterns, lifestyles, and social interaction methods are undergoing profound transformation, and the traditional family-based division of labor, emotional support, and care arrangements are facing readjustment. At the same time, new modes of production such as the digital platform economy, flexible employment, and remote work have blurred the boundaries between work and family, placing new pressures on young people in major matters such as forming families, bearing and raising children, and supporting elderly parents. The traditional functions of intergenerational mutual assistance and emotional comfort within families are showing a weakening trend.
The social security system is increasingly well-established, and traditional family security functions continue to shift outward. A multi-tiered social security system covering the entire population and coordinating urban and rural areas has been basically established. Socialized institutional arrangements for elderly care, medical care, housing, and education have to a large extent replaced some functions of the traditional family. Individuals' dependence on the family has decreased, and the intrinsic incentive to form families has correspondingly weakened. At the same time, with accelerated social mobility and widespread intergenerational separation, the traditional "intergenerational relay" model of population reproduction within families is tending to weaken, and both the intergenerational support and intra-generational mutual assistance capacities of families need to be reshaped and strengthened through institutional arrangements.
The uncertainty of social risks has increased, and the vulnerability of family development has become more prominent. The superposition of multiple risks such as economic cycle fluctuations, rapid technological iteration, changes in employment patterns, and sudden public events has made the external shocks faced by families more frequent and their transmission more complex. As "small units for sharing risks," families find it difficult to cope alone with cross-domain, cross-cycle, and cross-regional social risks. There is an urgent need to enhance families' resilience in resisting risks and recovering development through policy-based and socialized means, and to promote the transformation of family development support from "family self-help" to "social mutual assistance."
On the whole, China is experiencing the dual transformation of population structure and family form. The trends of smaller family size, nuclearization of structure, dispersion of relationships, and specialization of functions are superimposed. The traditional "individual-family" binary fertility support framework can no longer meet the actual needs of family development. There is an urgent need to shift the focus of support from individuals to families and accelerate the building of a fertility support policy system centered on family development and viewed from the perspective of the full life cycle.
Building a fertility-friendly society urgently requires a combined approach of "reducing burdens" and "providing incentives"
At present, the building of a fertility-friendly society faces a series of practical shortcomings. Traditional concepts of marriage and family are undergoing rapid transformation, the reshaping of a new marriage and childbearing culture has not yet been completed, and a positive view of marriage and childbearing still needs to be strengthened. First, some localities do not yet have a sufficient understanding of building a fertility-friendly society. Some departments lack a deep understanding of the strategic significance of long-term balanced population development and of the urgency of building a family-friendly policy system, and mechanisms for organizational leadership, overall coordination, financial investment, and supervision and assessment need to be improved. Second, the fertility concepts of the childbearing-age population are increasingly diversified. Fertility motivations are diverse, young people increasingly pursue freedom and independence, greater importance is attached to the balance between personal pursuits and family responsibilities, and marriage and childbearing are no longer mandatory options in life. Having fewer children and raising them better has become the mainstream concept of the younger generation. Some people choose to have fewer children, adopt more refined child-rearing methods, and pursue high-quality educational resources and opportunities. Third, the algorithmic recommendation mechanisms of social media are gradually reinforcing the individualization and radicalization tendencies of young people's cognition of marriage and childbearing. At present, various forms of social media have become the main arenas shaping young people's concepts of marriage and childbearing. By influencing the visibility, repetition, and ranking of information, algorithmic recommendation mechanisms may cause cognitive biases such as amplifying fear, inflating expectations of the costs of marriage and romance, creating false social consensus, and reducing the visibility of authoritative information.
At the same time, it must be recognized that fertility intention is the "latent variable" of fertility behavior, and cost constraints are the "fundamental variable" affecting fertility intention. Unlike traditional societies, survival and livelihood in modern society are highly dependent on a developed market economy system. Major family matters such as marriage, housing, education, childcare, and elderly support are mainly realized through socialized services and commodified expenditures. The cost of marriage and childbearing has become a key constraint affecting young families' fertility decisions. At present, the costs of marriage and childbearing that urgently need to be reduced are concentrated in three areas. First, the cost of marriage. "Marriage thresholds" such as high bride prices and wedding expenditures place obvious economic pressure on marriageable young people, especially rural youth and their families. Second, the cost of housing. Problems such as the pressure of buying a home and insufficient stability of renting directly affect the willingness to form and expand families. Third, the cost of child-rearing and education. The full-chain investment from pregnancy and childbirth, childcare, and kindergarten to basic education and extracurricular tutoring is growing rapidly, and the parenting anxiety of "not losing at the starting line" has become an important factor suppressing the birth of second and third children. High costs of marriage and childbearing directly affect young people's positive expectations for future life and further weaken the effective transformation of marriage and fertility intentions into fertility behavior. There is an urgent need to launch a "combined approach" to reduce the costs of marriage and childbearing, so that "being able to afford to have children, raise them well, and educate them well" becomes an achievable social reality.
Accelerate the building of a fertility-friendly society covering the entire population and the full life cycle
Fertility friendliness is essentially a policy expression of family friendliness. To build a fertility-friendly society, we must base ourselves on the macro background of family development, accurately grasp the inherent laws of family change, take supporting family development as the main line, focus on reducing family burdens, stimulating family vitality, and enhancing family resilience, and accelerate the improvement of a population service system covering the entire population and the full life cycle, laying a solid foundation for promoting high-quality population development.
Strengthen the integrated design and comprehensive burden-reduction capacity of fertility support policies. Establish and improve the fertility support policy system, and strengthen the organic articulation of economic support, time support, service support, and cultural support. Improve the childcare subsidy system that is compatible with the level of economic and social development and articulated with other social security systems, integrate various forms of cash support such as maternity subsidies, fertility allowances, childcare subsidies, and special additional deductions for individual income tax, so that "spending less or nothing to have children" becomes an achievable policy expectation. Improve the maternity insurance system, orderly include groups such as flexible employees and workers in new forms of employment within the scope of coverage, and gradually include appropriate assisted reproductive technology projects within the scope of medical insurance payment, so that groups who "want to have children but cannot, or dare not" receive effective support. Improve the leave system compatible with infant and toddler care labor, clarify the cost-sharing channels for leaves such as spouse care leave, childcare leave, and hospital care leave for parents of only children, and promote the transformation of the leave system from "rights on paper" to "actual benefits."
Accelerate the improvement of an integrated 0-6-year-old childcare service system. Focusing on early childhood development, vigorously develop affordable childcare services, establish mechanisms for routine operating subsidies, talent incentives, and quality supervision, coordinate the planning and layout of preschool education and infant and toddler childcare service resources, and accelerate the gradual provision of free affordable childcare services. Build a "1+N" childcare service network with comprehensive childcare service centers as benchmarks, public childcare institutions, kindergarten nursery classes, and publicly built and privately operated institutions as the backbone, and community-embedded childcare and family childcare points as support, enhancing the accessibility, safety, and family recognition of services. Improve the comprehensive supervision system for childcare services, strengthen standards and norms, teacher qualifications, and safety guarantees, and comprehensively improve population quality. Increase policy support for infant and toddler care services in rural areas that have been lifted out of poverty and in areas with concentrated migrant populations, and fill the shortcomings of childcare services in underdeveloped regions.
Build a friendly policy environment covering the entire process of romance—childbearing—child-rearing—education—elderly support. Reduce the burden of education, expand the supply of quality educational resources, promote the high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education, establish a basic public education service supply mechanism coordinated with population changes, and promote the transformation of basic education from "filling shortcomings" to "improving quality." Reduce the burden of housing, accelerate the improvement of a housing security system with public rental housing, government-subsidized rental housing, and shared-ownership housing as the main body, implement differentiated housing support for newlywed families, families with multiple children, and special families affected by family planning policies, so that young families and newlywed families can "afford to live and live securely." Optimize the employment environment, fully implement policies against employment discrimination and for gender equality, correct fertility discrimination in the job market, enhance men's awareness of parenting, promote shared responsibility between parents, and build a gender-friendly employment environment.
Launch a project to enhance awareness of the value of marriage and childbearing in the new era. Build an all-channel communication system for the value of marriage and childbearing, open public welfare columns on marriage and childbearing in mainstream media to explain fertility support policies and a positive view of marriage and childbearing, build public welfare dating platforms in communities such as universities, industrial parks, and groups in new forms of employment, place public welfare short videos and micro-dramas on marriage and childbearing on social media, cooperate with family-themed bloggers to disseminate the concept of "marriage at an appropriate age, gender equality, and shared responsibility," guide platform algorithms to favor positive content on marriage and childbearing, and form a new pattern of marriage and childbearing cultural communication featuring "state advocacy, platform operation, algorithm coordination, and public participation," so that the childbearing-age population forms stable and positive expectations of the value of marriage and family.
Improve the overall coordination and factor guarantee mechanisms for family development support policies. Strengthen the Party's overall leadership over population work and family development work, incorporate high-quality population development and family development support into local comprehensive assessment systems, and consolidate the primary responsibility of Party committees and governments at all levels. Improve the mechanism for stable growth of financial investment, establish a reasonable proportion of family development expenditure in public finance, establish a cost transfer payment mechanism between population inflow and outflow areas, and clarify the cost-sharing ratios among the government, employers, families, and individuals. Accelerate the establishment of a dynamic monitoring and statistical system for population and families, improve the comprehensive information platform for population service management, and enhance the scientific, precise, and forward-looking nature of policy formulation. Improve the evaluation mechanism for fertility support policies, learn from international experience to establish a pre-review system for family policies, and ensure that all policies remain consistent with the orientation of fertility-friendly and family-friendly policies.
It must be recognized that a "fertility-friendly society" is not a simple replacement for "fertility support policies," but a systematic project covering multiple dimensions including the economy, society, culture, technology, and institutions. "Fertility friendliness" is essentially friendliness toward "marriage," friendliness toward "education," friendliness toward "employment," friendliness toward "housing," friendliness toward "child-rearing," and friendliness toward "old age." Its core is to make the family a stable fulcrum of population reproduction and a vibrant source of high-quality economic and social development through policy coordination, cultural cultivation, and social co-construction. We must take supporting family development as a foundational strategy for actively responding to low fertility and population aging, promote the organic articulation and mutual enhancement of building a fertility-friendly society with building child-friendly cities, youth development-oriented cities, a women-friendly society, and an age-friendly society, so that the fruits of reform and development benefit all families more and more fairly, and so that hundreds of millions of families gain a greater sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security through joint construction, joint governance, and shared benefits.
(The author is Director of the China Population and Development Research Center and Chief Expert of the Health and Population Development Strategy Research Institute)
Return to TopBy: 洪向华
Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, in the practice of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, our Party's understanding of the relationship between unhealthy tendencies and corruption has grown increasingly deep. The 20th National Congress of the Party pointed out that we must adhere to simultaneously addressing Party spirit, Party conduct, and Party discipline. The "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively to Advance Chinese Modernization," adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee, requires "improving the mechanism for jointly investigating and jointly governing unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems." General Secretary Xi Jinping has made important expositions on the joint investigation and joint governance of malfeasance and corruption at the Fourth and Fifth Plenary Sessions of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. General Secretary Xi Jinping's relevant important expositions and the Party Central Committee's relevant decisions provide us with the fundamental guidance and implementation path for deeply advancing the joint investigation and joint governance of malfeasance and corruption.
The interweaving and superimposition of unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems cause serious harm to Party conduct, government conduct, and social conduct
The word "malfeasance-corruption" placed together has a specific reference. "Malfeasance" specifically refers to "unhealthy tendencies," especially formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance. "Corruption" refers to corruption problems such as accepting bribes, trading power for money, and seeking improper benefits. Unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems interweave and superimpose, doubling the harm.
Unhealthy tendencies are the hotbed of corruption, the quantitative change before corruption; corruption is the qualitative change of unhealthy tendencies. Some leading cadres believe that as long as they work hard, achieve results, and make contributions, eating, drinking, and taking a little is irrelevant to the overall situation, is not a big deal, and the organization should not make a fuss over such small matters and minor details. This view is extremely wrong. Small matters and minor details reflect Party spirit. If the unhealthy tendencies of so-called small matters and minor details are not curbed and dealt with in a timely manner, they will eventually evolve into more serious corrupt behavior. As can be seen from the cases of many leading cadres who violated the law and discipline, their illegal and disciplinary violations all began with the first carton of cigarettes, the first bottle of liquor, the first irregular meal, the first disguised travel arrangement, and other such exchanges of favors. This kind of "boiling the frog in warm water" style of encirclement and hunting ultimately dragged leading cadres into the water and pushed them into the abyss of crime and lawbreaking.
If unhealthy tendencies are not curbed, they will evolve into corrupt behavior, and if corrupt behavior is not eliminated, it will fuel and intensify unhealthy tendencies, even giving rise to new conduct problems. Corrupt behaviors such as accepting bribes, abusing power for personal gain, misusing authority, and engaging in fraud for personal benefit are both illegal and disciplinary violations, and are incompatible with good Party conduct, government conduct, and social conduct. If the corrupt acts of certain leading cadres go unpunished, they themselves will become complacent and reckless, acting arbitrarily and intensifying their engagement in unhealthy tendencies. For other leading cadres who want to be corrupt but fear being investigated, if they see that corrupt leading cadres have not been investigated, they will quickly move from a state of waiting and watching to joining the ranks of the corrupt. If the masses see that corrupt elements have not been punished, they will lose confidence, view corrupt behavior and unhealthy tendencies with indifference and apathy, and may even imitate them, resulting in the failure of social righteousness to be manifested and promoted. If corrupt behavior is not eliminated, some leading cadres will sink deeper into the mire and be unable to extricate themselves, further intensifying and fueling the spread and diffusion of unhealthy tendencies.
The superimposition of interwoven malfeasance and corruption problems has caused enormous damage to the Party, the state, and the people. For a political party, Party conduct determines the survival or demise of the ruling party. The interweaving and entanglement of unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems corrupts Party conduct, causing actual detachment from the masses, with the direct consequence being the prevalence of bureaucratism—at the light end, affecting the scientific nature of decision-making; at the heavy end, shaking the Party's governing foundation. For the state, the interweaving of malfeasance and corruption undermines fairness and justice. Those who engage in unhealthy tendencies and corrupt elements who seriously violate discipline and law often form interest groups, engage in factionalism and interest exchange, causing the operation of power to deviate from the right track, undermining social fairness and justice and the market economy order, hindering the great cause of comprehensively building a strong country and national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization, and may also induce systemic risks, affecting the overall situation of reform, development, and stability, and causing enormous losses to the state. For the masses, the interweaving of malfeasance and corruption infringes upon the vital interests of the people; formalism and bureaucratism increase the cost of handling affairs, and the flood of documents and meetings and the proliferation of inspections and assessments increase the burden on the grassroots.
Unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems are mutually reinforcing in appearance and identical in origin
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the "Four Malfeasances" and corruption problems are mutually reinforcing in appearance and are the hotbed for the growth of corruption. This important exposition provides us with the method for correctly understanding the problem of interwoven malfeasance and corruption, and finds the path for deeply advancing the joint investigation and joint governance of malfeasance and corruption.
Unhealthy tendencies and corruption phenomena being mutually reinforcing in appearance means that sometimes unhealthy tendencies are the external manifestation of corruption problems, and behind corruption problems there must be unhealthy tendencies—here, unhealthy tendencies are the appearance, and corruption problems are the substance; sometimes corruption problems are the external manifestation, and these corruption problems are transformed from unhealthy tendencies—here, corruption problems are the appearance, and unhealthy tendencies are the substance. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that some unhealthy tendencies also fall within the category of corruption, for example, accepting gifts, indiscriminately issuing bonuses, apportioning goods, using public funds for tourism, forming sworn brotherhoods, reciprocating a favor or kindness (投桃报李, tou tao bao li - "throw peach, report plum"), sending shopping cards and consumption vouchers everywhere, and so on. In practice, some leading cadres accept some banquets and gifts; those who arrange the banquets and give the gifts may not make any demands for the time being, but over time and with increasing frequency, requests for favors and transactions of power for money will inevitably occur.
From practice, unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems are somewhat different. For example, in terms of handling methods, unhealthy tendencies are more often subject to Party discipline handling, while corruption problems, especially serious corruption problems, are more often subject to legal handling. However, in terms of the root causes of unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems, the two are identical. From the notifications of leading cadres who violated discipline and law, several high-frequency phrases can be found: "losing ideals and convictions," "betraying the original aspiration and founding mission," "being disloyal and dishonest to the Party," and so on. In fact, these are the deep-rooted causes of unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that the wavering of ideals and convictions is the most dangerous wavering, and the slippage of ideals and convictions is the most dangerous slippage. The moral degeneration of some leading cadres is, in the final analysis, due to the loss of ideals and convictions. The lofty ideal of communism, the conviction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and the Marxist faith all determine that Party members must serve the people wholeheartedly. The reason for the interweaving of malfeasance and corruption is, in the final analysis, that morally degenerate leading cadres have wavered and slipped in their ideals and convictions and cannot firmly uphold them. Seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation is the original aspiration and founding mission of Chinese Communists. Morally degenerate leading cadres often betray the original aspiration and founding mission, forgetting who they are, for whom they act, where they came from, and where they are headed in the future. "Being loyal and honest to the Party, matching words with deeds" is an explicit requirement of the Party Constitution for Party members' obligations. Morally degenerate leading cadres are precisely those whose words and deeds do not match, whose appearance and substance are inconsistent, whose hearts and mouths are at odds, deceiving the organization and deceiving the masses, failing to implement or selectively implementing the Party's line, principles, and policies—all of which seriously damage the Party's image.
Deeply advance the joint investigation and joint governance of malfeasance and corruption, and thoroughly eradicate the soil and conditions for the breeding of corruption
At present, unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems interweave and superimpose, increasing the difficulty of punishing corruption and rectifying malfeasance. If unhealthy tendencies are not stopped at the source and only corruption problems are targeted, a thorough and clean effect cannot be achieved; if the results of conduct improvement are poor, the overwhelming victory achieved in corruption governance will be difficult to sustain. Continuously deepening the punishment of corruption and rectification of malfeasance cannot "discuss malfeasance only in terms of malfeasance" or "discuss corruption only in terms of corruption"; joint investigation and joint governance must be carried out, mechanisms must be improved, and the soil and conditions for the breeding of corruption must be thoroughly eradicated.
Joint investigation and joint governance means that governing the problem of interwoven malfeasance and corruption must exert force simultaneously, in the same direction, and comprehensively. Joint investigation and joint governance is an organic whole, not a division into two different stages, nor a separation of two links. We must adhere to no forbidden zones, full coverage, and zero tolerance; adhere to heavy containment, strong deterrence, and long-term deterrence;strike hard at corruption phenomena, so that leading cadres dare not be corrupt and also dare not engage in unhealthy tendencies. If investigation and governance are each used separately, the effectiveness of governing the problem of interwoven malfeasance and corruption will diminish. Investigation and governance cannot be treated as two different stages, but must be advanced as one in the entire work of anti-corruption and integrity promotion. That is to say, measures for investigation and governance must be planned in an integrated manner, adhering to investigating both the bribe-taker and the bribe-giver, taking multiple measures simultaneously—"hunting tigers," "swatting flies," "hunting foxes," and "repelling mosquitoes"—investigating and handling every corruption case that arises without mercy, keeping the sharp sword of anti-corruption suspended high to form long-term deterrence, and also strictly investigating and handling unhealthy tendencies, resolutely eliminating cadres' mentality of taking chances.
Jointly investigating interwoven malfeasance and corruption problems requires that when investigating corruption cases, conduct problems be simultaneously probed in depth, and when rectifying unhealthy tendencies, hidden corruption leads be simultaneously investigated, avoiding "investigating malfeasance only in terms of malfeasance and investigating corruption only in terms of corruption." Implement "must-ask and must-verify" in the links of investigation, adjudication, and disposition. In the review and investigation link, the manifestations, motives, and the process from malfeasance to corruption of the person under review and investigation are listed as must-talk and must-ask content, serving as important reference for subsequent supervision and governance. In the case adjudication link, "Four Malfeasances" problems are made the focus of adjudication, correcting situations such as inaccurate characterization and failure to investigate what should be investigated, ensuring that malfeasance and corruption problems are investigated and handled together. In the lead disposition link, a "three-list" mechanism of tasks, responsibilities, and problems is established, using cases under investigation as the entry point, implementing and detailing must-ask items, both investigating the person's own problems and deeply probing "Four Malfeasances" leads involving other Party members and cadres. Various localities have gradually made some explorations in refining the "must-ask and must-verify" working mechanism. For example, some places implement the working method of "comprehensively uncovering and screening leads, linking departmental efforts to pool leads, mining leads through supervision and case handling, and finding leads by going deep among the masses"; some places enrich investigation and evidence-collection methods, "simultaneously asking," "simultaneously digging," and "simultaneously analyzing," providing useful reference for the joint investigation of interwoven malfeasance and corruption.
Jointly governing interwoven malfeasance and corruption problems requires that, in response to common problems discovered, comprehensive measures be taken at the institutional, educational, and supervisory levels to eradicate the soil for the breeding of malfeasance and corruption. "Investigation" is not the ultimate purpose; "governance" is the ultimate result. "Investigation" serves "governance," and "governance" serves better "investigation." The requirements of "governance" must be put into practice in eradicating common roots. Strengthen promoting reform through cases and promoting governance through cases. For a corruption case, we must learn from one instance to deduce others (举一反三, ju yi fan san - "lift one, reflect three"), deeply probe the interest chains and hidden rules behind the case, thoroughly investigate the ideological slippage of those who violated discipline and law and the deep-seated reasons for their crimes, thereby extending to a comprehensive dragnet inspection of the industry, system, and unit to prevent the occurrence of similar disciplinary and legal violations. Strengthen warning education, especially using disciplinary and legal violation cases among those around us to strengthen deterrence, so that the broad masses of Party members and cadres are alerted, know the bottom lines, and hold awe in their hearts. Build a solid ideological defense line. Educate and guide the broad masses of Party members and cadres to be the "leading geese" and "vanguard" in building a culture of integrity in the new era, strengthening the foundation and enhancing vitality (固本培元, gu ben pei yuan - "solidify foundation, nourish origin") from ideals and convictions, raising Party spirit awareness, enhancing the ability to resist corruption and prevent degeneration, creating a strong atmosphere throughout society of cultivating people through culture, nourishing virtue through culture, and fostering integrity through culture, promoting the construction of clean politics, forming integrity concepts and integrity models, and fostering a good social trend of advocating integrity and rejecting corruption.
Joint investigation and joint governance cannot be separated; they must be interconnected and form a combined force. Responsibilities are interconnected. Clarify the primary responsibility of Party committees (Party groups) for the joint investigation and joint governance of malfeasance and corruption, and the supervisory responsibility of discipline inspection commissions and supervision commissions at all levels; clarify the responsibility of the first responsible person of Party committees (Party groups) secretaries; in accordance with the "one post, dual responsibilities" requirement, clarify the responsibilities of other members of leading bodies. Supervision is interconnected. Continuously improve and perfect the Party and state supervision systems, so that various types of supervision are organically interconnected and mutually coordinated, giving play to the overall role of the supervision system. Information is interconnected. Break down information silos and barriers; information obtained by public security, audit, statistics, finance, supervision and inspection, and inspection and patrol departments is communicated and reported to discipline inspection and supervision departments in a timely manner, achieving information sharing in lead transfer, case notification, and other aspects.
Only by deeply advancing the joint investigation and joint governance of malfeasance and corruption, blocking the momentum of mutual transformation between malfeasance and corruption, and curbing the intensification of harm, can the integrated advancement of not daring to be corrupt, not being able to be corrupt, and not wanting to be corrupt proceed smoothly, and can the achievements of the overwhelming victory in the anti-corruption struggle be continuously consolidated.
[The author is Deputy Director of the Scientific Research Department of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance)]
Return to TopBy: 本报评论员 赵慧
Economic work has never been a purely economic matter; behind it lie the people's support or opposition, the foundation of governance, and the long-term stability and security (长治久安, chang zhi jiu an - "long, rule; lasting, maintain; old, long; peace, security") of the country. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized the need to strengthen political awareness, raise political positioning, attach importance to conducting economic work from the height of politics, be adept at observing and analyzing economic and social issues through a political lens, and take practical and effective action (真抓实干, zhen zhua shi gan - "truly, grasp; real, do, work") to implement the Party Central Committee's decisions and deployments in all aspects of economic work. This important exposition embodies the dialectics of governance, requiring leading cadres at all levels to set the direction and manage the overall situation from a political standpoint, so that every decision on economic and social development can withstand political scrutiny and practical testing.
The economy is the foundation of politics; politics, as the concentrated expression of the economy, both reflects the objective requirements of economic development and exerts a profound influence on economic activities and economic behavior. Lenin emphasized that "if a class cannot correctly view problems from a political standpoint, it cannot maintain its rule, and therefore cannot accomplish its production tasks." Mao Zedong clearly pointed out that "the key to all problems lies in politics," elucidating that behind economic problems are often political problems—problems concerning interest relations, value orientations, and direction and path. Only by observing and analyzing economic and social issues from a political height can one truly grasp the inherent laws of economic and social development, and only then can one set the correct direction and seize the initiative amid complex situations. This requires that we neither discuss the economy in isolation from politics and fall into routinism, nor engage in empty political talk divorced from economic reality, but rather grasp the initiative in our work through the dialectical unity of economics and politics.
Family matters, state affairs, and world affairs—there are no trivial matters in the economy and society. A seemingly insignificant or trivial (微不足道, wei bu zu dao - "tiny, not, reach, way") small matter is often a major matter concerning the vital interests of ordinary people. During his work in Fuzhou, General Secretary Xi Jinping made the "vegetable basket" a top priority, paying daily attention to changes in vegetable prices, and pointed out that "whether people can get vegetables to eat is politics." This is precisely a vivid manifestation of observing and analyzing economic and social issues through a political lens. In contrast, the reason some localities have fallen into the mistaken approach of "GDP worship" is, in the final analysis, that they have failed to truly understand the profound connotation and fundamental requirements of high-quality development, and have forgotten that "the people's hearts are the greatest politics." When leading cadres make decisions, they must never only calculate the economic account, the partial account, or the immediate account, but must also calculate the political account, the overall account, and the long-term account, so that the fruits of development benefit all the people more and more fairly.
The more complex the situation and the more arduous the tasks, the more a political lens is needed. At present, the changes unseen in a century are accelerating, a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is deepening, and the internal and external environment facing China's economic development has undergone profound changes. On the one hand, new problems in the economic field are emerging in an endless stream (层出不穷, ceng chu bu qiong - "layer, emerge, not, exhausted"). Emerging fields such as the platform economy, the digital economy, and artificial intelligence are constantly appearing, bringing both an efficiency revolution and new challenges such as regulatory gaps, data security risks, and employment structure shocks—many of which are major theoretical and practical problems that the classical Marxist writers never discussed, that past practice never encountered, and that Western economic theory also finds difficult to explain. If one only discusses the economy in terms of economics and business in terms of business, one easily falls into a situation of treating symptoms rather than the root cause (头痛医头、脚痛医脚, tou tong yi tou, jiao tong yi jiao - "head, ache, treat, head; foot, ache, treat, foot"). On the other hand, deep-seated problems in the economic field urgently need to be clarified. Issues such as the transition between old and new growth drivers and industrial structure adjustment are both practical difficulties in economic development and major theoretical topics. These problems often involve a single small change affecting the whole situation (牵一发而动全身, qian yi fa er dong quan shen - "pull, one, hair, and, move, whole, body"), touching upon many aspects such as the transformation of development models and the adjustment of interest patterns. If one fails to see clearly the political problems, social impacts, and potential risks behind economic issues, one may deviate from the correct direction of development and miss the strategic opportunity to advance high-quality development.
To steer economic and social issues with a political lens, one must uphold the Party's overall leadership over economic work. Upholding the Party's leadership and giving play to the Party's core leadership role in commanding the overall situation and coordinating all parties is an important feature of China's socialist market economy system. One must be adept at discerning the political consequences of economic activities and coordinate development and security. One must transcend the limitations of a single time and place and prevent the one-sided pursuit of economic growth at the expense of political requirements such as social fairness, national security, and ecological protection. One must carry security development through all fields and the entire process of economic and social development, firmly holding the insurmountable bottom lines of food security, energy security, and the security of industrial and supply chains. One must implement the Party's leadership in all fields and links of economic and social development, always maintaining political sobriety and firmness on the line, principles, policies, and guidelines, and ensuring that economic work always advances in the correct direction.
"A skilled chess player seeks the overall momentum; an unskilled chess player seeks individual pieces." Only by standing at the height of politics can one understand more thoroughly the Party Central Committee's major policies and decisions and deployments, and work with greater foresight and initiative. Leading cadres at all levels must continuously improve their political judgment, political understanding, and political execution, have a thorough understanding (了然于胸, liao ran yu xiong - "clearly, understand, at, chest") of the "great affairs of the state," consciously place economic work within the overall context of the cause of the Party and the state, calculate both the economic account and the political account, look at both the immediate and the long term, take practical and effective action to implement the Party Central Committee's decisions and deployments in all aspects of economic work, and write a new chapter of Chinese modernization with the tangible results of high-quality development.
Return to TopBy: 杨解朴
"Hidden champion" enterprises typically refer to small and medium-sized enterprises that occupy a globally leading position in a specific niche field but have relatively limited public visibility. According to relevant statistics, there are approximately 2,734 "hidden champion" enterprises worldwide, of which Germany has 1,307, close to half of the total. In recent years, more and more German "hidden champion" enterprises are accelerating their integration into the Chinese market, opening up a brand-new development pattern of deep Sino-German industrial integration, two-way empowerment, and mutually beneficial outcomes (互利共赢, hu li gong ying - "mutual, benefit; together, win").
At present, as Sino-German industrial cooperation continues to deepen, the layout of German "hidden champion" enterprises in the Chinese market is presenting a brand-new picture. First, industrial clusters are taking shape in contiguous areas, and regional layouts are being continuously optimized. Relying on advanced manufacturing clusters in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, and elsewhere, more and more German small and medium-sized technology enterprises are carrying out agglomerated layouts around advantageous industrial chains, forming a development pattern with industrial parks as carriers and industrial chain collaboration as the link. Among these, the Yangtze River Delta has become one of the regions where German enterprises are most concentrated, with Taicang, Suzhou, Changzhou, and other places having formed a relatively complete ecosystem of German-invested enterprises; the Pearl River Delta, relying on intelligent manufacturing and the electronic information industry, has attracted a number of high-end equipment enterprises; platforms such as the Qingdao Sino-German Ecopark, the Tianjin Sino-German Industrial Park, and the Beijing Shunyi Sino-German Industrial Park have continuously enhanced their capacity to host German enterprises, and the regional layout of German "hidden champion" enterprises in China is becoming increasingly well-developed. Second, investment in China continues to deepen, and expectations for long-term operations are steadily recovering. Facing the complex global geopolitical landscape and persistently volatile overseas markets, German "hidden champion" enterprises are continuously optimizing their global capital layouts. The Chinese market,凭借其稳定的发展环境、超大市场体量和完整产业链，已成为其投资热门地区，企业在中国开拓市场的信心与增资意愿持续回暖。近年来，德国"隐形冠军"企业持续加大在华投资力度，高端汽车器件供应商劳施保施持续推进在华增资扩产和智能化改造，进一步提升本地化生产能力；德国工程塑料领域"隐形冠军"易格斯启动上海二期工厂建设，进一步扩大在华投资，持续完善本土生产能力和亚太区域布局。三是本土化布局持续深化，创新支点作用日益凸显。德国重要"隐形冠军"企业已突破早期仅在中国投资建厂、代工生产的单一模式，逐步调整实行生产制造、技术研发、供应链配套同步落地的全方位布局。企业立足中国完善的产业体系和丰富的应用场景，持续迭代技术、优化产品，将基地打造为其全球产业链布局的重要生产与创新支点。如皮尔磁、极马集团先后在中国搭建专业化生产与研发体系；RAPA集团深度融入国内新能源汽车核心供应链。
There are the following motivations behind German "hidden champion" enterprises stepping up their efforts to explore the Chinese market.
First, operating pressure in Germany has given rise to the need for overseas expansion. The domestic operating environment in Germany has continued to tighten, and the pressure on enterprise development has continued to increase. Factors such as persistently rising energy prices, a shortage of labor resources, and rising financing costs have compounded one another, continuously pushing up enterprise operating costs and compressing the profit margins of small and medium-sized manufacturing enterprises. "Hidden champion" enterprises of this kind, which specialize in niche fields, are highly sensitive to changes in operating costs, and the difficulty of expanding business and maintaining stable operations in Germany has continued to increase. At the same time, weak growth in domestic market demand in Germany has further limited the space for enterprise development. In recent years, Germany's overall economic growth has remained persistently sluggish, manufacturing order recovery has been slow, and the new market capacity has been limited. "Hidden champion" enterprises that have long been deeply engaged in niche fields and already hold a relatively high domestic market share, in order to relieve operating pressure and seek new development space, have proactively made overseas expansion a development choice, and the Chinese market has become an important choice for them to break through development bottlenecks and revitalize development momentum.
Second, the strong appeal of the Chinese market. Unlike the current situation in most overseas regional markets, which have limited market size and single application scenarios, China simultaneously possesses both a large-scale industrial goods market and an end-consumer market, with robust demand in both industrial and civilian consumption, and a faster pace of product and technology renewal. German "hidden champion" enterprises can rely on a large number of market scenarios to deploy new technologies and new products, validate brand-new process solutions, and effectively amortize long-term R&D investment costs. At the same time, China has complete coverage of sub-industry categories and rich, multi-layered market demand, with different types of users continuously driving product iteration and upgrading, providing German "hidden champion" enterprises with sustained market feedback and stable development space.
Third, complete industrial supporting facilities and institutional safeguards have consolidated the foundation for cooperation. China and Germany possess high-quality and stable conditions supporting cooperation, providing protection for German enterprises' long-term development in China. China has a complete and efficient whole-industrial-chain system, with well-developed supporting facilities in industrial parks and convenient and efficient connectivity between upstream and downstream enterprises, which can effectively reduce the various costs for German enterprises in supply chain connectivity, product testing, collaborative R&D, and mass production implementation, and improve operational efficiency. China's scientific and technological innovation strength has been steadily improving, with the development level of several emerging industries ranking among the world's forefront, providing strong support for the two sides' joint technological creation and two-way empowerment. In addition, China has continuously optimized the environment for foreign investment development, implemented various opening-up measures, improved the intellectual property protection system, simplified procedures for foreign-related affairs, and created a stable and standardized business atmosphere. Various favorable conditions have compounded one another, continuously consolidating the foundation for Sino-German enterprise cooperation and promoting the continuous deepening of cooperation between the two sides.
After decades of development, German "hidden champion" enterprises have achieved a deep layout in China, and their development potential remains considerable, but future cooperation will also face new competition and challenges. As the innovation capabilities of Chinese enterprises continue to improve, Chinese and German enterprises will form head-to-head competition in more niche fields. At the same time, the continued advancement of Germany's domestic "de-risking" policy has also brought certain concerns to some enterprises operating in China. Overall, based on the development foundation of deep Sino-German industrial integration, the potential for two-way empowerment between German "hidden champion" enterprises and the Chinese market continues to be released, and market space, innovation collaboration, and industrial cooperation still have broad development prospects.
First, market potential continues to be released, and growth space remains broad. The "2025 Sino-German Hidden Champion Enterprise Open Cooperation Report" points out that German and European "hidden champion" enterprises still have relatively large growth potential in the Chinese market, with more than half of the surveyed German enterprises planning to continue expanding their investment in China over the next two years. Emerging fields such as new energy vehicles, the digital economy, artificial intelligence, green and low-carbon development, intelligent equipment, and industrial services will become the core increment of cooperation in the next stage. Enterprises' continued expansion of investment shows that German enterprises continue to be optimistic about the Chinese market and are gradually converting positive expectations into investment actions. More importantly, as China shifts from the "world's factory" to the "global innovation application scenario," the value of German "hidden champion" enterprises' layout in China will also shift from obtaining cost advantages to obtaining market feedback, industrial collaboration, and innovation speed.
Second, innovation collaboration continues to deepen, and the level of cooperation continues to rise. With the improvement of China's innovation capabilities, more and more German "hidden champion" enterprises are extending innovation functions such as R&D, testing, application validation, and customer response to China, carrying out complementary-advantage and collaborative innovation with China's "specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative" enterprises. The former possess long-accumulated process technology, quality control experience, and global patent layouts, while the latter possess agile digital application capabilities, rapid iteration capabilities, and a deep understanding of the local market. This combination of "German process accumulation" and "Chinese innovation speed" may become a new growth point for Sino-German industrial cooperation and may also give rise to new global competitiveness in niche fields. Therefore, for German enterprises, the Chinese market is no longer merely one stop on their global sales map, but an important gateway for their participation in the next round of industrial competition.
Finally, the foundation for cooperation remains solid, and long-term development prospects are positive. From the perspective of long-term development trends, against the backdrop of rising global trade protectionism, accelerated industrial chain restructuring, and rising uncertainty in European and American markets, the scale advantages, industrial chain completeness, application scenario density, and policy continuity of the Chinese market are increasingly becoming strategic resources that are difficult for German "hidden champion" enterprises to replace. The relationship between German "hidden champion" enterprises and the Chinese market is steadily moving from traditional market entry and production layout toward a new stage of deep integration and joint innovation, and its cooperation value has transcended the scope of traditional economic and trade cooperation, and will play a positive role in promoting industrial collaboration between the two sides and maintaining the stability of global industrial and supply chains.
(The author is the Director of the Sino-German Cooperation Research Center of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Return to TopBy: 刘畅
Morocco is situated at the key strategic juncture where Europe and Africa converge and where two oceans embrace, possessing a composite geopolitical advantage unique in North Africa. In recent years, against the backdrop of most countries in the Middle East and North Africa being mired in political turmoil and obstructed transitions, Morocco has carved out a distinctive path of transitional development, gradually growing into a key hub for Europe-Africa economic and trade exchanges, a successful example of transitional development among Arab countries, and an important fulcrum country for Global South cooperation.
Compared with neighboring countries, Morocco's geopolitical advantages are notable. First, it possesses the hub-location geopolitical advantage of connecting Europe and Africa and linking the two oceans. Morocco is situated at the northwestern tip of Africa, facing each other across the sea (隔海相望, ge hai xiang wang - "separate by the sea, look at each other") with Spain in Europe across the Strait of Gibraltar to the north, at a shortest distance of only 14 kilometers, making it the African country closest to Europe's core market. Its territory borders the vast Atlantic Ocean to the west, connects to the Maghreb hinterland to the east, and links the sub-Saharan African heartland to the south, while also commanding the international shipping artery from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic, making it one of the very few strategic nodes in the world capable of simultaneously linking the Mediterranean and the Atlantic, and Europe's high-end market with the African continental market. This scarce geopolitical location endows Morocco naturally with the bridging function of undertaking Europe-Africa material circulation, shipping transshipment, economic and trade connectivity, and people-to-people and cultural exchange, giving it a cross-regional radiating capacity that other North African countries cannot match. Second, it possesses the advantage of geopolitical natural resource endowment. Its unique geographic territory bestows upon Morocco extremely high-quality supporting resource conditions, constituting the geopolitical foundation underpinning industrial upgrading. Morocco controls over 70 percent of global phosphate reserves, which, as core rigid-demand raw materials for new energy batteries, fine chemicals, and modern agricultural development, provide scarce resource support for the layout of high-end manufacturing and green industries. At the same time, Morocco's territorial span is diverse, possessing both a long coastline, an excellent cluster of ports, plains hinterland, and inland depth, with abundant sunshine and rich wind energy resources, which both suits the layout of three-dimensional infrastructure and port-adjacent industrial clusters and consolidates the geopolitical resource foundation for the large-scale development of clean energy industries such as photovoltaics and wind power. Third, it possesses the advantage of historical geopolitical accumulation from proximity to Europe. Relying on its unique geopolitical relationship of being adjacent to Europe, Morocco has long been at the forefront of Europe-Africa civilizational and economic and trade exchange. Natural deep-water ports such as Tangier and Dar El Beida have since ancient times been key transshipment ports for ocean shipping between the Mediterranean and the Atlantic. At the same time, by virtue of the natural convenience of geographic proximity, Morocco has inherited the industrial system, transportation networks, and regulatory and institutional accumulation left from the pre-colonial period, completing early on the docking and integration of market rules and industrial standards with the European system, laying a solid historical and geopolitical foundation for building a Europe-Africa trade hub and undertaking European industrial relocation in the contemporary era by relying on geopolitical advantages.
Before its geopolitical advantages were tapped and unleashed, Morocco's development model had long suffered from obvious shortcomings. The industrial structure was monolithic, with the economy highly dependent on the export of low-value-added resources such as phosphates and primary agricultural products; port locations only served basic cargo transshipment, without a supporting port-adjacent industrial system; and the opening-up mechanism was lacking, making it difficult to translate the geographic advantage of proximity to Europe into tangible economic, trade, and industrial cooperation results. In 2021, King Mohammed VI of Morocco took the lead in promulgating the top-level plan "New Development Model (2021-2035)," officially launching a transition process of comprehensively activating geopolitical endowments. Based on its own geopolitical endowments, Morocco has been taking a multi-pronged approach (多措并举, duo cuo bing ju - "many measures, together act") to continuously amplify its geopolitical advantages and activate geopolitical value, achieving a deep transformation from natural location advantages into competitive advantages in key fields.
First, relying on the geopolitical advantage of the cross-continental hub, it has built a territory-wide free trade opening-up system. Fully leveraging the hub geopolitical value of connecting Europe and Africa and linking the two oceans, it has proactively connected with global high-end markets, becoming the only African country to have signed free trade agreements with both the European Union and the United States. Relying on the policy dividend of the EU-Morocco free trade agreement, over 95 percent of Morocco's manufactured goods can enter the EU market duty-free and without restriction; the upgraded U.S.-Morocco free trade agreement has further raised the duty-free access ratio for industrial goods to 97 percent. By maximizing the release of the passage value of its geopolitical hub, Morocco has successfully built a duty-free trade network covering the high-end markets of Europe and the United States, thoroughly opening up the geopolitical passage for two-way Europe-Africa economic and trade circulation.
Second, relying on the geopolitical advantage of its port-adjacent coastal location, it has continuously optimized the regional business environment. Based on its geopolitical characteristics of dense coastal deep-water ports and superior port-adjacent locations, Morocco has empowered development with top-level strategic planning, continuously streamlining administrative approval procedures, lowering market access thresholds, and improving mechanisms for protecting foreign investors' rights and interests. For export-oriented high-tech enterprises laid out by relying on port geopolitical advantages, the government has introduced a series of preferential policies including full tax exemption for five years, subsequent tax rate halving, special land subsidies, and full infrastructure support. The minimum corporate tax rate for enterprises in core port-adjacent free trade zones such as Tangier and Dar El Beida is only 8.75 percent, achieving seamless integration between ports and port zones, relying on port-adjacent geopolitics to greatly compress cross-border logistics costs and time costs, transforming the coastal geopolitical advantage into the best business environment competitive advantage in the Maghreb region.
Third, relying on the geopolitical advantage of Europe-Africa cross-border positioning, it has undertaken the relocation of global high-end industries. By virtue of its two-way cross-border geopolitical positioning of "connecting Europe to the north and Africa to the south," Morocco has precisely embedded itself in the global industrial chain division of labor system. Utilizing the geopolitical convenience of proximity to Europe, it has proactively undertaken the relocation of supporting high-end industries from international giants such as Airbus, Boeing, Renault, and Peugeot; relying on its geopolitical advantage of radiating across the African continent, it has opened up vast emerging markets. By fully activating the two-way adaptive value of its cross-border geopolitics, Morocco has continuously cultivated modern industrial clusters, promoted the iterative upgrading of its industrial structure, and turned its unique geopolitical location into a driving force for industrial transformation.
Through comprehensively activating and maximizing the release of the value of its geopolitical endowments, Morocco has achieved an all-round leap in politics, economy, diplomacy, and social development by relying on its geopolitical advantages, reaping abundant results in transitional development.
First, relying on geopolitical advantages it has achieved a comprehensive upgrading of its industrial system, thoroughly casting off single-resource dependence. Leveraging the geopolitical dividends of port-adjacent locations and Europe-U.S. free trade, Morocco's automobile industry has achieved leapfrog development from low-end assembly to full industrial chain upgrading, becoming the country's number one pillar foreign-exchange-earning industry, with automobile industry export value exceeding 15.6 billion U.S. dollars in 2025, surpassing traditional resource exports such as phosphates and agricultural products for many consecutive years. At the same time, relying on geopolitical resource advantages in wind energy, solar energy, and concentrated solar power, it has expanded its green and clean energy industry, building itself into a green energy export center for North Africa; relying on the geopolitical advantage of its cross-border hub, diverse high-end industries such as aerospace, port-adjacent processing, cross-border logistics, and digital trade are experiencing flourishing development (蓬勃发展, peng bo fa zhan - "flourishing, developing"), constructing a modernized and diversified industrial development pattern.
Second, relying on geopolitical advantages it has safeguarded overall social stability and achieved balanced and coordinated development across the entire territory. By virtue of its diverse geopolitical positioning as a central hub, Morocco has pursued a balanced and prudent diversified diplomacy and governance model, effectively avoiding the risk of turmoil and maintaining long-term political and social stability. Relying on the development resources accumulated from the geopolitical dividend of opening up, Morocco has advanced the largest universal social security reform in the Arab world, achieving universal coverage of medical insurance, pensions, and unemployment protection. At the same time, relying on the geopolitical advantage of its cross-border passage, it has made up for the infrastructure shortcomings of the north-south regions, driven the development of distinctive industries in remote areas, narrowed urban-rural and regional development gaps, and consolidated the livelihood foundation for the country's transition.
Third, relying on geopolitical advantages it has enhanced its regional voice and become an important fulcrum for Global South cooperation. Based on its core geopolitical position in North Africa, Morocco has continuously strengthened its African development orientation, and relying on its geopolitical advantage of cross-regional connectivity, it has put forward regional cooperation concepts such as the "Atlantic Initiative" and the "West Africa-North Africa Atlantic Economic Zone," aimed at opening up sea-access passages for landlocked Sahel countries. By virtue of its geopolitical advantages in ports, infrastructure, and industry, it provides African countries with infrastructure assistance, technological empowerment, trade facilitation, and digital services, deeply participates in South-South cooperation, and transforms the geopolitical location value of its Europe-Africa hub into strategic value that leads regional development and empowers the rise of the Global South.
Return to TopBy: 陈翊瑄
Food safety is a global public health issue, directly bearing on national health, social stability, and international trade. Among the 113 countries assessed in the 2022 Global Food Security Index report, the Netherlands ranked fifth globally. This is largely attributable to the fact that, since the 1980s, the Netherlands has gradually formed a food safety supervision system for the catering industry featuring enterprise self-inspection, third-party assistance, and government oversight, charting a governance path of government regulation, market empowerment, and enterprise due diligence.
Before this collaborative supervision system took shape, food safety governance in the Dutch catering industry long faced multiple practical challenges. First, there was an imbalance between the supply and demand of regulatory resources, and regulatory coverage had shortcomings. The Dutch catering industry is diverse in business formats, with a huge number of operating entities, and small, medium, and micro catering outlets occupying the dominant position in the market. However, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority has limited staffing, and can only adopt a risk-oriented random inspection model, making it impossible to achieve routine, full-coverage supervision. A large number of ordinary catering outlets have long remained in regulatory blind spots, making it difficult to identify hidden risks in advance. Second, the primary responsibility of business operators was hollowed out, and there was a lack of endogenous motivation for self-discipline. In the past, Dutch food safety governance relied heavily on government ex-post punishment as deterrence, and catering merchants generally developed a mentality of passively coping with inspections. Daily self-inspection became a mere formality (流于形式, liú yú xíng shì - "flow, into, form, shape"), and detailed issues such as ingredient storage, environmental hygiene, and ledger records accumulated over the long term, with temporary rectification only undertaken during official spot checks. Awareness and capacity for ex-ante risk prevention and control were seriously inadequate. Third, the closed loop of regulatory governance was broken, and the effectiveness of rectification and correction was insufficient. Traditional supervision centered on ex-post punishment, and after discovering violations, authorities mostly directly imposed penalties such as fines and closures, lacking targeted professional guidance and rectification assistance mechanisms. This failed to resolve the root causes of non-standard operations, leading to repeated recurrence of violations. To address the above challenges, the Netherlands innovated its regulatory thinking and, based on its domestic market foundation, adopted the following key measures.
Cultivate a professional third-party service market and implement a routine food safety simulated self-inspection mechanism. The Netherlands has fully activated professional market forces, supported the development of third-party food safety service enterprises, and built a "mock examination" self-inspection system for catering food safety that is higher than official standards. Third-party institutions adopt an unannounced, irregular spot-check model, fully replicating the official complete inspection process, conducting inspections across all dimensions including ingredient storage, operating temperatures, kitchen cleanliness, classified management, ledger records, and food sampling, and issuing detailed rectification reports while simultaneously assisting catering merchants in analyzing the causes of problems and formulating rectification plans. Unlike government law enforcement, they do not issue penalty tickets throughout the process. At present, the fees for third-party food safety services in the Netherlands are fairly inclusive, with a single special simulated inspection costing approximately 200 euros, and annual service fees ranging from several hundred to several thousand euros, all easily affordable for small and medium-sized catering enterprises. In addition to simulated inspections, third-party institutions also extend into supporting services such as employee food safety training, allergen management, digital ledger construction, food testing, and equipment procurement. Data show that the market size of the European food safety testing, inspection, and certification sector has exceeded 60 billion US dollars, maintaining an average annual growth rate of 6%. A mature market-based service system provides solid support for the routine self-inspection and self-correction of the Dutch catering industry, driving catering enterprises to independently establish standardized food safety management systems.
Establish an official qualification certification system and build a credit-incentive-based differentiated supervision mechanism. To regulate the third-party service market and safeguard regulatory effectiveness, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority has established a dedicated "Food Safety Inspection Point" qualification certification program, strictly selecting third-party institutions with strong professional competence and compliant reputations. At present, seven enterprises nationwide have obtained officially recognized qualifications and have been included in the government's list of compliant service providers. This service operates on a voluntary participation principle, does not compel catering enterprises to purchase it, and fully respects market autonomy. The system explicitly stipulates that if a catering outlet passes special compliance inspections by officially certified institutions twice in succession, it can be included in the government's food safety supervision "whitelist" and enjoy the policy benefit of exemption from routine random inspections. At the same time, the government has always upheld its primary responsibility for supervision, conducting routine qualification reviews and capability verification of certified third-party institutions every year, dynamically screening for problems such as professional capability degradation and non-standard services among institutions, and controlling the quality of third-party services from the source. Through the closed-loop mechanism of "third-party professional assessment, positive credit incentives, and differentiated government supervision," the enthusiasm of catering enterprises for proactive compliance and proactive self-inspection has been effectively mobilized, achieving efficient allocation of regulatory resources.
Uphold the government's bottom-line supervision and build a multi-stakeholder linked dynamic risk governance system. While introducing market forces, the Netherlands has safeguarded the government's regulatory powers and responsibilities, building a governance structure of "market assistance, government bottom-line guarantee, and multi-party coordination." The government has clearly delineated the boundaries of powers and responsibilities: third-party institutions only undertake auxiliary functions such as routine inspections, problem rectification, and technical guidance, and possess no administrative law enforcement authority whatsoever. For high-risk issues such as reports from the public, major food safety hazards, and vicious food safety incidents, regulatory authorities retain independent and complete final law enforcement and disposal powers. At the same time, relying on frontline inspection data from third-party institutions, the government dynamically updates food safety risk points, abandons the equalized supervision model, and precisely focuses limited administrative resources on high-risk entities and key hidden danger areas. In addition, the Netherlands has linked 33 industry associations to participate deeply in the formulation of industry standards, relied on top scientific research institutions such as Wageningen University to undertake special research, and continuously optimized regulatory policies, forming a modern governance structure with multi-stakeholder coordination among the government, research institutions, industry associations, and market service organizations.
Through multiple measures, food safety governance in the Dutch catering industry has achieved notable results. Most catering merchants have independently established standardized food safety management systems, with significantly enhanced self-restraint awareness, generally receiving good evaluations in official spot checks. The threshold for food safety risks has been moved forward, with a large number of hidden dangers resolved during the self-inspection and rectification stage, reducing the passive governance model of imposing punishment only after safety incidents occur. Government regulatory resources have been optimally allocated, with supervisory forces tilted toward high-risk entities, and regulatory precision and governance effectiveness have continued to improve. The governance practice of third-party participation in catering safety supervision in the Netherlands has practical implications for improving multi-stakeholder co-governance of food safety.
Break the inertia of single-handed government supervision and build a new public-private collaborative governance structure with clear powers and responsibilities. Through market-oriented reform, the Netherlands has delegated technical, routine daily inspections, rectification guidance, and other work to professional third-party institutions, while the government focuses on core functions such as rule-making, qualification supervision, and bottom-line law enforcement, clarifying the boundaries of powers and responsibilities among the government, the market, and business operators, and building a governance system with clear division of labor and complementary advantages. This shows that food safety governance cannot rely on traditional administrative supervision paths over the long term. It is necessary to improve relevant laws and regulations, further consolidate the primary responsibility of catering business operators for food safety, establish standardized systems for the admission, review, and management of third-party food safety service qualifications, and incorporate professional market forces into the official supervision assistance system. Relying on institutional planning to clarify the responsibilities of all parties, build a three-dimensional governance structure of government supervision as the bottom-line guarantee, market professional empowerment, and enterprise self-discipline and due diligence, alleviate the practical difficulties of weak grassroots supervision and insufficient supervision coverage, and continuously enhance comprehensive food safety governance capacity.
Rely on market-based incentive mechanisms to promote the transformation of food safety governance from ex-post punishment to ex-ante prevention. Through the incentive policy of "whitelist" exemption from inspections, combined with low-cost, professional, and inclusive third-party services, the Netherlands has fully mobilized the endogenous motivation of catering enterprises for proactive self-inspection and proactive rectification, enabling enterprises to shift from passively coping with supervision to proactively controlling risks, reducing the breeding of food safety hazards at the source, and thoroughly solving the governance problem of "repeated violations despite repeated inspections." This shows that in food safety governance, reliance on a single punitive measure should be weakened, and governance tools of positive incentives and differentiated supervision should be enriched. A linkage mechanism linking food safety compliance ratings with supervision frequency should be established, reducing the supervision frequency for business entities with standardized self-inspection and high compliance, and setting up compliance benchmarks. At the same time, actively cultivate the local third-party food safety service market, support the development of an inclusive and professional food safety technical service industry, reduce the compliance and self-inspection costs of small and medium-sized catering enterprises, guide the entire industry to form a good atmosphere of self-restraint and proactive compliance, and promote the transformation of food safety governance from end-of-pipe governance to source prevention and whole-process control.
Improve the whole-process supervision and constraint system and build a solid bottom-line for risk prevention through multi-stakeholder co-governance. In the process of introducing third-party market forces into governance, the Netherlands has insisted that government supervision not be absent and responsibilities not be relaxed. Through systems such as strict qualification admission, annual review, division of powers and responsibilities, and direct reporting of leads, it has prevented third-party institutions from overstepping their authority in performing duties, prevented business operators and third parties from forming interest alliances, and avoided risks such as false assessments and interest transfer at the institutional level, ensuring that market forces serve only as supervision assistance rather than a substitute for responsibility. Multi-stakeholder co-governance does not mean the government relinquishing power and shirking responsibility; it is merely an optimization and supplement of governance forces, and must rely on complete regulatory systems to build a solid bottom-line guarantee. This shows that to advance market-oriented collaborative governance of food safety, it is necessary to simultaneously build a complete regulatory accountability system. It is necessary to establish a whole-process management system for the admission, dynamic assessment, and exit of third-party institutions, enhancing the transparency and standardization of industry services; strictly define the functional boundaries of third-party institutions, strictly prohibiting them from replacing government law enforcement or issuing compliance conclusion determinations in violation of regulations; build a flat-channel direct reporting system for major risk leads, consolidate the responsibility of third-party institutions for reporting hidden dangers, and establish supporting accountability and liability mechanisms, strictly preventing chaos such as false inspections and interest collusion, so that market forces truly become reliable support for empowering food safety governance and safeguarding the safety of the public's food.
Return to TopBy: 胡志平
The State Council's "Opinions on Deeply Implementing the 'AI+' Action" proposes "advancing the application of artificial intelligence in government affairs safely, steadily, and in an orderly manner, and creating a new model of government services that accurately identifies needs, proactively plans services, and handles matters intelligently throughout the entire process." Government affairs intelligent agents are advancing rapidly in the field of government services. The "Government Affairs Intelligent Agent Development Research Report (2025)" points out that "the application prospects of intelligent agents in the government affairs industry are extremely broad; they are moving from concept validation toward large-scale application, and are achieving leaps across multiple dimensions including technology, capability, value, scenarios, and ecosystems, demonstrating transformative potential for reshaping government governance models, improving service efficiency, and building collaborative ecosystems." Because government affairs intelligent agents can break out of the old framework of acting independently without coordination (各自为政, ge ci wei zheng - "each, do, for, government") among departments, they have become a brand-new governance vehicle that connects upper and lower levels, links government and enterprises, and coordinates urban and rural areas, opening a new model of collaborative governance.
With the cross-domain interconnection of data as its core advantage, government affairs intelligent agents solve the problem of information silos in traditional governance and consolidate the data foundation for collaborative governance. Traditional government affairs governance is fragmented by department and jurisdiction, with each department's business system built independently and data standards mutually incompatible, forming data barriers. Cross-department joint review and joint handling not only consumes substantial human resources but also gives rise to problems such as processing delays, constraining the improvement of collaborative efficiency at the source. Relying on a unified cross-domain data middle platform, government affairs intelligent agents, on the premise of strictly safeguarding data security and citizen privacy bottom lines, achieve cross-department data collection without friction, automatic verification, and closed-loop sharing, allowing automatic data flow to replace manual coordination and legwork.
Government affairs intelligent agents restructure business processes with a task-oriented approach, reversing the drawbacks of traditional departmental departmentalism and reshaping the operational logic of cross-department collaboration. The traditional government affairs system divides business boundaries based on departmental functions, following the operational logic of each performing their own specific duties (各司其职, ge si qi zhi - "each, undertake, its, duty") and "each managing its own segment." Faced with complex, cross-domain governance challenges at the grassroots level, it inherently has functional gaps and responsibility blind spots, and departments lack the internal motivation for proactive linkage; collaboration is mostly passive response and post-hoc gap-filling, making it difficult to form a governance synergy. Government affairs intelligent agents completely break down departmental functional barriers, shifting the governance logic from "department-centered" to "matter-centered," automatically linking up the entire chain of business around specific governance tasks, coordinating administrative authority across the board, achieving integrated governance processes and simultaneous issuance of work directives, and eradicating at the institutional mechanism level the chronic collaborative ills of shirking responsibility and bickering (推诿扯皮, tui wei che pi - "push, evade, pull, skin") and connection gaps, transforming cross-department linkage from passive cooperation into proactive response.
Government affairs intelligent agents empower pre-emptive prevention and control with intelligent situational awareness, making up for the shortcomings of lagging traditional experience-based governance and driving a fundamental transformation of the collaborative governance model. Traditional grassroots collaborative governance relies on manual experience-based assessment and offline inspection and screening, with fragmented information acquisition and one-sided risk assessment. Departments find it difficult to grasp the full picture of governance dynamics simultaneously and can only carry out passive joint response and post-hoc remedial governance. Governance costs are high and disposal results are limited. Relying on large-model computing power and full-domain sensing capabilities, government affairs intelligent agents can aggregate full-volume data on urban operations, public livelihood demands, and hidden risks around the clock, autonomously conduct situational analysis and risk early warning, and push this information simultaneously to corresponding functional departments for pre-emptive joint disposal. This drives collaborative governance from "post-hoc emergency response" toward "pre-event prediction and in-event control," comprehensively enhancing the forward-looking nature and precision of full-domain collaborative governance.
Government affairs intelligent agents broaden the boundaries of governance participation through diversified linkage, breaking the closed loop of government-only governance and building a governance pattern of joint construction, joint governance, and shared benefits. Traditional government affairs collaborative governance has relatively dispersed resources and insufficient matching of supply and demand, making it difficult to consolidate a full-domain joint governance force. Government affairs intelligent agents open up connection channels between the government and the market, society, and grassroots levels, building an open and inclusive collaborative governance vehicle that effectively integrates multiple resources to make up for governance shortcomings. For example, in community-based smart elderly care, five types of actors—local governments, village two committees, university research teams, technology enterprises, and volunteers—are linked together, focusing on the pain points of elderly care for rural elderly people living alone to carry out integrated intelligent services, moving away from the governance model of the government acting alone without any assistance (单打独斗, dan da du dou - "single, strike, single, fight"), and providing a replicable and scalable practical model for diversified grassroots collaborative governance.
At present, the construction of government affairs intelligent agents still faces practical challenges such as data-sharing bottlenecks, digital formalism, lagging supporting institutions, and the urban-rural digital divide. Some regions emphasize platform construction over collaborative effectiveness, and single-point applications over full-domain linkage, deviating from the original intention of digital empowerment for collaborative governance. Benchmarking against the integrated collaborative construction goals of Digital China and based on the requirements of a correct view of political achievements, it is necessary to anchor on the core goals of "full-domain linkage, efficient collaboration, and pragmatic service to the people" and implement systematic measures, comprehensively opening up the entire chain of collaborative governance spanning horizontal departmental linkage, vertical hierarchical connectivity, and internal-external diversified co-governance.
Coordinate integrated digital infrastructure to eliminate cross-departmental data barriers at the source. Data is the key element for government affairs intelligent agents to achieve collaborative governance. It is necessary to strictly implement the top-level planning requirements of Digital China construction, adhere to full-domain coordination and integrated construction, unify regional computing infrastructure, intelligent agent architectures, and data interface standards, and resolutely put an end to a new round of data fragmentation caused by scattered departmental construction and duplicate database building. Establish a graded and classified public data sharing list with clear rights and responsibilities, and rely on security technologies such as federated learning to achieve data that is usable but not visible and safe to circulate, promoting the orderly flow of data in high-frequency areas such as livelihood services, urban supervision, and emergency response, clearing the core obstacles to cross-departmental collaboration at the technical foundation, and truly making data elements the core support for collaborative governance.
Improve normalized collaborative supporting institutions and ensure long-term effective operation of linkage with rigid rules. Technological empowerment for collaboration cannot be separated from institutional underpinning. Build a full-process closed-loop collaborative work mechanism, clarify the responsibility division across the entire chain of intelligent agent matter dispatch, circulation and handling, follow-up supervision, and result feedback, and put an end to situations where after intelligent dispatch no one implements, and responsibility is shirked and shifted. Simultaneously improve supporting institutions such as algorithm security review, data privacy protection, and artificial intelligence ethics supervision, and hold the safety bottom line of digital governance. At the same time, optimize the political achievement assessment system, weaken visible indicators such as platform construction and system quantity, and strengthen substantive indicators such as cross-departmental collaboration efficiency, grassroots burden reduction effectiveness, and public satisfaction, using the assessment baton to force all departments to proactively collaborate and perform their duties in an integrated manner.
Adhere to the inclusive orientation of human-machine collaboration and make up for the weak links in urban-rural collaborative governance. Government affairs intelligent agents are enabling tools for collaborative governance rather than replacement subjects, and the working principle of human-led, intelligence-enabled must always be upheld. On the one hand, carry out tiered and categorized digital literacy training for public officials, with emphasis on enhancing the practical capabilities of leading cadres in conducting cross-departmental consultation, full-domain situational assessment, and joint emergency response with the support of intelligent agents, achieving complementary advantages between manual overall planning and decision-making and intelligent efficient disposal. On the other hand, focus on digitally disadvantaged groups such as rural areas and the elderly, make up for the shortcomings of the digital divide, adopt one-on-one door-to-door guidance and volunteer companion service models, run online intelligent services and offline bottom-line services in parallel, so that the achievements of digital collaborative governance cover the entire population across all domains, and so that efficient collaboration has both technological speed and the warmth of people's livelihoods.
Anchor on the application of local livelihood scenarios and test the effectiveness of collaborative governance with pragmatic scenarios. Establish a correct view of political achievements that emphasizes real performance and real results, resolutely abandon the mindset of blindly imitating or copying others (照搬照抄, zhao ban zhao chao - "follow, copy, follow, copy") and one-size-fits-all approaches, and put an end to flashy but lacking substance (华而不实, hua er bu shi - "flourish, but, not, reality") digital image projects and bonsai-style digital applications. Closely focus on high-frequency collaborative pain points such as public service handling, grassroots governance, and urban-rural services, create small-scale, high-effectiveness intelligent agent application scenarios in light of local conditions, and focus on streamlining processes and reducing steps for cross-departmental joint handling matters. Always take solving practical collaborative problems as the starting point, so that the construction of government affairs intelligent agents fits the reality of grassroots governance and the genuine demands of the people, avoiding the disconnect between technological empowerment and collaborative governance.
Return to TopBy: 李霞
At present, artificial intelligence technology is developing rapidly and has already penetrated deeply into all aspects and fields of social production and life. While the technology empowers the lives of the general public and the well-being of the people, it has also given rise to worries and anxieties about technological development. In particular, young people are no longer simply cheering for the technological innovation of AI, but have instead fallen into self-doubt about being replaced, being eliminated, and failing to keep pace with the times. Faced with the emotional predicament surrounding AI technology amid the tide of the era, how to move from anxiety and fear to coexistence and co-dancing, and then to transcendence and innovation, has become a real problem that urgently needs to be addressed.
AI anxiety is not the presentation of a single emotion, but rather a multi-layered, concrete psychological representation, mainly manifested in various forms such as occupational replacement anxiety, capability devaluation anxiety, ethical loss-of-control anxiety, and privacy leakage anxiety. The causes of AI anxiety are multifaceted, but at the root, AI anxiety is essentially not a fear of technology itself, but rather, in the face of rapid changes in production methods, the fear of the unknown among social groups, especially young people, and the panic over uncertainty regarding employment competitiveness, personal value, and future development paths. To resolve this negative emotion, one cannot simply avoid the development of technology. Instead, one should scientifically respond to the phenomenon of AI anxiety, accept technological change, rebuild one's own capabilities, adjust one's mindset, and be willing and able to use tools well. Only through comprehensive measures can technology be better promoted to serve people in the context of human-machine collaboration.
The end point of technological development is not to surpass or control humans, but to expand human capabilities and better serve people. Looking at the entire history of human technological development, every transformation of productive forces has triggered deep reflection on the "relationship between humans and technology," and what is ultimately eliminated is never the person who keeps learning and is good at innovating, but the person who clings to old ways of thinking, refuses change, and is making no progress or staying stagnant (停滞不前, ting zhi bu qian - "stop, not, advance"). Under the rapid iteration of AI technology, it is necessary to further clarify the boundaries of AI's capabilities and dispel cognitive misunderstandings. It should be made clear that AI is not an "omnipotent opponent" that comprehensively replaces humanity, but an "efficiency assistant" that helps humanity. AI is better at standardized, repetitive, and information-integration work. For example, retrieving existing knowledge, formatting and layout, basic copywriting, simple drawing, and basic code writing. But it also has obvious shortcomings. For example, it lacks deep judgment in real scenarios, original value positions, complex empathy capabilities, cross-domain coordinated decision-making, and hands-on execution abilities, and the content it produces often contains factual errors, and so on. We should not panic over "AI will replace me," but should instead think about "whether people who can use AI will replace people who cannot use AI." What is easily replaced by AI is tasks, not positions; what is eliminated is people who cling to old skills and refuse to learn, not the workers themselves.
AI can efficiently complete standardized work, but it cannot replicate the core values unique to humans. It can generate copy but cannot nurture deep thought, it can organize data but cannot complete logical analysis and judgment, it can replicate creativity but cannot possess empathy, aesthetic literacy, and a sense of responsibility. At present, the common misunderstanding among people is precisely to measure human shortcomings against AI's strengths, competing with intelligent tools in efficiency using repetitive, basic abilities, and ultimately falling into self-denial. In fact, the core of the human-machine relationship is not a process of one side increasing as the other decreases (此消彼长, ci xiao bi chang - "this, diminish; that, grow"), but rather humans harnessing AI to empower themselves. The true core competitiveness is never about being faster than AI, but about being deeper, more creative, and warmer than AI. One should proactively treat AI as an assistant that frees one from repetitive labor and saves time costs, devoting more energy to deep thinking, innovative creation, cross-disciplinary integration, and practical experience, and focus on polishing critical thinking, original innovation, empathetic communication, and overall judgment — core abilities that AI cannot replace — so as to realize the transformation from a technical executor to a value creator.
In the face of AI development, a healthy mindset is to neither exaggerate the threat of AI and resist using AI tools, nor blindly believe in AI and abandon independent thinking. Acknowledge the changes and challenges brought by AI development, and also be ready at all times to meet the changes and challenges. Establish a pluralistic and open value judgment — personal value is reflected not only in the speed of completing tasks and other such aspects, but also in dimensions such as thought, character, experience, and creativity. Especially for young people, strengthen the discursive power of socialist ideology through comprehensive and in-depth academic research and theoretical interpretation, combine Marxist thought on science and technology with the actual practice of contemporary China's AI development, and avoid value disorientation and ethical loss-of-control phenomena caused by a shaken value foundation. At the same time, reduce the intake of fragmented panic information, actively filter objective and rational technological content, refuse to be led astray by traffic-driven narratives that amplify anxiety, and proactively build a scientific understanding of AI technology development.
At the social level, foster a rational and inclusive social atmosphere, abandon the public-opinion environment of one-sided narratives that peddle anxiety, objectively interpret the instrumental attributes and development boundaries of AI, and actively disseminate the positive value of technology empowering growth, creating new tracks, and giving rise to new opportunities. Further improve the employment and social security systems to reduce the risks brought by technological change. Optimize the talent evaluation system, focus on cultivating the problem-solving abilities, innovative thinking abilities, and comprehensive qualities of social groups, especially young people, and provide young people with a stable and promising growth track. Continue to improve AI ethical norms and industry rules, draw boundaries for technological application, and avoid employment chaos and growth risks brought by technology abuse. Improve the AI literacy training system for different groups, help workers establish a skill-updating system, adapt to job changes, open up a growth path facing the future, and enable every individual to find a clear position in the AI era and smoothly get through the period of technological transformation. In addition, vigorously popularize AI ethics education, establish relevant norms, guide technology toward goodness, and let technology serve people rather than purely pursuing efficiency at the expense of replacing human labor.
In short, AI is merely a tool created by humans, and the ultimate purpose of technological development has always been to enhance human well-being. Rather than falling into the internal friction of anxiety about being replaced, it is better to proactively embrace change, leverage technology for upgrading, reposition one's own value on the new track of human-machine collaboration, respond to the changes of the era with proactive growth, and ultimately achieve mutual achievement and common development between humans and technology.
Return to TopBy: 刘密霞
As a strategic technology leading a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation, artificial intelligence's influence has grown significantly with the deep application of large models and intelligent agents across various economic and social fields. In this process, AI security risks are evolving from isolated risks such as data leakage, algorithmic bias, and content distortion toward systemic and compound risks including autonomous decision-making errors, technology misuse, disruption of critical infrastructure, and cross-domain risk coupling. In recent years, China has formulated a series of management regulations around algorithmic recommendation, deep synthesis, and generative AI services, with continuous advancement in AI security assessment, algorithm filing, content governance, and technical standard construction, initially forming a governance framework based on laws and regulations and supported by departmental rules and technical standards. As AI rapidly moves from being a content generation tool into fields such as manufacturing, finance, healthcare, public governance, and intelligent terminals, the focus of AI security governance is shifting from regulation of individual links to full-lifecycle prevention and control, and from general compliance management to major risk governance.
Improve the legal and regulatory system to consolidate the institutional foundation for preventing and controlling major security risks
Large models and intelligent agents are accelerating their penetration into key fields such as finance, electric power, communications, transportation, healthcare, and government affairs. At present, there remain problems of insufficient institutional supply in defining major security risks, collaborative prevention and control of cross-domain risks, attribution of responsibility for intelligent agent behavior, and emergency response to security incidents.
Accelerate the construction of a legal and regulatory system for artificial intelligence that is clearly tiered and orderly connected. Based on the characteristics of rapid AI technology iteration, broad application scenarios, and high risk uncertainty, strengthen research and demonstration for foundational legislation, and clarify the basic principles for the research and development, provision, deployment, and use of AI. At the same time, it is necessary to ensure organic integration between AI-related institutions and existing legal systems including cybersecurity, data security, personal information protection, science and technology ethics, product quality, and public safety, effectively avoiding phenomena such as overlapping regulatory rules, duplicated responsibilities, or governance gaps. For application scenarios in important fields, industry competent departments should formulate supporting rules and regulatory guidelines in light of specific scenario characteristics, gradually forming an institutional system with basic rules as the overarching framework, special provisions as support, industry norms as refinement, and technical standards as supplements.
Improve the risk-oriented classified and tiered regulatory mechanism. AI security risks depend not only on the model's own technical capabilities, but are also closely related to its application scenarios, scope of authority, scale of service, and potential consequences of harm. Comprehensive consideration should be given to the model's generality, autonomy, tool invocation capability, user coverage scale, industry importance, and scope of risk diffusion, to scientifically classify general applications, high-risk applications, and applications that may produce major security impacts. Based on the evolution of technical capabilities and changes in risk patterns, dynamically adjust the risk catalog, regulatory standards, and compliance requirements, thereby enhancing the adaptability and forward-looking nature of the institutional system.
Further clarify the boundaries of security responsibility throughout the entire lifecycle of the AI industry. Security responsibility should be reasonably allocated according to the functional positioning of entities in model research and development, service provision, system integration, and scenario application, as well as their actual ability to control risks. Focus on consolidating the primary responsibility of AI service providers, urging model developers to strengthen model testing and security assessment, clarifying the duties of deployment and application units in permission configuration, operational monitoring, human oversight, and incident reporting, and guiding users to use AI services in accordance with laws and regulations, thereby building a security governance landscape featuring multi-party collaboration and clear responsibility.
Improve the technical monitoring system to enhance dynamic perception capabilities for major security risks
AI systems have characteristics such as complex internal mechanisms, dynamically evolving operational states, and concealed risk manifestations. Some security hazards are often difficult to reveal during the research, development, and testing stages, yet may gradually be exposed during model iteration and updates, external tool integration, deepening user interaction, and large-scale application. Therefore, it is necessary to further build a dynamic risk perception system covering model states, capability changes, anomalous behavior, and system dependencies.
Establish a technical monitoring mechanism covering the entire lifecycle of AI. Based on the heterogeneous manifestations of AI risks at different stages including data, model, deployment, and application, scientifically define monitoring objects and key categories. In the data stage, focus on strengthening monitoring of the legality of training data sources, reliability of data quality, hidden dangers of sensitive information leakage, and risks of data poisoning. In the model stage, focus on assessing the reliability of model operation, the effectiveness of safety guardrails, the evolution trend of dangerous capabilities, and tendencies toward anomalous behavior. In the deployment stage, focus on monitoring system permission configuration, security of external tool integration, model update processes, and supply chain resilience. In the application stage, focus on intelligent agent unauthorized operations, abnormally high-frequency invocations, propagation paths of generated content, and potential impacts on critical business systems, achieving closed-loop management throughout the entire process.
Improve a multi-tiered, collaborative security monitoring network. Promote AI enterprises and application entities to establish internal monitoring mechanisms commensurate with their model capabilities, service scale, and risk levels, ensuring that major model defects and abnormal operating conditions can be discovered and reported in a timely manner. Fully leverage the functional roles of professional evaluation institutions, research institutes, and industry organizations, gradually building a working pattern in which enterprise self-monitoring, third-party independent evaluation, industry professional monitoring, and government comprehensive monitoring support each other and engage in collaborative and coordinated action, forming a joint regulatory force.
Strengthen capacity building for AI security monitoring. Relying on the existing institutional foundation and technical accumulation of cybersecurity, data security, and algorithm governance, comprehensively enhance the capability for monitoring and early warning of AI product vulnerabilities, model operation anomalies, and security incidents. Strictly implement institutional requirements such as labeling of AI-generated content, management of changes to algorithm filings, and log retention, enhancing the traceability of risk sources and the auditability of propagation processes. On the premise of effectively protecting state secrets, commercial secrets, and personal information, actively explore necessary mechanisms for risk information notification and sharing among government departments, model enterprises, application units, and professional institutions, providing solid support for risk assessment, early warning and disposal, and precise governance.
Strengthen the risk early warning system to enhance the effectiveness of major security risk assessment and disposal
AI system operation data is massive in scale and anomalous forms are complex. Without a scientific assessment mechanism and tiered early warning, there is a risk of either missing the disposal window due to delayed warnings or disrupting normal research, development, and application processes due to over-generalized warnings. Therefore, it is necessary to accelerate the construction of an AI major security risk early warning system with clear indicators, scientific tiering, sound mechanisms, and smooth circulation.
Build an indicator system and tiering standards for AI major security risk early warning. Comprehensive consideration should be given to multi-dimensional factors including model capability, application scenario, scope of impact, rate of diffusion, and consequences of harm, to scientifically set early warning indicators. Promote the deep integration of qualitative judgment and quantitative indicators, transforming complex technical risks into identifiable, comparable, and traceable early warning signals. Based on the probability of risk occurrence, breadth of impact, degree of harm, and controllability, reasonably divide early warning levels and clarify activation conditions. At the same time, establish a dynamic adjustment mechanism for early warning levels, revising thresholds in a timely manner according to model iteration, expansion of application scale, and evolution of risk patterns, preventing original standards from becoming ineffective due to technological development.
Improve the multi-department, multi-entity collaborative risk assessment and information release mechanism. Major AI security risks often involve multiple fields including cybersecurity, data security, public safety, and industry security, and a single entity is difficult to independently and accurately assess their overall impact. A consultation and assessment mechanism should be established with the joint participation of industry competent departments, AI enterprises, application units, and professional institutions, conducting cross-validation of anomalous signals by integrating technical monitoring data, industry operation information, user feedback, and third-party evaluation results. In addition, based on the professional attributes, sensitivity level, and scope of impact of risks, clarify the release entities, reporting procedures, transmission targets, and public disclosure methods of early warning information, ensuring the standardization and timeliness of information transmission.
Achieve seamless linkage between risk early warning and prevention and control measures and emergency response. Based on early warning levels, pre-formulate differentiated disposal measures including strengthening monitoring, restricting high-risk functions, reducing service scope, suspending model interfaces, revoking intelligent agent permissions, and initiating manual takeover. For situations where risk levels continue to escalate, conventional means are difficult to control, or major public safety incidents may be triggered, promptly transition from risk early warning status to emergency response status. After risks are eliminated, organize post-event assessment, dynamically adjust early warning levels or terminate warnings, and incorporate new risks, new scenarios, and new indicators discovered during the disposal process into the early warning system, forming closed-loop management of risk identification, early warning assessment, response and disposal, and review and improvement.
Build an emergency response system to enhance collaborative disposal capabilities for major security incidents
Emergency response is the key line of defense for preventing major AI security risks from transforming into actual harm, curbing risk diffusion, and reducing the consequences of accidents. Compared with traditional cybersecurity incidents, AI security incidents exhibit notable characteristics such as complex technical mechanisms, extremely rapid evolution rates, broad impact coverage, and multiple responsible entities. It is imperative to coordinate routine supervision with emergency response to sudden incidents, relying on daily regulatory mechanisms to promptly eliminate hidden risks while also building, for abnormal situations that may trigger major public safety crises, an emergency response system featuring unified coordination, tiered responsibility, rapid response, and collaborative efficiency, enhancing the systematic nature of risk prevention and control.
Improve the classification standards and emergency plan system for AI security incidents. Research and formulate scientific and rigorous standards for identifying AI security incidents, precisely defining differentiated types such as model operation failures, data security leaks, algorithm loss of control, intelligent agent unauthorized operations, malicious dissemination of generated content, and AI-enabled cyberattacks. For typical high-risk scenarios including failure of large model safety guardrails, abnormal autonomous actions of intelligent agents, interruption of critical industry system operations, and large-scale dissemination of deepfake information, formulate special emergency plans, detailing the entire process from discovery and reporting, assessment and decision-making, response activation, on-site disposal, to information release and response termination, effectively enhancing the targeting, practicality, and closed-loop management capability of emergency plans.
Improve the cross-departmental, cross-industry emergency command and coordination mechanism. Based on the nature of incidents and their fields of impact, clarify the responsibility boundaries of lead departments, coordinating departments, local governments, and involved enterprises, building an efficient response mechanism featuring unified command, professional support, industry coordination, and local cooperation. Improve the rapid reporting and information sharing system for major security incidents, urging model research and development enterprises, application units, and operators of critical infrastructure to promptly report the nature of incidents, scope of impact, disposal progress, and evolving risk trends. When responding to major cross-industry, cross-regional emergencies, promptly organize joint consultations to unify risk assessment and disposal action steps, avoiding delays in the optimal disposal window due to fragmented information or conflicting instructions.
Improve tiered emergency disposal measures commensurate with risk levels. Based on dynamic assessment of incident type, risk level, and scope of impact, implement differentiated measures by category including risk notification, strengthened monitoring, function restriction, permission downgrade, interface suspension, system isolation, manual takeover, and service termination. Implementation of emergency intervention measures should strictly follow the principles of necessity and proportionality, effectively blocking risk diffusion paths while minimizing negative impacts on normal research and development innovation, application promotion, and production and operation activities, achieving a dynamic balance between security control and development vitality.
Return to TopBy: 李庆刚
In September 1956, the Eighth National Congress of the Communist Party of China was convened, the first National Congress held after the Party came to power nationwide. At the time of its convening, the socialist revolution had basically been completed and socialist construction was about to unfold in an all-round way. With the victory of the revolution and changes in the condition of the state, the condition of the Party itself had also undergone great changes. In his "Report on the Revision of the Party Constitution" delivered at the Eighth National Congress, Deng Xiaoping clearly pointed out that "the Communist Party of China is already the party in power and already occupies the leading position in all state work," and that "the position of the party in power causes our Party to face a new test." Based on the sober judgment of "the position of the party in power," the Eighth National Congress made preliminary yet creative explorations in strengthening the building of the party in power in such respects as safeguarding Party unity and solidarity, maintaining close ties with the masses, integrating theory with practice, and combining ideological education with institutional restraint. These achievements still possess important reference value and enlightening significance for unswervingly advancing full and rigorous self-governance of the Party in the new era.
Safeguarding Party Unity and Solidarity
In his opening address to the Eighth National Congress, Mao Zedong stated at the very outset that the task of this congress was: "to sum up the experience since the Seventh Congress, unite the whole Party, unite all forces at home and abroad that can be united, and strive to build a great socialist China." He stressed: "Our Party has already become the core force uniting the people of the whole country in carrying out socialist construction." Placing "unity" at the core of the congress's tasks was by no means accidental.
Under the conditions of being in power, the Party faced new challenges different from those of the era of revolutionary war. During the revolutionary war period, the harsh external environment of struggle against the enemy forced the Party to remain highly cohesive and united, forming a powerful combined force; otherwise it could not have gained an advantage in the struggle against the enemy and thus defeated it. After becoming the party in power, "because of victory, sentiments of arrogance within the Party, sentiments of posing as meritorious veterans, sentiments of stopping and seeking no progress, and sentiments of indulging in comfort and being unwilling to continue living a hard life may grow." Mao Zedong was keenly alert to this and had warned the whole Party of it at the Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee. After the founding of New China, the Party accumulated preliminary experience in building the party in power by carrying out rectification campaigns and Party consolidation, strengthening inner-Party education, rectifying primary-level Party organizations, raising the qualifications for Party membership, and opposing bureaucracy, commandism, and corruption and waste. Mao Zedong affirmed that "our Party is now more united and more consolidated than at any time in the past," but at the same time stressed that "we must earnestly correct any undesirable phenomenon at any link of work that harms the unity between the Party and the people."
On the basis of summing up the experience of Party building after the founding of New China, the Eighth National Congress, for the first time, wrote "Party unity and solidarity" into the General Program of the Party Constitution, clearly stating: "Party unity and solidarity are the life of the Party and the source of the Party's strength. Constantly paying attention to safeguarding Party unity and consolidating Party solidarity is the sacred duty of every Party member. Within the Party, acts that violate the Party's political line and organizational principles are not permitted, nor are acts that split the Party, engage in factional activities, assert independence from the Party, or place the individual above the collective of the Party." The Party Constitution also transformed this principle into a concrete obligation that every Party member must fulfill. In the clause on the obligations of Party members, the second item clearly states, "safeguard Party unity and consolidate Party solidarity." If a Party member "seriously violates these obligations and undermines Party solidarity," this constitutes a violation of Party discipline and should be subject to disciplinary action. At the same time, in order to maintain Party unity and solidarity, both the Party Constitution adopted at the Eighth National Congress and Deng Xiaoping's "Report on the Revision of the Party Constitution" pointed out the need to encourage the development of criticism and self-criticism within the Party, to point out shortcomings and errors, and to take practical measures to correct them.
Party unity and solidarity are the source of the Party's strength and the political prerequisite for building the party in power. For the first time, the Party Constitution adopted at the Eighth National Congress established "Party unity and solidarity" as "the life of the Party" in the form of a dedicated clause, and explicitly included "safeguard Party unity and consolidate Party solidarity" among the obligations of Party members. This disciplinary requirement, enduring through the ages and of great significance, provides historical reference for upholding and strengthening the Party's leadership in an all-round way and safeguarding the authority of the Party Central Committee and its centralized, unified leadership in the new era.
Maintaining Close Ties with the Masses
If there is one theme running through the Party building explorations of the Eighth National Congress, it is the mass line. In his opening address to the Eighth National Congress, Mao Zedong regarded "relying on the masses of the people" as the fundamental condition for victory. He pointed out: "Although we have more than ten million Party members, they still constitute only a very small minority of the national population." "If we are not good at relying on the masses of the people and not good at cooperating with people outside the Party, then we cannot do our work well." Deng Xiaoping also pointed out: "Because our Party is now the party in power throughout the country, the danger of becoming divorced from the masses has greatly increased compared with before, and the harm that divorce from the masses may cause to the people has also greatly increased compared with before." The judgment of the "two increases" was not alarmist. Deng Xiaoping comprehensively analyzed the erosion of the Party-mass relationship by bureaucracy under the conditions of being in power: many leading organs and leading cadres "stand high above the masses, do not approach the masses, do not attach importance to investigation and study, and do not understand the real situation in their work"; some "spend the great majority of their time handling documents and telegrams and attending unnecessary and excessive meetings"; and, more seriously, "some leading comrades are unwilling to approach the masses, do not care about the masses' hardships, and, regarding problems the masses urgently demand to be solved, do not actively solve them but adopt an indifferent and apathetic attitude." He summarized the manifestations of bureaucracy as subjectivist decision-making divorced from reality, lazy governance that mechanically transmits higher-level directives, formalism and commandism in work methods that are satisfied with superficial achievements, and so on. After laying out the problems, Deng Xiaoping demonstrated the extreme importance of the mass line from the perspective of historical experience. He reviewed a series of victories such as the War of Liberation and land reform, and asked: "Which one of these was not the result of implementing the mass line?" This historical argument had a dual function: on the one hand, it used successful experience to prove the effectiveness of the mass line; on the other hand, it highlighted the intensification of the danger of divorce from the masses through the contrast between before and after coming to power. Liu Shaoqi stressed that in order to consolidate the close ties between the Party and the masses of the people, it was necessary to continue to strengthen work among the masses in all fields, and in particular it was necessary to repeatedly conduct education in serving the people wholeheartedly among all cadres and Party members.
On this basis, the congress, for the first time, incorporated the concept of the "mass line" into the Party Constitution adopted at the Eighth National Congress, requiring that "the tradition of the mass line in the Party's work must be continuously carried forward." In his report, Deng Xiaoping summarized the connotation of the mass line: on the one hand, the masses of the people must liberate themselves, and "the entire task of the Party is to serve the masses of the people wholeheartedly"; on the other hand, whether the Party's leadership work can remain correct "depends on whether it can adopt the method of 'from the masses, to the masses.'" At the same time, concrete measures for implementing the mass line were put forward, including strengthening education in the mass line, improving the working methods of leading organs, and enabling leading personnel to have sufficient time to go deep among the masses. These measures may not have been perfect, but they reflected the effort to transform the mass line from a theoretical principle into an operable institution.
The vitality of a political party ultimately depends on whether it truly plants its roots among the people. The Eighth National Congress's emphasis on the extreme importance of maintaining close ties with the masses and implementing the mass line was a concentrated presentation, under the conditions of being in power, of the fine quality of the Communist Party of China in being "deeply rooted in the people," and it also provides historical inspiration for adhering to the people-centered development philosophy and following the Party's mass line in the new era.
Integrating Theory with Practice
In his opening address to the Eighth National Congress, Mao Zedong stressed: "The victories of our country's revolution and construction are all victories of Marxism-Leninism. Closely integrating the theory of Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution is the consistent ideological principle of our Party." Marxism is not a doctrine of the study; it can only prove its own scientific nature and truth in the process of answering China's concrete questions. In the first half of 1956, in view of some problems and errors exposed by the Soviet Union in the process of socialist construction, Mao Zedong clearly proposed taking the Soviet Union as a mirror and integrating the basic principles of Marxism-Leninism with the concrete reality of our country's revolution and construction to formulate our line, principles, and policies. The Eighth National Congress's exploration of the path of socialist construction was precisely the practice of this "integration." But it should also be noted that within the Party "there still exist viewpoints and styles of work that violate Marxism-Leninism, namely: subjectivism in thought, bureaucracy in work, and sectarianism in organization," and Mao Zedong demanded "using the method of strengthening inner-Party ideological education to vigorously overcome these serious shortcomings in our ranks." Listing subjectivism as the first of the "three major isms" of viewpoints and styles of work that violate Marxism-Leninism was highly targeted. During the era of revolutionary war, the cruel environment of struggle forced the Party to proceed from reality; otherwise it would face a survival crisis. After coming to power, in a peaceful environment, decision-makers easily fall into the trap of "proceeding from imagination and wishes," causing the resolutions and directives they make to be numerous, yet some not entirely correct and some even completely wrong.
In order to overcome shortcomings such as subjectivism, it is necessary to integrate theory with practice and seek truth from facts. To this end, Liu Shaoqi pointed out: "Systematic efforts must be made to raise the level of Marxism-Leninism of our Party." First, it is necessary to earnestly strengthen systematic study of Marxism-Leninism by cadres, above all senior cadres, so that they become adept at observing and solving problems in real life with the Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint, and method, improve their ability to judge direction and distinguish right from wrong in complex situations, and learn to use Marxist-Leninist theory to study and sort out their own work experience and find in experience the laws of development of concrete things. Second, it is necessary to strengthen education among the broad masses of new Party members in the unity of theory and practice, so that they gradually understand the Marxist-Leninist stand, viewpoint, and method, acquire basic knowledge of the general principles of Marxism-Leninism, the Party's history, and the current situation of our country's socialist cause, and understand the harm of subjectivism, including both dogmatism and empiricism. Third, it is necessary to strengthen the Party's theoretical work. It is appropriate to concentrate the necessary Marxist-Leninist scientific research forces inside and outside the Party to engage in research on the major problems and basic experience of our country's socialist transformation and socialist construction, to engage in research on the basic theories of Marxism-Leninism and on scientific fields closely related to Marxism-Leninism, so that this series of research suits the urgent needs of the Party's current practical work.
The "Resolution on the Political Report" adopted at the Eighth National Congress pointed out: "Whether all our tasks can be successfully accomplished ultimately depends on whether the Party's leadership is correct. That is to say, it depends on whether the Party's leadership can seek truth from facts and can closely integrate the universal truth of Marxism-Leninism with the practice of the Chinese revolution." Integrating theory with practice and seeking truth from facts are the inherent requirements of the fine quality of the Communist Party of China in persistently pursuing truth. The relevant discussions on Party building at the Eighth National Congress fully displayed this fine quality of the Party, recorded it in the annals of history and enlightening the future, and also provide historical nourishment for the new era's adherence to emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts, advancing with the times, and being pragmatic and realistic.
Combining Ideological Education with Institutional Restraint
The pioneering contribution of the Eighth National Congress to the building of the party in power also lay in its clear proposal of the dual path of combining ideological education with institutional restraint. In response to the shortcomings of subjectivism, bureaucracy, and sectarianism existing within the Party, Mao Zedong proposed overcoming them "by the method of strengthening inner-Party ideological education." Deng Xiaoping pointed out: "In addition to strengthening ideological education for Party members, the Party should, more importantly, strengthen the Party's leading role in all aspects and make appropriate provisions in the state system and the Party system so as to exercise strict supervision over Party organizations and Party members." This shows that the central leadership at that time had already realized that relying solely on ideological education was insufficient to meet the special challenges faced by the party in power. Ideological education can raise consciousness, but it is difficult for it to restrain power; it can stimulate self-discipline, but it cannot prevent the abuse of power. Only by combining ideological education with institutional restraint can an effective system and mechanism for governing and managing the Party be constructed.
While advocating the use of the method of ideological education, Liu Shaoqi also gave deep thought to "further consolidating our Party" and put forward the task of "systematically formulating relatively complete laws and perfecting the legal system of our country." He pointed out that the stormy period of revolution had passed, "the methods of struggle must therefore also change accordingly, and a complete legal system is entirely necessary." To this end, the Eighth National Congress elected a Central Control Commission with Dong Biwu as secretary, and stipulated that Party committees at all levels at and above the county level should all establish control commissions. The Party Constitution adopted at the Eighth National Congress specially set up a chapter on "Party Control Organs," clarifying that the tasks of the Party's central and local control commissions are: "to regularly inspect and handle cases of Party members violating the Party Constitution, Party discipline, communist morality, and state laws and decrees; to decide on and rescind disciplinary action against Party members; and to accept complaints and appeals from Party members." This system design, extending vertically to the grassroots, enabled the Party's control network to cover organizations at all levels. At the same time, the Party Constitution adopted at the Eighth National Congress made a series of provisions on democratic centralism, collective leadership, and other matters, such as: directly linking the maintenance or otherwise of the political principle of "Party unity and solidarity" to disciplinary consequences; developing the provisions on the rights of Party members in the Party Constitution adopted at the Seventh National Congress; and adding requirements such as "the leading organs at all levels of the Party must regularly listen to the opinions of lower-level organizations and Party members and the masses, study their experience, and promptly solve their problems." Although these provisions were later not fully implemented due to the influence of various factors, the thinking behind their institutional design has far-reaching influence and lasting value, and also provides historical reference for the new era's adherence to building the Party ideologically and governing the Party with institutions in the same direction and with simultaneous force.
Return to TopBy: 王巧荣
The Joint Communiqué of the People's Republic of China and the United States of America (hereinafter referred to as the "Shanghai Communiqué") was issued in Shanghai on February 28, 1972, and jointly signed during U.S. President Nixon's visit to China. It is a landmark document in the history of Sino-U.S. relations. This unique diplomatic document opened the process of normalizing relations between the two countries, and together with the subsequent Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and the United States and the August 17 Communiqué, it became the political foundation and guiding document for the stable development of Sino-U.S. relations.
Common strategic needs were an important driving force behind the conclusion of the communiqué
In the late 1960s, the international situation underwent major changes. The United States was trapped in a difficult situation (深陷泥潭, shen xian ni tan - "deeply sink, mud pit") in its war of aggression against Vietnam and was on the defensive in its global competition with the Soviet Union. To change this situation, the United States extended an olive branch to China. Chinese leaders began to consider strategic adjustments to their policy toward the United States in order to achieve an improvement in the diplomatic situation.
From the perspective of U.S.-Soviet relations, the Soviet Union took advantage of the United States' being trapped in a difficult situation in the Vietnam War to concentrate on developing its economic and military strength, and in particular its military power. Within just a few years, the Soviet Union's strategic nuclear forces caught up with those of the United States. With the growth of its strength, the Soviet Union accelerated its pace of external expansion. At the same time, it launched a diplomatic offensive in Europe, vigorously advocating a European collective security system and improving relations with Western Europe in an attempt to weaken U.S. influence in Europe. In Southeast Asia, the Soviet Union supported Vietnam's war of resistance against U.S. aggression and for national salvation, tying down U.S. military forces and expanding Soviet influence in Southeast Asia. This brought about profound changes in the U.S.-Soviet competition for hegemony since the Cold War, shifting from a situation in which the United States was on the offensive and the Soviet Union on the defensive to one in which the Soviet Union was on the offensive and the United States on the defensive. All of these became direct motivations for the newly inaugurated U.S. president to seek improved relations with China.
From the perspective of Sino-Soviet relations, the Soviet Union continued to increase its military deployment along China's northern border regions, exerting strategic pressure on China. In accordance with Mao Zedong's instructions, the four marshals Chen Yi, Xu Xiangqian, Nie Rongzhen, and Ye Jianying held two or three forums on the international situation each month from April to October 1969, and successively submitted two reports to the central authorities: "A Preliminary Assessment of the War Situation" and "Views on the Current Situation." The reports conducted in-depth analysis and assessment of the development trends in the strategic relations among China, the United States, and the Soviet Union, and put forward proposals to resume Sino-U.S. talks and strive to break the deadlock in Sino-U.S. relations.
From the perspective of Sino-U.S. relations, both countries had a strategic need to ease their mutual relations. After the founding of New China, Western countries led by the United States adopted a policy of isolating and containing China. From 1950 to 1953, China's War to Resist U.S. Aggression and Aid Korea shattered the U.S. attempt to strangle it. From then on, for a full 20 years, China and the United States were in long-term opposition and confrontation with each other, and the road to turning around bilateral relations was therefore full of twists and turns (一波三折, yi bo san zhe - "one wave, three bends"). In October 1967, Nixon published an article titled "Asia After Viet Nam" in the journal Foreign Affairs, proposing that the United States should promote China's emergence from isolation and return to the international community. This realist declaration laid the foundation for his China policy. On January 20, 1969, Nixon was inaugurated, and thereafter he contemplated translating his ideas into action.
Diplomatic "minuet" dispelled doubts and built trust
To break the ice between China and the United States, the two sides launched a carefully choreographed diplomatic "minuet." Through multiple channels, the two sides released goodwill, gradually accumulated mutual trust, and advanced bilateral relations toward a historic breakthrough.
On February 1, 1969, Nixon sent a memorandum to his National Security Adviser Kissinger, instructing him to draft a research report on U.S. policy toward China. On February 5, Kissinger sent National Security Study Memorandum (NSSM 14) to the State Department, the Department of Defense, and the CIA, requiring them to conduct a comprehensive review of China policy; on February 12, Kissinger submitted preliminary recommendations. To avoid domestic political interference, the U.S. side initially conveyed messages to the Chinese side through secret diplomatic channels via Pakistan and Romania. From July to August 1969, Nixon embarked on a round-the-world diplomatic tour, during which he met separately with the leaders of Pakistan and Romania, asking them to serve as intermediaries to convey to China the U.S. message of seeking peace: a desire to normalize relations, not to isolate China, and not to intervene in the Sino-Soviet conflict.
Resuming the Sino-U.S. ambassadorial talks became an important channel for exploring a détente with China. On December 3, 1969, U.S. Ambassador to Poland Walter Stoessel "chased after" Chinese diplomats at a Yugoslav fashion show to convey Nixon's message of wanting "serious, concrete talks." This diplomatic anecdote quickly led to contact between the two sides. On January 20 and February 20, 1970, China and the United States held the 135th and 136th ambassadorial-level talks in Warsaw.
The Chinese side responded to the messages conveyed by the U.S. side in the implicit manner characteristic of Chinese political philosophy. On October 1, 1970, National Day, Mao Zedong invited American journalist Edgar Snow to ascend the Tiananmen rostrum and stand by his side to review the parade. On December 25, the People's Daily published the photo on its front page, releasing a clear political signal. But the U.S. side failed to pick up on this signal. In October 1970, Nixon met separately in Washington with the leaders of Pakistan and Romania, who had come to attend the ceremonies marking the 25th anniversary of the founding of the United Nations, and proposed sending a senior special envoy on a secret visit to China. In November, a Romanian official visited China and conveyed the U.S. willingness to send a senior special envoy on a secret visit to China. Zhou Enlai indicated that "it would also be fine if Nixon came himself." On December 9, Zhou Enlai also gave a positive response through the Pakistan channel, which subsequently became the main channel of communication between China and the United States. On December 18, Mao Zedong talked with Snow in Zhongnanhai and stated clearly, "If Nixon is willing to come, I am willing to talk with him. It is fine whether the talks succeed or not." This conversation was published by Snow in Life magazine. A few days later it came to Nixon's attention, greatly strengthening the U.S. side's confidence in China's sincerity and thereby accelerating the pace of U.S. diplomacy toward China.
After nearly two years of multi-level interactions, mutual trust between the two sides gradually increased. From April 10 to 17, 1971, at the invitation of the Chinese side, the U.S. table tennis delegation, which had been participating in the World Table Tennis Championships in Nagoya, Japan, visited China. This was the first group of Americans to officially enter China since 1949, and the Sino-U.S. "minuet" diplomacy reached its climax. On April 21, Zhou Enlai conveyed a personal letter through the President of Pakistan, formally inviting Kissinger to visit China secretly or openly to discuss Nixon's visit to China. Nixon called this letter "the most important letter received by an American president since the end of World War II." These measures, coordinated internally and externally, greatly eased the atmosphere between the two countries and were hailed as "the small ball turning the big ball." At this point, the Sino-U.S. détente moved from the exploratory stage to the stage of substantive preparation.
A pioneering feat in the history of world diplomacy
From July 9 to 11, 1971, U.S. presidential special envoy Kissinger, under the code name "Operation Polo," made a secret visit to China through the Pakistan channel. Nixon gave him two tasks: first, to discuss the date and preparations for President Nixon's visit to China; second, to conduct preliminary talks on behalf of President Nixon. During the visit, Zhou Enlai and Kissinger held six rounds of talks, discussing in depth the international situation, the Taiwan issue, and other matters. This secret visit achieved positive and crucial results. On July 16, the two sides issued a joint announcement declaring that Nixon would visit China at an appropriate time before May 1972. This announcement caused a strong reaction in the international community. Thereafter, a direct secret channel was established in Paris, handled by U.S. military attaché in France Walters and Chinese Ambassador to France Huang Zhen, to implement the specific arrangements for Nixon's visit to China.
In October of the same year, U.S. presidential special envoy Kissinger visited China again to prepare for Nixon's visit. During this period, the U.S. side proposed that the two sides jointly issue a communiqué. Zhou Enlai reported this to Mao Zedong and obtained his agreement. With regard to drafting the communiqué, the U.S. side appeared more enthusiastic on the surface, feeling that it would be hard for Nixon to account for a visit with no results. China felt that Nixon's coming in person was already an achievement for the Chinese side, that having a document would also be good, and that it did not matter if an agreement could not truly be reached. Therefore, the two sides quickly reached agreement on whether to have a communiqué.
In order to highlight the achievements of Nixon's visit, Kissinger brought a draft of the communiqué jointly drafted by all of the U.S. government's China experts. This draft tried hard to conceal the differences between China and the United States, using a series of diplomatic platitudes to highlight so-called common ground. Zhou Enlai suggested adopting the principle of "each side stating its own views," "clearly writing out the differences between the two sides, while also writing out the common ground between the two sides, so that both can jointly follow it." In accordance with this basic spirit, the Chinese side produced a communiqué draft of a distinctive style. It very clearly set forth the Chinese government's views and positions on a series of bilateral and international issues, and then left several blank pages for the U.S. side to set forth its views. Clearly, this was a joint communiqué of a unique form, full of differences and opposition in views. Kissinger also recognized that this was an "unprecedented" draft communiqué, and further came to believe that this unconventional approach might resolve the difficulties between the two sides. Setting out the differences would reassure allies and friends, showing that their interests were protected. If the two sides could form some kind of common position, then it would stand out prominently, showing it to be the reliable conviction of leaders who adhered to principles. During Kissinger's second visit to China, the structure and general content of the Sino-U.S. joint communiqué were largely agreed upon, thereby paving the way for Nixon's visit.
From February 21 to 28, 1972, Nixon visited China, and the leaders of China and the United States crossed the Pacific to achieve a historic handshake. But the negotiations over the remaining issues in the communiqué draft were full of twists and turns. The main reasons were, first, that nearly half a year had passed since the negotiations on the draft communiqué, and the content needed to be adjusted in light of changes in the international situation; second, that after Kissinger returned home, under pressure from certain forces within the United States, the U.S. side attempted to revise some of the wording in the communiqué. In this connection, Kissinger conducted 11 rounds of consultations with Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua, during which he also twice sought separate meetings with Zhou Enlai. After multiple rounds of negotiations, in the early morning of February 25, 1972, the two sides finally reached agreement on the core formulations of the communiqué. On February 28, on the day Nixon concluded his visit to China, China and the United States jointly issued the joint communiqué in Shanghai.
The Shanghai Communiqué is one of the most landmark documents in the history of Sino-U.S. relations and even in the history of international relations in the 20th century. It marked the end of 23 years of hostility and isolation between the two countries and opened the historical process of normalizing their relations, and is hailed as the core achievement of Nixon's visit to China, the "week that changed the world." It was not only an important turning point in the foreign policy of the Communist Party of China, but also laid the foundation for the establishment of diplomatic relations between the two countries, exerting an important and far-reaching influence on the contemporary world political landscape. In the communiqué, the U.S. side for the first time formally stated: "The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position." These principles were further confirmed and developed in the subsequent Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and the United States and the August 17 Communiqué, and constitute the political foundation for the development of Sino-U.S. relations.
With the restoration of China's lawful seat in the United Nations in 1971 and the beginning of the process of normalizing Sino-U.S. relations, China experienced a wave of establishing diplomatic relations. By the end of 1972, the number of countries that had established diplomatic relations with China reached 88, doubling within three years compared with the end of 1969. This greatly enhanced China's international standing and strategic room for maneuver. Unlike traditional diplomatic joint communiqués that use diplomatic platitudes to gloss over relations between the two sides, the communiqué adopted the model of "each side stating its own views," fully embodying the diplomatic wisdom of seeking common ground while reserving differences (求同存异, qiu tong cun yi - "seek same, preserve difference"), and thus became a pioneering feat in the history of world diplomacy.
Return to TopBy: 郭晓科
"Strengthening the Building of International Communication Capacity and Presenting a True, Multi-Dimensional, and Comprehensive Image of China" is the main points of the important speech delivered by General Secretary Xi Jinping when he presided over the 30th group study session of the Political Bureau of the 19th CPC Central Committee on May 31, 2021, and is included in Volume II of Selected Works of Xi Jinping on Culture. This important document, grounded in the strategic overall situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and the changes unseen in a century in the world, systematically summarizes the achievements of China's international communication work since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, profoundly answers the major question of how to strengthen and improve international communication work under the new circumstances, and provides the fundamental guidance for building a strategic communication system with distinct Chinese characteristics and comprehensively enhancing the effectiveness of international communication.
Strengthening the building of international communication capacity is a strategic task for serving national rejuvenation and responding to the changes of the times
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that it is necessary to "make great efforts to strengthen the building of international communication capacity, form international discourse power commensurate with China's comprehensive national strength and international status, create a favorable external public opinion environment for China's reform, development, and stability, and make positive contributions to promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind." This important assertion places the building of international communication capacity within the historical perspective of the "two overall situations" for planning; it is both a component of the strategic overall situation of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation and an important support for responding to the changes unseen in a century in the world and promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.
At present, the situation in the international public opinion landscape in which "the West is strong and we are weak" has not fundamentally changed, and China's international discourse power does not yet fully match its comprehensive national strength and international status. Strengthening and improving international communication work and comprehensively enhancing the effectiveness of international communication is a major and urgent strategic task for the entire Party. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, China has vigorously promoted international communication by upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, straightened out the systems for domestic and external publicity, and initially established a multi-subject, multi-dimensional pattern of major external publicity. "Advancing the building of international communication capacity, telling China's stories well, and presenting a true, multi-dimensional, and comprehensive image of China" was formally written into the report of the 19th National Congress of the CPC, making international communication an important task at the national strategic level. The requirement for strengthening the building of international communication capacity is to transform China's development advantages and comprehensive national strength into discourse advantages, to distill the practical experience of Chinese modernization into Chinese theory and transform it into Chinese discourse, so that the world not only hears China's voice but can also understand China's path and identify with China's propositions.
Building a Chinese discourse and Chinese narrative system is the key to strengthening the building of international communication capacity
General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "it is necessary to accelerate the building of a Chinese discourse and Chinese narrative system." The discourse system addresses the question of what concepts and frameworks to use for expression. Since the 18th National Congress of the CPC, from emphasizing the careful construction of an external discourse system to requiring innovation in the ways of expressing external discourse, the requirements for building China's discourse system have been consistent from beginning to end (一以贯之, yi yi guan zhi - "one, through, continue, consist") and have deepened step by step, aiming to provide solid discourse support for presenting a true, multi-dimensional, and comprehensive image of China. The foundation of building a Chinese discourse system lies in academic theory: it is necessary to use Chinese theory to explain Chinese practice and use Chinese practice to elevate Chinese theory, focusing on building foundational discourse, common discourse, and leading discourse. The key lies in integration: it is necessary to create new concepts, new categories, and new expressions that integrate China and the rest of the world, so that the world can understand and is willing to listen. The ultimate purpose lies in thought: it is not merely about telling China's stories well, but more importantly about fully demonstrating China's stories and the power of thought and spirit behind them; in the final analysis, it is about enabling people abroad to understand why the Communist Party of China can, why Marxism works, and why socialism with Chinese characteristics is good.
The narrative system addresses the question of what stories to tell and how to tell them so that they enter the mind and heart. In building a Chinese narrative system, the keynote lies in modesty: it is necessary to grasp the overall keynote of openness and confidence, humility and modesty. The goal lies in trustworthiness: it is necessary to strive to shape a credible, lovable, and respectable image of China. The vehicle lies in culture: it is necessary to use literature to convey the truth (以文载道, yi wen zai dao - "use, writing, carry, way"), to convey the voice through culture, and to cultivate people through culture. It is necessary to be adept at using various vivid and moving examples so that the international community can understand a true, multi-dimensional, and comprehensive China through stories.
The Chinese discourse and Chinese narrative system is rooted in an independent knowledge system. In April 2022, when General Secretary Xi Jinping inspected Renmin University of China, he emphasized that accelerating the building of philosophy and social sciences with Chinese characteristics is, in the final analysis, the construction of China's independent knowledge system. Without an independent knowledge system as the academic foundation, Chinese discourse would lack principles that can stand firm, and Chinese narrative would lack the confidence to explain itself clearly. It is necessary to conduct in-depth research around the Chinese spirit, Chinese values, and Chinese strength from multiple perspectives, including politics, economy, culture, society, and ecological civilization, to provide academic support for international communication work.
Building a systematic and complete strategic communication system
Strengthening the building of international communication capacity is a systematic project. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "it is necessary to strengthen top-level design and research planning, and build a strategic communication system with distinct Chinese characteristics," and clearly stated the need to "strive to enhance the influence of international communication, the appeal of Chinese culture, the affinity of China's image, the persuasiveness of Chinese discourse, and the guiding power of international public opinion." These "five forces" constitute a complete system of strategic goals: the influence of international communication is the overall goal; the appeal of Chinese culture, the affinity of China's image, and the persuasiveness of Chinese discourse serve this goal respectively from the three aspects of cultural identification, emotional distance, and rational persuasion; and the guiding power of international public opinion points to the ability to proactively shape the situation in a complex international public opinion environment. The "five forces" interact with and support each other, and any shortcoming in any one of them will affect the overall effectiveness.
Building a strategic communication system means that international communication work cannot remain confined to a single department or a single link. Regarding how to comprehensively enhance the effectiveness of international communication, General Secretary Xi Jinping put forward a series of specific requirements in this important document, constituting a complete chain from content production to institutional guarantee.
Improve top-level design and overall coordination mechanisms. International communication involves a wide range of areas, has long cycles, and strong spillover effects, and must rely on unified strategic planning to avoid dispersed efforts. It is necessary to strengthen theoretical research on international communication, "grasp the laws of international communication, build an external discourse system, and improve the art of communication." The building of international communication capacity should be incorporated into the responsibility system for ideological work of Party committees (Party groups), requiring Party committees (Party groups) at all levels to strengthen organizational leadership and increase investment, leading cadres at all levels to take the initiative in doing international communication work, and principal responsible comrades to "both personally grasp it and personally do it," forming a work pattern of joint management and shared responsibility.
Innovate in conducting online external publicity and build a multi-channel, multi-dimensional pattern of external communication. "It is necessary to adopt precise communication methods that are close to different regions, different countries, and different groups of audiences, promote the globalized expression, regionalized expression, and segmented expression of China's stories and China's voice, and enhance the affinity and effectiveness of international communication." Globalized expression addresses the issue of the foundation of common values, regionalized expression addresses the issue of differences in regional contexts, and segmented expression addresses the issue of the divergence of concerns among different groups; the three are mentioned together, and the essence is to require international communication to shift from a "one-to-many" model to a precise supply that is stratified and categorized. At present, cyberspace and intelligent technologies are becoming key variables in international communication, the ways in which overseas audiences obtain information are undergoing profound changes, and the focus of communication fronts should shift accordingly.
Deepen people-to-people and cultural exchanges and stimulate the vitality of multiple actors. "It is necessary to better promote Chinese culture going global," and to explain and recommend to the world more excellent culture that has Chinese characteristics, embodies the Chinese spirit, and contains Chinese wisdom. The characteristic of cultural communication is influencing someone imperceptibly (潜移默化, qian yi mo hua - "subtle, move, silent, transform") and influencing people subtly and imperceptibly (润物无声, run wu wu sheng - "moisten, things, without, sound"); its effect is not reflected in the volume of public opinion at a given moment, but in the long-term accumulation of cognition. "It is necessary to make friends extensively (广交朋友, guang jiao peng you - "broadly, make, friends"), unite with and win over the majority, and continuously expand the international public opinion circle of friends who understand China and are friendly to China," to carry out in-depth people-to-people and cultural exchange activities in various forms, pay attention to giving play to the role of non-governmental forces and youth groups, and enable more people to become tellers of China's stories.
Grasp the communication keynote and enhance the ability to speak out on major issues externally. "It is necessary to pay attention to grasping the keynote well, being both open and confident as well as humble and modest, and striving to shape a credible, lovable, and respectable image of China." The keynote issue is essentially a matter of posture: it is necessary both to clearly state China's position and to demonstrate sincerity in equal dialogue. At the same time, "it is necessary to pay attention to the strategy and art of public opinion struggle, enhance the ability to speak out on major issues externally," and to be well-grounded in reason and evidence (有理有据, you li you ju - "have, reason, have, evidence") and powerful yet restrained (有力有节, you li you jie - "have, power, have,节 (restraint)"), proactively set agendas, respond to concerns in a timely manner, and firmly grasp the initiative in guiding international public opinion.
Build a strong contingent of specialized personnel and consolidate the organizational foundation for strengthening the building of international communication capacity. Communication capacity ultimately depends on organizations and personnel to carry it. "It is necessary to comprehensively enhance the effectiveness of international communication and build a strong contingent of specialized personnel suited to the needs of international communication in the new era," and "innovate systems and mechanisms, and transform our institutional advantages, organizational advantages, and human resource advantages into communication advantages." General Secretary Xi Jinping also emphasized strengthening the building of university disciplines and the cultivation of reserve personnel, and raising the level of theoretical research on international communication. It is necessary to establish organizational guarantees, personnel guarantees, theoretical guarantees, and institutional guarantees simultaneously, so as to provide solid support for forming international discourse power commensurate with China's comprehensive national strength and international status on the new journey.
Return to TopBy: 韩毓海
Tianxia: China That Embraces All Four Directions, by Han Yuhai, published by The Commercial Press
Today, our academic work, including work in all other fields, may encounter various kinds of problems, and the cause of these problems is often precisely the lack of what is called a broad overall view. So what is a broad overall view? Here, I believe that first of all we must get clear on what a grand view of history is.
The term "grand view of history" was first put forward by the British historian Arnold Toynbee. Toynbee once participated, in the capacity of a representative of the British government, in the Paris Peace Conferences held after the two world wars in 1919 and 1946; and his greatest academic contribution was to take "civilization" as the most basic unit of historical research, which was a pioneering move in historical research.
What is politics? Politics is institutional guarantee, and its purpose is to guarantee the survival and development of mankind. And peace is the precondition of survival; if there is no peace, survival itself is a problem, so how can development even be discussed? Therefore, Toynbee said that politics is the pursuit of order. If there is no order, then there is no world peace.
Toynbee believed that if this so-called world order is viewed against the long history of human development, then the history centered on the West is nothing more than "small history," and the modern "nation-state" is nothing more than the political form for maximizing Western interests. The modern view of history in the West is fractured; Westerners since the Enlightenment seem not to know that before the rise of the modern West, mankind still had a "grand history." This grand history is a history aimed at the overall interests of all mankind; the political form that embodies this grand history is also not the Western modern "nation-state" with only 300 years of history, but rather the "world state" or "worldwide state."
Thus, in the famous book Change and Habit: The Challenge of Our Time, Toynbee, by comprehensively tracing back the overall history of mankind and by establishing a grand view of history, went on to put forward the important category of the "world state" or "worldwide state."
What is a "worldwide state"? Toynbee pointed out: the common characteristic of worldwide states lies in aiming at the interests of all mankind, rather than at "maximizing one's own interests"; all take the maintenance of peace as the precondition of human survival; all have a spirit of tolerance, acknowledge that mankind has unified pursuits, and take the continuation of human civilization as a responsibility; at the same time, all have the capacity for self-renewal.
According to the grand view of history, there are in the world three civilizations with a having a long and continuous history (源远流长, yuan yuan liu chang - "source, far; flow, long"): one is Egyptian civilization, one is Sumerian-Akkadian civilization, and one is Chinese civilization. These three civilizations all had a world vision and a tianxia breadth of mind, and all once considered problems from the perspective of all mankind; if one views the development of worldwide states from the perspective of grand history, the Roman Empire was the heir of Egypt as a worldwide state, Persia was the heir of Sumerian-Akkadian civilization, and the subsequent Iraq and Iran were both heirs of Persia.
Egypt and Persia, these two worldwide states, both belonged to the Mediterranean civilization in the broad sense. However, likewise viewed through the grand view of history, the traditions of these two worldwide states were both interrupted; neither withstood the challenge of internal division, especially the Western Roman Empire, which was disintegrated by the later-rising Western civilization.
Peace is precisely the precondition of human survival and development, and human civilization is pluralistic; if there is no unified, continuous vision, and no tolerant breadth of mind, then there is no world order, and thus no peace. Therefore, the only worldwide state in the world that, after enduring all kinds of hardships, has made unity, continuity, inclusiveness, and peacefulness its remaining constant and unchanged throughout (始终如一, shi zhong ru yi - "always, as; always, one") pursuit is China.
The time when Toynbee made this "grand historical judgment" was 1965, and this vision of viewing the world from the perspective of grand history immediately produced a huge influence. Jao Tsung-i, a researcher of Chinese civilization, also offered an explanation of this judgment.
Jao Tsung-i's reasons were: first, China has always advocated viewing history with a world vision and regarding human history as a whole. The Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals speaks of the "age of great peace," and the Great Learning discusses "pacifying the world," forging the broad-mindedness of Chinese civilization of "establishing the heart for heaven and earth" and "opening great peace for ten thousand generations." Second, the "great unity" of the Chinese nation is grounded in the tianxia sentiment. The "theory of legitimate succession" in history was indeed once confined to the distinction between Chinese and barbarian, but this was so in times of partial and temporary rule; under a situation of great unity, however, the land has no boundaries and heaven has no outside, "within the four seas all are brothers, and the ends of the earth are as near as neighbors." The great unity of Chinese civilization has an aura that encompasses the universe. "Tianxia" points toward a community with a shared future for mankind.
Toynbee believed that, unlike the United States and the Soviet Union, the goal of the Chinese revolution was very realistic; this goal was China's unification and rejuvenation, and to this end China has been being practical and down-to-earth (脚踏实地, jiao ta shi di - "foot, step on; solid, earth"), sparing no cost. "Today's China has no intention of establishing world unification. Its near-term goal is to restore its traditional position, a position that has been lost in the process of aggression by Britain, France, Russia, Japan, and other countries since 1840. China is striving to make up for the losses caused by all kinds of adversity and humiliation over the past hundred years; it seems that it will pursue this goal at all costs. However, it does indeed seem able to achieve this goal."
"What is wrong with the world, and what shall we do?" Toynbee's proposition was: to enable mankind to avoid ultimate destruction in the anarchic age of nuclear technology, the key lies in what the new China does.
In the field of world history research, the most noteworthy is the research on "grand history" and the "worldwide state," because this research is most relevant to China. Therefore, what we need to do is not to manufacture new concepts and categories; our research goal remains Toynbee's assertion from many years ago: China is the only "worldwide state" still existing in the world. Where China goes is of the greatest importance to all mankind.
Consensus on politics and institutions depends on consensus on culture; cultural consensus is formed in cultural exchange and interpretation, and depends especially on the interpreters of culture—the intellectuals. This is the view of the Enlightenment. Marxism, however, holds that cultural consensus is not limited to this; the emergence of cultural consensus depends not only on intellectuals, but even more on social movements. Without broad social movements and social mobilization, cultural consensus can only be confined to the upper strata of society and cannot be transformed into effective institutions. Just as the New Culture Movement cannot be understood apart from the May Fourth Movement, so all Chinese intellectual activity cannot be understood apart from the great Chinese revolution.
Regarding the destiny of China, regarding where China is going and where the world is going, people have talked for a long time. What is "the destiny of China"?
The destiny of China is what Mao Zedong said—since 1840, the Chinese people have carried out a series of social movements. Through magnificent and grand in scale (波澜壮阔, bo lan zhuang kuo - "wave, surge; magnificent, vast") social movements, once the destiny of China came into the hands of the Chinese people, the new China would appear in the east of the world like the sun. The destiny of China is the direction of mankind's advance. This was already made very clear in the article "The Present Situation and Our Tasks." Therefore, only by viewing the more than one hundred years of struggle of the Communist Party of China from the grand view of history can we see clearly the destiny of the Chinese nation, see clearly the direction of the development of human history, and truly understand where we have come from and where we are going.
Today, and especially today, we perhaps can feel more deeply than in any historical era that the two banners on the Tiananmen Gate Tower are so mutually presupposing:
"Long live the People's Republic of China, long live the great unity of the world's peoples."
(The author is a professor in the Department of Chinese Language and Literature at Peking University; this article is the preface to the book Tianxia: China That Embraces All Four Directions, with slight abridgements)
Return to TopBy: 洪向华
Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, in the practice of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, our Party has gained an increasingly deeper understanding of the relationship between unhealthy tendencies and corruption. The 20th National Congress of the Party pointed out that we must uphold Party spirit, Party conduct, and Party discipline as a unified whole. The "Decision of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China on Further Deepening Reform Comprehensively and Advancing Chinese Modernization" adopted at the Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee requires "improving the mechanism for simultaneous investigation and governance of unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems." General Secretary Xi Jinping has made important expositions on the simultaneous investigation and governance of misconduct and corruption at the Fourth and Fifth Plenary Sessions of the 20th Central Commission for Discipline Inspection. General Secretary Xi Jinping's relevant important expositions and the Party Central Committee's relevant decisions provide fundamental guidance and implementation paths for us to deeply advance the simultaneous investigation and governance of misconduct and corruption.
The interweaving and overlapping of unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems causes serious harm to Party conduct, government conduct, and social conduct
The term "misconduct and corruption" (feng fu) placed together has specific connotations. "Misconduct" (feng) specifically refers to "unhealthy tendencies," especially formalism, bureaucratism, hedonism, and extravagance. "Corruption" (fu) refers to corruption problems such as embezzlement and bribery, trading power for money, and seeking improper benefits. Unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems interweave and overlap, doubling the harm.
Unhealthy tendencies are the hotbed of corruption, the quantitative change before corruption, while corruption is the qualitative change of unhealthy tendencies. Some leading cadres believe that as long as they work hard, achieve results, and make contributions, eating, drinking, and taking a little is irrelevant to the overall situation, is not a big deal, and the organization should not make a fuss over such small matters and minor details. This view is extremely wrong. Small matters and minor details reflect Party spirit. If the unhealthy tendencies of so-called small matters and minor details are not curbed and dealt with in a timely manner, they will eventually evolve into more serious corrupt behavior. As can be seen from the cases of a large number of leading cadres who violated the law and committed crimes, their illegal and criminal behavior all began with a pack of cigarettes, a bottle of liquor, an instance of unauthorized eating and drinking, a disguised travel arrangement, and other such social exchanges. This kind of gradual process that leads to an inevitable disaster (温水煮青蛙, wen shui zhu qing wa - "warm water, boil, frog") style of encirclement and hunting ultimately dragged leading cadres into the water and pushed them into the abyss of crime and illegality.
If unhealthy tendencies are not curbed, they will evolve into corrupt behavior, and if corrupt behavior is not eliminated, it will intensify and aggravate unhealthy tendencies, and even give rise to new conduct problems. Corrupt behaviors such as embezzlement and bribery, abusing power for personal gain, misuse of authority, and engaging in fraud for personal gain are both illegal and violate discipline, and are incompatible with good Party conduct, government conduct, and social conduct. If the corrupt acts of certain leading cadres go unpunished, they themselves will become complacent and acting willfully and recklessly without restraint (肆意妄为, si yi wang wei - "wantonly, act recklessly"), and will intensify their engagement in unhealthy tendencies. For other leading cadres who want to be corrupt but fear being investigated and dealt with, if they see that corrupt leading cadres have not been investigated and dealt with, they will quickly move from a wait-and-see state to joining the ranks of corruption. If the masses see that corrupt elements have not been punished, they will lose confidence, become indifferent and apathetic toward corrupt behavior and unhealthy tendencies, and may even imitate them, resulting in the failure of social righteousness to be manifested and promoted. If corrupt behavior is not eliminated, some leading cadres will sink deeper into the mire and be unable to extricate themselves, further intensifying and abetting the spread and diffusion of unhealthy tendencies.
The overlapping of interwoven misconduct and corruption problems has caused enormous damage to the Party, the country, and the people. For a political party, Party conduct determines the survival or demise of the ruling party. The interweaving and entanglement of unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems corrupts Party conduct, resulting in actual detachment from the masses. The direct consequence is the prevalence of bureaucratism, which at the light end affects the scientific nature of decision-making, and at the heavy end shakes the Party's governing foundation. For the country, the interweaving of misconduct and corruption undermines fairness and justice. Those who engage in unhealthy tendencies and corrupt elements who seriously violate discipline and law often form interest groups, engage in factionalism and interest exchanges, causing the operation of power to deviate from the correct track, undermining social fairness and justice and the order of the market economy, hindering the great cause of comprehensively building a strong country and national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization, and may also induce systemic risks, affecting the overall situation of reform, development, and stability, and causing enormous losses to the country. For the people, the interweaving of misconduct and corruption infringes upon the vital interests of the masses. Formalism and bureaucratism increase the cost of handling affairs, while the flood of documents and meetings and the proliferation of inspections, assessments, and evaluations increase the burden on the grassroots.
Unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems are mutually reinforcing in appearance and rooted in the same source
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that the Four Malfeasances and corruption problems are mutually reinforcing in appearance and are the hotbed for the growth of corruption. This important exposition provides us with a method for correctly understanding the problem of interwoven misconduct and corruption and finds a path for deeply advancing the simultaneous investigation and governance of misconduct and corruption.
Unhealthy tendencies and corruption phenomena being mutually reinforcing in appearance means that sometimes unhealthy tendencies are the external manifestation of corruption problems, and behind corruption problems there must be unhealthy tendencies. Here, unhealthy tendencies are the appearance, and corruption problems are the interior. Sometimes corruption problems are the external manifestation, and these corruption problems are transformed from unhealthy tendencies. Here, corruption problems are the appearance, and unhealthy tendencies are the interior. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that some unhealthy tendencies also fall within the category of corruption, for example, accepting gifts, indiscriminately issuing bonuses, apportioning commodities, traveling at public expense, forming sworn brotherhoods, returning favors with gifts or kindness (投桃报李, tou tao bao li - "throw peach, report plum"), sending shopping cards and consumption vouchers everywhere, and so on. In practice, some leading cadres accept some banquets and gifts. Those who arrange the banquets and give the gifts may not make any demands for the time being, but over time and with increasing frequency, requests for help in handling affairs and transactions of power for money will inevitably appear.
From practice, unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems are somewhat different. For example, in terms of handling methods, more unhealthy tendencies are handled through Party discipline, while more corruption problems, especially serious corruption problems, are handled through law. However, from the perspective of the root causes of unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems, the two are consistent. From the notifications of leading cadres who violated discipline and law, several high-frequency phrases can be found: "losing ideals and convictions," "abandoning the original aspiration and founding mission," "being disloyal and dishonest to the Party," and so on. In fact, these are the deep-rooted causes of unhealthy tendencies and corruption problems. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that the wavering of ideals and convictions is the most dangerous wavering, and the decline of ideals and convictions is the most dangerous decline. The moral degeneration of some leading cadres is, in the final analysis, the loss of ideals and convictions. The lofty ideal of communism, the conviction of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and the belief in Marxism all determine that Party members must serve the people wholeheartedly. The reason for the interweaving of misconduct and corruption is that morally degenerate leading cadres have wavering and declining ideals and convictions and cannot firmly uphold their ideals and convictions. Seeking happiness for the Chinese people and rejuvenation for the Chinese nation are the original aspiration and founding mission of Chinese Communists. Morally degenerate leading cadres often abandon the original aspiration and founding mission, forgetting who they are, whom they serve, where they come from, and where they are headed in the future. "Being loyal and honest to the Party, and ensuring words and actions are in alignment" (言行一致, yan xing yi zhi - "speech, action, consistent") is an explicit requirement of the Party Constitution for Party members' obligations. Morally degenerate leading cadres are precisely those whose words and deeds are inconsistent, whose appearance and interior are inconsistent, whose hearts and mouths are inconsistent, who deceive the organization and deceive the masses, and who do not implement or selectively implement the Party's line, principles, and policies. These behaviors all seriously damage the Party's image.
Deeply advance the simultaneous investigation and governance of misconduct and corruption, and thoroughly eradicate the soil and conditions for the growth of corruption
At present, unhealthy tendencies and corruption interweave and overlap, increasing the difficulty of punishing corruption and rectifying conduct. If unhealthy tendencies are not stopped at the source and only corruption problems are dealt with, a thorough and clean effect cannot be achieved; if the effect of conduct improvement is poor, the overwhelming victory achieved in corruption governance will be difficult to sustain. Continuously deepening the punishment of corruption and rectification of conduct cannot "discuss conduct only in terms of conduct" or "discuss corruption only in terms of corruption." It is necessary to investigate and govern simultaneously, improve mechanisms, and thoroughly eradicate the soil and conditions for the growth of corruption.
Simultaneous investigation and governance means that governing the problem of interwoven misconduct and corruption must exert force simultaneously, in the same direction, and comprehensively. Simultaneous investigation and governance is an organic whole, not a division into two different stages, nor a separation into two links. It is necessary to adhere to no forbidden zones, full coverage, and zero tolerance, adhere to severe containment, strong deterrence, and lasting intimidation, and strike hard at corruption phenomena, so that leading cadres dare not be corrupt and also dare not engage in unhealthy tendencies. If investigation and governance are used separately, the effectiveness of governing the problem of interwoven misconduct and corruption will diminish. Investigation and governance cannot be treated as two different stages, but must be advanced as one in the entire work of anti-corruption and integrity promotion. That is to say, it is necessary to plan the measures for investigation and governance as a whole, adhere to investigating bribe-takers and bribe-givers together, take multiple measures simultaneously in "hunting tigers," "swatting flies," "hunting foxes," and "repelling mosquitoes," investigate and deal with every corruption case that arises without mercy, keep the sharp sword of anti-corruption hanging high, form long-term deterrence, and also strictly investigate and deal with unhealthy tendencies, resolutely eliminating cadres' mentality of taking chances.
Simultaneously investigating interwoven misconduct and corruption problems requires that when investigating corruption cases, conduct problems are simultaneously probed deeply, and when rectifying unhealthy tendencies, hidden corruption leads behind them are simultaneously investigated, avoiding "investigating conduct only in terms of conduct and investigating corruption only in terms of corruption." Implement "must-ask and must-verify" in the links of investigation, adjudication, and disposal. In the link of review and investigation, the "Four Malfeasances" manifestations, motives, and the process from misconduct to corruption of the person under review and investigation are listed as must-talk and must-ask content, serving as important references for subsequent supervision and governance. In the link of case adjudication, "Four Malfeasances" problems are made the focus of adjudication, correcting situations such as inaccurate characterization and failure to investigate what should have been investigated, ensuring that misconduct and corruption problems are investigated and dealt with together. In the link of lead disposal, a "three-list" mechanism of tasks, responsibilities, and problems is established, taking cases under investigation as the entry point, implementing and refining must-ask items, both investigating the person's own problems and deeply uncovering "Four Malfeasances" leads involving other Party members and cadres. Various localities have gradually made some explorations in refining the "must-ask and must-verify" working mechanism. For example, some places implement the working method of "comprehensively uncovering and screening leads, linking departments to pool leads, supervising case handling to dig out leads, and going deep into the masses to find leads"; some places enrich investigation and evidence collection methods, "simultaneously asking," "simultaneously digging," and "simultaneously analyzing," providing useful reference for the simultaneous investigation of interwoven misconduct and corruption.
Simultaneously governing interwoven misconduct and corruption problems requires comprehensive measures at the institutional, educational, and supervisory levels targeting common problems discovered, eradicating the soil for the growth of misconduct and corruption. "Investigation" is not the ultimate purpose; "governance" is the ultimate result. "Investigation" is for "governance," and "governance" is for better "investigation." The requirements of "governance" must be put into practice in eradicating common roots. Strengthen the use of cases to promote reform and the use of cases to promote governance. For a corruption case, it is necessary to draw inferences from a single instance to apply to others (举一反三, ju yi fan san - "lift one, reflect three"), deeply uncover the interest chains and hidden rules behind the case, thoroughly investigate the ideological decline of those who violated discipline and law and the deep-seated reasons for their crimes, thereby extending to a comprehensive dragnet-style inspection of the industry, system, and unit to prevent the occurrence of similar violations of discipline and law. Strengthen warning education, especially using cases of violations of discipline and law around us to strengthen deterrence, so that the broad masses of Party members and cadres are alerted, understand the bottom lines, and know reverence. Build a solid ideological defense line. Educate and guide the broad masses of Party members and cadres to be the "leading geese" and "vanguard" in the construction of clean culture in the new era, strengthening the foundation and cultivating vital energy (固本培元, gu ben pei yuan - "strengthen root, cultivate origin") from ideals and convictions, improving Party spirit awareness, enhancing the ability to resist corruption and prevent degeneration, creating a strong atmosphere in the whole society of educating people through culture, moistening virtue through culture, and nurturing integrity through culture, promoting the construction of clean politics, forming clean concepts and clean models, and creating a good social trend of advocating integrity and rejecting corruption.
Simultaneous investigation and governance cannot be separated; they must be interconnected and form a joint force. Responsibilities are interconnected. Clarify the primary responsibility of Party committees (Party groups) for the simultaneous investigation and governance of misconduct and corruption, and the supervisory responsibility of discipline inspection commissions and supervision commissions at all levels; clarify the responsibility of the first person responsible for Party committees (Party groups) secretaries; in accordance with the requirements of "one post with dual responsibilities," clarify the responsibilities of other members of the leadership team. Supervision is interconnected. Continuously improve and perfect the Party and state supervision systems, so that various types of supervision are organically interconnected and mutually coordinated, giving play to the overall role of the supervision system. Information is interconnected. Break down information silos and barriers, and ensure that information obtained by public security, audit, statistics, finance, supervision and inspection, and inspection and patrol departments is promptly communicated and reported to discipline inspection and supervision departments, achieving information sharing in lead transfer, case notification, and other aspects.
Only by deeply advancing the simultaneous investigation and governance of misconduct and corruption, blocking the momentum of mutual evolution between misconduct and corruption, and curbing the intensification of harm, can the integrated advancement of not daring to be corrupt, not being able to be corrupt, and not wanting to be corrupt proceed smoothly, and can the achievements of the overwhelming victory in the anti-corruption struggle be continuously consolidated.
[The author is Deputy Director of the Scientific Research Department of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance)]
Return to TopBy: 张云明
General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "the key to building a first-class university is to continuously improve the quality of talent cultivation." Student affairs work is situated on the front line of education, covering all aspects of fostering virtue through education and running through the entire process of students' growth and development, playing an indispensable and important role in the talent cultivation process. It is necessary to closely align with the needs of building a strong military and a powerful nation, anchor the special mission of educating people for the Party, cultivating talent for the country, and forging talent for the military, and effectively achieve knowing one's responsibilities in the heart, bearing them on one's shoulders, and fulfilling them through action, so as to support and serve the cultivation of top-notch innovative talent with high-quality student affairs work.
Fully Recognizing the Important Significance of Student Affairs Work
Education is a major plan of the country and a major plan of the Party. For national defense and military industry universities, student affairs work is political work, strategic work, and foundational work that concerns the direction of running the school, serving the country through military industry, and campus stability, with a special status, special tasks, and special functions.
Student affairs work bears on the socialist direction of running schools. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "our education must take cultivating builders and successors of socialism as its fundamental task, cultivating generation after generation of useful talent who support the leadership of the Communist Party of China and China's socialist system and are determined to strive all their lives for socialism with Chinese characteristics." What kind of people to cultivate, how to cultivate them, and for whom to cultivate them are the fundamental questions of education. Student affairs work is an important starting point for implementing the fundamental task of fostering virtue through education, an important vehicle for carrying out ideological and political education, determines the political foundation of talent cultivation, and bears on the passing the torch from one generation to the next of the cause of the Party and the country. It is necessary to firmly grasp the socialist direction of running schools, always place forging souls and educating people first, continuously strengthen ideal and belief education, cultivate deep feelings for the family and the country, educate and guide students to unswervingly support the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and ensure that the new generation cultivated is politically reliable, firm in stance, and listens to the Party and follows the Party.
Student affairs work bears on the distinctive foundation of serving the country through military industry. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "a strong country must have a strong military, and only with a strong military can the country be secure." Supporting the development of national defense undertakings and serving the construction of a strong military and a powerful nation is the most distinctive feature of running national defense and military industry universities. Breakthroughs in national defense science and technology and the forging of great national instruments cannot be achieved without generation after generation of outstanding young people continuing to strive with sustained, long-term effort. Student affairs work bears the important responsibility of cultivating scientific spirit, shaping research character, and calibrating value coordinates. It is necessary to always adhere to the special mission of forging talent for the military, deepen military industry mission education, national defense situation education, and post dedication education, guide young students to carry forward the school motto and school spirit, establish aspirations for a strong military, devote themselves to the front line of national defense, and make every effort to write a new answer sheet of education in which chief designers emerge in large numbers, outstanding talent abounds, and the country is served with achievements.
Student affairs work bears on the overall situation of campus security and stability. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "effectively prevent and resolve school security risks and build a solid line of defense for ideological security in universities." Security is the premise of development, and stability is the guarantee of running a school. For national defense and military industry universities, security is not only the bottom line of running a school, but also a political bottom line. Student affairs work is close to the front line of students and is the forward outpost for identifying risks, the solid barrier for preventing public opinion, and the backbone force for eliminating hidden dangers. It is necessary to strengthen awareness of potential dangers, adhere to bottom-line thinking, with a sense of responsibility of "always being unable to rest assured" and the action force of "having confidence in everything in mind," regularly discover and resolve various budding and tendency problems, promptly and effectively handle emergencies, resolutely hold the line on political security, ideological security, and campus stability and security, and create a safe and stable good environment for the development of university undertakings.
Deeply Grasping the Era Characteristics of Student Affairs Work
At the 2024 National Education Conference, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "it is necessary to persevere in using the Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to forge souls and educate people, and implement the new era project of fostering virtue through education." As the "No. 1 project" of building a strong education nation, the new era project of fostering virtue through education is an important task for universities in running schools, governing schools, educating people, and cultivating talent at present and for a period to come. It is necessary to proactively benchmark against the strategic deployment of building a strong education nation, deeply grasp the era characteristics of student affairs work from aspects such as value guidance, security barriers, and education vehicles, accurately identify changes, scientifically respond to changes, and proactively seek changes, continuously consolidating the foundation of education and improving the quality of education.
Strengthen value guidance. Diverse social trends of thought interweave and collide, the student growth environment is complex, and students are prone to problems such as value confusion and wavering beliefs. It is urgent to build a solid ideological foundation through distinct value guidance, strengthening their faith in Marxism, their belief in socialism with Chinese characteristics, and their confidence in realizing the Chinese Dream of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. National defense and military industry universities shoulder the special mission of "cultivating outstanding talent for the Party and forging great swords for the country." The talent cultivated must possess more firm political stances and deeper feelings for the family and the country, always taking the Party's banner as their banner, the Party's direction as their direction, and the Party's will as their will.
Build a solid security barrier. The online environment is complex and changeable, the channels for the spread and dissemination of false information and erroneous trends of thought are more diverse, and the complexity and concealment of risk inducements have significantly increased, posing severe challenges to building a solid ideological position; students face multiple pressures such as academics, employment, and interpersonal relationships, and campus security risks such as online public opinion, telecommunications fraud, and psychological crises are intertwined and superimposed, making it urgent to weave a dense security protection network and hold the bottom line of safety for students' growth and development. Students may come into contact with sensitive information and key core technologies in their studies and research, and the risk of infiltration, subversion, and espionage by foreign forces is real, making it urgent to educate and guide students to firmly establish the holistic approach to national security, always keep the string of security and confidentiality taut, and always know reverence, understand bottom lines, and abide by rules.
Enrich education vehicles. Students' growth environment, ideological concepts, and cognitive methods have undergone profound changes, the appeal of traditional classroom preaching models has weakened, and cyberspace and social practice scenarios have become important fields for students to obtain information and grow and develop. Relying solely on the main channel of the classroom can no longer meet students' growth needs, making it urgent to expand diversified education vehicles that connect inside and outside the classroom and integrate online and offline, enhancing the appeal, appeal, and effectiveness of education.National defense and military industry universities cultivate reserve talent for national defense science and technology. Students must not only practice solid skills to serve the cause of a strong military, but also build a solid ideological foundation for being loyal and reliable in devoting themselves to the military industry front line. It is particularly necessary to fully explore, fully utilize, and make good use of military industry education resources, strengthen targeted national defense and military industry education, guide students to cultivate deep feelings for serving the country through military industry, and actively devote themselves to the cause of national defense science and technology.
Striving to Become Experts in Student Affairs Work
The systematic and comprehensive characteristics of student affairs work in the new era are increasingly prominent. Cadres engaged in student affairs work must proactively change their concepts and ideas, continuously innovate methods and approaches, and focus on correctly handling the three pairs of relationships between explicit education and implicit education, offline education and online education, and strengthening management and empowering development, making real efforts and achieving tangible results.
Adhere to both explicit education and implicit education, promoting the transformation of ideological and political education from "one-way indoctrination" to "infiltration and soul forging." Explicit education proactively carries out ideological and political education activities in an open, direct, standardized, and systematic manner; implicit education relies on vehicles such as environmental atmosphere, campus culture, and social practice to subtly influence and nurture, achieving the educational effect of influencing people subtly and imperceptibly (润物无声, run wu wu sheng - "moisten, things; without, sound"), and the two complement each other and are organically unified. Explicit education should pursue the affinity of "not preaching," regularly carry out theoretical propaganda and ideological education, based on students' cognitive characteristics and discourse habits, strengthen content innovation and form innovation, use language students can understand, cases students can remember, and emotions students can resonate with, integrate grand narratives into stories around them, turn basic principles into vivid truths, and make explicit education both lofty and warm, both meaningful and interesting. Implicit education should strengthen the guiding force of "having direction," systematically integrate the value pursuits of feelings for the family and the country, military industry mission, and forging swords for the country into all scenarios of student activities and daily management, deeply embed them into all details of campus culture and service guarantees, so that students, being influenced by what one sees and hears (耳濡目染, er ru mu ran - "ear, moisten; eye, dye"), strengthen their ideal pursuits and calibrate their value coordinates, and in the unity of knowledge and action (知行合一, zhi xing he yi - "know, act; one"), temper their will and character and grow their abilities and talents, effectively promoting the implementation and effectiveness of soul forging and education.
Adhere to both offline education and online education, promoting the transformation of the education field from "single scenario" to "multi-domain collaboration." Contemporary college students, as a generation that grew up with the internet, the internet is the most commonly used and main channel for students to obtain information and exchange ideas, and it is also the most frontline and active field for the confrontation of various trends of thought and the transmission of risks and hidden dangers. It is necessary to enrich and improve offline education, further stimulate the enthusiasm and initiative of counselors, class teachers, course teachers, supervisors, and industry chief designers, promote various education subjects to go deep into education fields such as class classrooms, Party and League activities, student communities, and large institutes and research facilities, regularly carry out face-to-face communication, heart-to-heart care, and hand-in-hand guidance with students, and link the forces of families and society to consolidate a deep and warm offline education foundation. Build and strengthen online education, consciously improve the ability to learn, use, manage, and govern the internet, proactively grasp students' internet language and usage habits, promptly speak out on hot topics of concern to students, clearly state viewpoints at key nodes of ideological confusion, dare to guide in the face of interference and misleading from noise and dissonance, and at the same time actively explore practical paths for artificial intelligence to empower online education, create an online education space with positions and strength, and achieve education without dead angles and full coverage.
Adhere to both strengthening management and empowering development, promoting the transformation of growth services from "passive response" to "active empowerment." Strengthening management and empowering development are important contents of serving students' growth and development. Strengthening management consolidates the foundation of student education and management through clear institutional constraints, rigorous behavioral norms, and warm educational guidance; empowering development promotes students' comprehensive development through building platforms, supplying resources, and positive incentives. Continuously strengthen management: school rules and regulations, operating mechanisms, and security barriers are important foundations for ensuring students' healthy growth. It is necessary to let students know where the red lines are and what the bottom lines are, explain clearly the significance and value of abiding by rules and disciplines, and also strengthen the implementation of systems, educating and guiding students to shift from passive compliance to active identification, so that the awareness of discipline and rules is truly internalized into students' behavioral self-discipline. Proactively empower development: enrich vehicles such as academic improvement, scientific research innovation, social practice, and quality training to provide broad space for students to grow their abilities; coordinate the use of elements such as supervisor guidance, project support, practical opportunities, career planning, and employment guidance to match the differentiated growth needs of different students; improve and perfect the evaluation and commendation mechanism, select and establish advanced models, stimulate students' internal motivation for growth, and guide students to integrate their personal ideals into the overall situation of national development.
(The author is the Secretary of the Party Committee of Northwestern Polytechnical University)
Return to TopBy: 李树超
The Analects ("Wei Ling Gong" chapter) records: "The gentleman seeks it in himself; the petty man seeks it in others." As a core proposition of the Confucian system of self-cultivation, this ancient maxim precisely delineates the value distinction and mode of conducting oneself in the world between the gentleman and the petty man. Compared with ordinary maxims of worldly wisdom, "the gentleman seeks it in himself" is not a simple moral exhortation, but rather a complete, self-consistent, and progressively layered logic of self-cultivation, encompassing the cognition of mind-and-nature, the norms of conduct, the paradigm of behavior, and the breadth of one's life vision. Compared with the shallow mode of conduct that reaches outward for support and shifts blame onto external things, the "self" that the gentleman seeks is the original mind, is virtue, is capability, is breadth of vision; the core is to attribute the fundamental cause of one's advancement or retreat in life, success or failure in career, and gain or loss in interpersonal relations to oneself, and to respond to the myriad changes of the world through self-cultivation.
The first layer of meaning of "the gentleman seeks it in himself" is the cognitive self-awareness of learning for oneself and turning the mind inward, breaking free from the mental shackles of attributing causes outward. The Confucian learning of self-cultivation is in essence "learning for oneself," not "learning for others." The system of self-cultivation established by Confucius always emphasized the inner-directedness and autonomy of cultivation, holding that the ultimate growth of life is never about pleasing others or depending on external things, but about perfecting oneself and enriching one's original mind. The so-called "seeking it in oneself" first and foremost means reversing the habitual outward-seeking mindset of ordinary people. When ordinary people encounter unfavorable circumstances, unaccomplished deeds, or discordant interpersonal relations, they mostly resent the injustice of heaven, the constraints of the environment, or the faults of others; the gentleman alone turns to the mind and reflects upon himself. This core shift in cognition is a fundamental leap in one's state of being. Mencius carried on Confucius's thought and precisely annotated this connotation with "when one's actions fail to achieve the desired result, turn inward and seek the cause in oneself," establishing it as the foundational thinking of the gentleman's conduct in the world. At the same time, the Confucian metaphor of "the benevolent person is like an archer" is even more direct. "The benevolent person is like an archer: the archer first straightens himself and then releases the arrow; if the arrow is released but does not hit the mark, he does not resent those who surpass him, but turns inward and seeks the cause in himself." When the arrow misses the target, one does not blame the wind, the ground, or the opponent, but examines the inadequacies of one's own posture, technique, and mind-and-nature. Conducting oneself in life is likewise: all the difficulties of external circumstances are in essence the deficiencies of one's own cultivation. This is the most original and most fundamental core connotation of "seeking it in oneself."
The second layer of meaning is the self-discipline of being strict with oneself and lenient with others (躬自厚而薄责于人, gong zi hou er bo ze yu ren - "bow, self, thick, and, thin, blame, at, people") and of correcting faults and moving toward goodness, manifesting the moral integrity of being strict with oneself. "The gentleman seeks it in himself" is by no means an abstract intellectual concept, but a concrete and practicable moral norm, concentratedly embodied in Confucius's requirement of "being strict with oneself and lenient with others" in one's conduct. This connotation clearly demarcates the boundary of behavior between the gentleman and the mediocre person. The mediocre person is strict with others and indulgent with himself, habitually giving free rein to himself and harshly censuring others, spending all day picking at the flaws of the outside world and never examining his own deficiencies; the gentleman is strict with himself and lenient with others, restraining himself with extremely high moral standards and treating others with a tolerant and magnanimous heart. Seeking it in oneself does not lie in being without fault for one's whole life, but in being able to correct faults once known and in being certain to reflect on faults once committed. No person is perfect; the affairs of the world are complex and multifarious; errors in action, deviations in speech, and narrowness in cognition are all the norm. The admirable quality of the gentleman lies precisely in not being ashamed of having faults, but in being ashamed of failing to reflect on and correct them. He always maintains a state of vigilance in solitude, caution in small matters, self-examination, and self-renewal. In times of leisure he nourishes the original mind and adheres to virtue, eliminating laxity and indulgence; in times of action he faces his omissions directly, proactively reviews them, and examines his own inadequacies. This character of proactive self-discipline and proactive fault-correction is the core essence of the self-cultivation connotation of "seeking it in oneself," and is also the orthodox path of self-cultivation that Confucianism has revered for thousands of years.
The third layer of meaning is the spirit of responsibility of self-reliance, self-strengthening, and accomplishing things through self-reflection, shaping a life paradigm of proactive and earnest action. Many people misread "seeking it in oneself" as passive introversion, self-flagellation, and non-contention with the world; in fact, it is precisely the opposite. Those who seek outward depend on circumstances, rely on others, and sit waiting for opportunities, and in the end are swept along by external things and trapped by the times, falling into the negative cycle of "waiting, relying, resenting, and abandoning"; those who seek in themselves firmly believe that destiny is determined by oneself and that success or failure lies in oneself, place no hope in luck, rely on no assistance from others, and in all matters base themselves on their own efforts and act proactively. This is an ultimate form of human proactivity. When opportunity is insufficient, one cultivates one's own abilities to await the changes of the times; when circumstances are difficult, one tempers one's own mind-and-nature to break through the impasse; when one suffers setbacks in handling affairs, one makes up one's own shortcomings to seek improvement. The Confucian progression of cultivation — cultivating oneself with reverence, cultivating oneself to bring peace to others, and cultivating oneself to bring peace to the common people — is precisely the layer-by-layer elevation of this connotation. From the self-improvement of minding to one's own business and maintaining one's integrity (独善其身, du shan qi shen - "alone, good, its, body") to the worldly responsibility of helping others and contributing to society (兼济天下, jian ji tian xia - "combine, help, heaven, below"), the core of all growth and breakthrough is always self-cultivation, self-empowerment, and self-fulfillment. Seeking inward has never been retreat; it is the most solid foundation for growth.
The fourth layer of meaning is the life vision of tolerating others, forgiving things, and being open-minded and penetrating, cultivating the realm of conduct of being magnanimous, humble, and gentle. The deep value of "seeking it in oneself" lies not only in self-cultivation and accomplishing things, but even more in reshaping the relationship between the self and the self, the self and others, and the self and the world, achieving an open and penetrating life vision. One who truly practices seeking the cause in oneself in all matters will inevitably leap out of the cognitive predicament of narrowness, stubbornness, resentment, and petty calculation. Because he constantly reflects on himself, he therefore deeply knows that everyone has shortcomings and that everything has imperfections, and can therefore tolerate the inadequacies of others and understand the imperfection of the world. The petty man seeks it in others, spending all day fixated on the faults of others and agonizing over the injustices of the world, and in the end his mentality becomes unbalanced and his vision narrow; the gentleman seeks it in himself, spending all day polishing his own virtue and refining his own abilities, with no leisure to censure external things or calculate gains and losses. This breadth of vision is a deep practice of "being strict with oneself and lenient with others": inwardly, he hones himself unremittingly without the slightest slack; outwardly, he is tolerant, humble, and magnanimous toward others. He does not compare, does not compete, does not resent, does not complain; with his own uprightness he embraces the unevenness of the world, and with his own diligence he accepts the rises and falls of life. This is the highest-order spiritual connotation of "the gentleman seeks it in himself."
In contemporary society, the wisdom of "the gentleman seeks it in himself" is precisely the optimal path for resolving inner anxiety and achieving self-growth. Only by holding fast to the self-awareness of turning the mind inward, the integrity of self-examination and self-discipline, the responsibility of self-reliance in accomplishing things, and the breadth of vision of magnanimity and humility can one respond to the changes of the world through self-renewal and realize the value of life through self-cultivation and earnest action.
Return to TopBy: 朱岩
At the scene of Guizhou's "Village Super League"
When sports thrive, China thrives; when the nation's fortunes rise, sports rise. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "Sports are an important pathway to improving the people's health, an important means of satisfying the people's aspirations for a better life and promoting the all-round development of the individual, an important driving force for economic and social development, and an important platform for showcasing a country's cultural soft power." This important exposition precisely anchors the core value and mission of the era for the development of the sports industry in the new era. Sports are both the cornerstone of people's livelihoods that safeguards the people's health, the distinctive foundation that outlines a Healthy China, and, moreover, an important support for building a sporting powerhouse, advancing the modernization of social governance, and consolidating the foundations for national rejuvenation.
Looking back on the course of development of China's sports industry, the attributes of sports as a pursuit for all the people, as a reflection of the times, and as a matter of people's livelihoods have become increasingly prominent. From Mao Zedong's inscription on June 10, 1952, at the founding congress of the All-China Sports Federation, "Develop sports and physical culture, strengthen the people's physique," to the continuous deployment at the 19th and 20th National Congresses of the Party of "extensively carrying out fitness activities for all," China's sports industry has completed its transformation from sports for all to prioritizing competitive sports, and then to "promoting the all-round development of mass sports and competitive sports." As fitness for all has been elevated to a national strategy, events around the people, such as the lively and spectacular "Village Super League" and "City Super League," as well as farmers' sports competitions, have been emerging rapidly in large numbers (如雨后春笋, ru yu hou chun sun - "as, rain, after, spring, bamboo, shoots"). On the new journey of comprehensively building a modern socialist country, promoting sports to better nourish the people's happy lives is the inevitable path for implementing the Healthy China strategy and consolidating the foundations of a sporting powerhouse. As General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized, "We must continue to vigorously develop a people-centered sports industry, promote the deep integration of fitness for all and health for all, and keep advancing toward the goal of building a sporting powerhouse and a Healthy China."
Deeply cultivate the integration of sports into daily life. As the foundational project for building a sporting powerhouse, the degree of popularization, breadth of participation, and level of public recognition of fitness for all directly determine the quality and caliber of the construction of a sporting powerhouse. The integration of sports into daily life appears on the surface to be a change in individual lifestyle habits, but in reality it is the micro-level implementation of the Healthy China and sporting powerhouse initiatives, and moreover a social transformation in which the value of sports returns to the origins of people's livelihoods and promotes the shift of health for all from "passive medical treatment" to "active fitness." With the rapid economic and social development of our country, the lifestyles of residents have undergone profound changes, and problems such as fast-paced living, fewer social scenarios, chronic diseases, and sub-health have also become increasingly prominent. Embedding sports into life's elements such as commuting, leisure, and tourism can effectively fill the shortcomings in urban livelihood services, build a solid line of defense for the health of all at the source, while effectively enhancing residents' sense of gain, happiness, and security. To this end, the "Fitness for All Plan (2026–2030)" clearly proposes that by 2030, sports will become a lifestyle widely participated in by the masses. Under the guidance of relevant policies, promoting the integration of sports into daily life should adhere to a "people's health-centered" approach, promote the expansion of sports space around the people, deeply implement the "six around" project for mass sports, strengthen science popularization on fitness and health for all, extensively publicize typical cases of fitness for all, and promote the integration of sports into daily life scenarios, so that exercise truly integrates into the entire process and all scenarios of work, study, and life, thereby promoting the all-round healthy development of individuals and society.
Advance the normalization of fitness. The normalization of fitness is the core extension and implementation guarantee of the integration of sports into daily life. The integration of sports into daily life emphasizes the reshaping of concepts, the cultivation of habits, and the infiltration of culture, while the normalization of fitness focuses on mechanism building, scenario guarantees, and long-term implementation, thoroughly bidding farewell to short-term behaviors such as "periodic fitness" and "trend-following exercise," fundamentally preventing chronic diseases, improving sub-health conditions, and building a "proactive health" lifestyle. The "15th Five-Year Plan for Urban Renewal" proposes that "cities are important carriers of modernization and important spaces for the people's happy lives." To this end, localities across the country continue to promote the upgrading and improvement of urban sports spaces, exploring a series of innovative models adapted to urban governance, so that "small but beautiful" sports spaces such as "sports parks," "pocket sports grounds," and "spaces under bridges" are fully integrated into the urban fabric and brought to the people's doorstep. Relying on the opportunity of urban renewal, localities vigorously promote the full coverage construction of "15-minute fitness circles," taking communities as the core and residents' needs as the guide, integrating fragmented spaces, and promoting full coverage, equalization, and convenience of fitness spaces, so as to thoroughly solve the pain points of insufficient space such as "fitness facilities being too far away" and "having no venue to exercise." At the same time, improve the mechanism for normalized fitness activities, build a four-tier fitness-for-all activity system of "municipal-level competitions, district-level activities, community-level daily exercise, and neighborhood-level interactions," and achieve year-round normalized development of fitness for all.
Implement precision services. Precision services are the core requirement for the high-quality development of fitness for all in the new era and the concrete embodiment of practicing General Secretary Xi Jinping's important exposition on "vigorously developing a people-centered sports industry." As the health awareness of the people continues to rise, the fitness needs of the masses have upgraded to demands for quality, personalization, and differentiation. Therefore, it is necessary to break the extensive development model of traditional sports services characterized by "one-size-fits-all, homogenization, and undifferentiated full coverage," and focus on "precise alignment, supply according to demand, and targeted services." Precisely survey the population structure, fitness needs, venues and facilities of different regions and different communities, and meet the differentiated fitness demands of different groups, different regions, different scenarios, and different needs in light of local conditions. At the same time, build a tiered and categorized fitness service system, precisely match resources, precisely supply services, and precisely solve pain points, so as to realize the transformation of fitness-for-all services from "flood irrigation" to "precise drip irrigation," and gradually complete the upgrade from "having services" to "quality services, suitable services, and warm services," so that sports truly fit every group and benefit every member of the public, maximizing the release of the livelihood value of sports.
Making sports a lifestyle widely participated in by the masses is a livelihood project that responds to the people's aspirations for a better life, a foundational project for implementing the Healthy China strategy, a core project for building a sporting powerhouse, and an enabling project for advancing the modernization of social governance. Continue to promote the deep integration of "sports+," so that sports truly enter every household (千家万户, qian jia wan hu - "thousand, families, ten thousand, households"), integrate into the details of daily life, and run through the entire course of life, becoming the most popular, most routine, and happiest lifestyle for all the people. Empower health for all with sports for all, support happy livelihoods with health for all, and assist national rejuvenation with the development of sports, injecting an inexhaustible source of youthful vitality, health momentum, and livelihood strength into the comprehensive building of a Healthy China, a sporting powerhouse, and a great modern socialist country.
Return to TopBy: 张勃
The Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Mid-Autumn Festival, the Eighth Month Festival, the Moon-Chasing Festival, the Moon-Playing Festival, the Moon-Worshiping Festival, the Reunion Festival, and the Moonlit Evening, among others, is a traditional Chinese seasonal festival whose hallmark time is the day of the full moon in mid-autumn (namely the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month). The origin of the Mid-Autumn Festival is closely related to the moon.
China has long had a tradition of valuing the moon. In the pre-Qin period, a state ritual of worshiping the moon at the autumn equinox was already established, and during the Han, Wei, and Northern and Southern Dynasties, literary activities of moon-gazing and moon-playing emerged among scholars. By the Tang Dynasty, on the foundation of a having a long and continuous history (源远流长, yuan yuan liu chang - "source, long, flow, long") tradition of valuing the moon, a social fashion of "tonight, under the bright moon, all people gaze" and of gathering for banquets emerged, and legends and tales such as Chang'e flying to the moon, Wu Gang cutting the cassia tree, Emperor Ming of Tang visiting the moon palace, and the marriage of the daughter of Song Mountain circulated widely. The Mid-Autumn Festival thus took shape, and the fashion of moon appreciation and moon-playing flourished in both the court and among the common people. After the Song Dynasty, the Mid-Autumn Festival continued to be transmitted and developed, with customs and activities growing increasingly rich, mainly including offering sacrifices to and worshiping the moon, appreciating and playing with the moon, family reunions, tasting mooncakes, and celebrating the harvest, becoming a major folk festival second only to the Spring Festival in status. In 2006, the Mid-Autumn Festival was included in China's first batch of national intangible cultural heritage lists, and a number of customs rich in local color, such as Mid-Autumn bo cake, Foshan autumn colors, Zezhou Mid-Autumn customs, autumn evening, Tai Hang fire dragon dance, the Korean ethnic group's autumn evening festival, and Ji'an Mid-Autumn tower-burning customs, were also successively included in the national intangible cultural heritage lists, demonstrating the diversity of Mid-Autumn Festival customs and the breadth of their spread.
The Mid-Autumn Festival is not only observed in China. Along with frequent cultural exchanges and population migration in history, the Mid-Autumn Festival has continuously spread from China overseas, been transmitted among Chinese communities in East Asia, Southeast Asia, and even globally, and formed rich and diverse ways of "observing the festival" in light of local conditions. The overseas spread of the Mid-Autumn Festival historically followed two main paths: first, the spread of customs brought about by other countries' active borrowing, which mainly occurred within the East Asian cultural sphere; second, the outward diffusion of folk customs driven by Chinese migration, which mainly occurred outside the East Asian cultural sphere.
Kumazawa Banzan, a thinker of Japan's Edo period, once said: "China is the teacher nation of the four seas and has rendered great service to Japan. Ritual and music, writing and mathematics, palaces and houses, clothing, boats and carts, farm tools, weapons, medicine, acupuncture and moxibustion, official posts, ranks, military law, the way of bow and horse, and beyond these, the skills of a hundred craftsmen—none did not come from China." This passage highly summarizes the enormous influence of Chinese culture on Japan. Of course, this passage does not apply only to Japan. For a long period of history, Chinese culture was the most advanced culture in East Asia, admired and emulated by neighboring countries and regions such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, to the extent that "the calendar follows the Xia calendar, and clothing matches Han institutions" became a common phenomenon in East Asia. The Mid-Autumn Festival also first spread out of China under these circumstances, and was closely related to the spread of the calendar.
The calendar, as a system of time measurement formulated according to the laws of movement of the sun, moon, and stars, is both a yardstick for recording time and arranging production and daily life, and the foundation for the formation and transmission of festivals. As early as the Book of Documents, China had recorded the lunisolar calendar of "a year of three hundred and sixty-six days, with intercalary months to fix the four seasons and complete the year," but according to the "Account of the Wa People" in the Book of Jin, Japan at that time was still in a calendar-less era of "not knowing the proper seasons and festivals, but only reckoning the time of the autumn harvest as the year." By no later than the seventh century AD, China's calendar was transmitted to Japan. Although different historical periods saw Japan adopt different calendars—sometimes the Yuanjia Calendar, the Linde Calendar, sometimes the Dayan Calendar, the Wuji Calendar, or the Xuanming Calendar—for a long time these were all China's lunisolar calendars, which provided an important precondition for Chinese festival culture to profoundly influence Japan.
As for the Mid-Autumn Festival specifically, the history of its spread to Japan can be traced back to the Tang Dynasty. According to documentary records, by the ninth century AD, Japanese aristocratic literati had already begun holding moon-appreciation banquets and composing poetry on the night of the fifteenth day of the eighth month. This can be seen very clearly in the poems "Banquet on the Moon on the Night of the Fifteenth Day of the Eighth Month" and "Cherishing the Moon on the Night of the Fifteenth Day of the Eighth Month" included in the Tian Family Collection by the early Heian aristocrat Shimada no Tadami. The rise of this annual practice was clearly the result of Tang influence. Subsequently, similar activities were also held at court. For example, on the night of the fifteenth day of the eighth month in the ninth year of Engi (AD 909), the retired Emperor Uda summoned literati to the Teijiin and, taking "the moon's shadow floats on the autumn pond" as the theme, had them compose poetry. With the development of the times, by the Edo period the Mid-Autumn Festival had already become popular among the common people. According to the Morisada Manpitsu by Kitagawa Morisada, completed in the nineteenth century: "The fifteenth day of the eighth month is called Imomeigetsu (potato moon). In the Edo region, round moon-viewing dumplings are offered; in the Kyoto and Osaka area, dumplings in the shape of taro are used. Together with pampas grass, taro, and chestnuts, they are offered to the moon." It can be seen that by this time the Mid-Autumn Festival had also formed a dedicated moon-offering custom and corresponding festival items, among which moon-viewing dumplings are quite representative. Some scholars believe that offering dumplings on the night of the fifteenth day is an imitation of offering mooncakes during China's Mid-Autumn Festival, expressing a hope for family completeness. Interestingly, besides the fifteenth day of the eighth month, Japan also has a "thirteenth day of the ninth month called Mamemeigetsu (bean moon)," and on this day, as on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, the moon is appreciated. "Viewing the two together is called dual moon appreciation. Viewing only one of them is called 'partial moon viewing.'"
After the Meiji Restoration, Japan left Asia and entered Europe, and from 1873 abolished the traditional lunisolar calendar and fully adopted the Western calendar, requiring that all traditional seasonal festivals be moved to the corresponding dates on the Western calendar. This calendar reform profoundly changed the transmission form of Japan's Mid-Autumn Festival. Although today the grand spectacle of the entire Japanese people participating in the Mid-Autumn Festival is rarely seen, cultural symbols such as moon-viewing dumplings and pampas grass continue to this day, and some regions still adhere to the custom of moon appreciation on the fifteenth day of the eighth month of the old calendar, from which one can glimpse the enduring historical influence of the Mid-Autumn Festival on Japan.
In Korea and North Korea, the Mid-Autumn Festival is called Chuseok, Mid-Autumn, Gabe, and other names, and is highly valued in folk customs. As Kim Mae-sun's Yeolyang Sesigi says: "In this month, all things ripen, and the Mid-Autumn Festival is also called the fine festival, so it is most valued among the people. On this day, even in poor rural households, it is customary to brew rice into wine and kill chickens for dishes, with side dishes and fruits laid out lavishly on the table... Scholar-official families hold grave rites on the four named days of New Year's Day, Hansik, Mid-Autumn, and Winter Solstice, and while the New Year and Winter Solstice are sometimes not observed, only Hansik and Mid-Autumn are grand, and Hansik is not as grand as Mid-Autumn." In addition, its customs are also deeply influenced by Chinese culture. The Goryeosa, in the "Annals of King Yejong," records: "The king, on Mid-Autumn, led civil officials to appreciate the moon in the Chunggwang Pavilion, composed a poem on the moon himself, whose final couplet read: 'In days to come, may our people attain wealth and longevity, and fittingly celebrate the fine festival with a banquet for the lords and ministers.' He ordered the civil officials to compose matching poems." It can be seen that during the Goryeo Dynasty, customs such as moon appreciation, poetry composition, and banqueting all circulated among the royal house and upper-class literati. In addition, customs of Chuseok such as the tea rite (ancestral rites), tomb sweeping, and family reunion are also the result of Confucian cultural influence. Of course, Chuseok on the Korean Peninsula also has its own characteristics—for example, songpyeon is its most important festival food, and tug-of-war is an important entertainment activity. There is also the Ganggangsullae dance, mainly popular in southwestern Korea, a seasonal ritual of harvest and abundance. Today, Chuseok remains one of the most important festivals in South Korea, with a three-day statutory holiday. During the festival, people return to their hometowns for reunions, hold "tea rites" to honor ancestors, visit ancestral graves, make the seasonal food songpyeon, and exchange gifts among relatives and friends, keeping alive this having a long and continuous history festival tradition.
The spread and popularity of the Mid-Autumn Festival in Vietnam also has a long history. The "Stela of the Fourth Emperor of the Li Dynasty of Dai Viet, the Tower of Chong Thien Dien Linh," erected in the second year of Thien Phu Due Vo of Emperor Nhan Tong of the Ly Dynasty (1121), records that boat rides, water puppetry, and lantern festivals were held in the city of Thang Long on the fifteenth day of the eighth month, proving that by no later than the twelfth century, Mid-Autumn Festival customs had already been carried out at the official level in the Ly Dynasty capital. Phan Ke Binh's Vietnamese Customs shows the richness of folk Mid-Autumn Festival customs from the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries: during the day, offering tables are set up to worship ancestors; at night, offering tables are set up to appreciate the moon, with mooncakes and fruits placed on them, while children play in groups or parade with flower lanterns, perform lion dances, and so on. Vietnam also widely circulates the legend of Cuoi and the banyan tree on the moon. According to the legend, Cuoi planted a sacred banyan tree, and because his wife carelessly watered the roots with dirty water, the banyan tree flew into the sky, and Cuoi, clinging to the roots, flew into the moon with it. Every fifteenth day of the eighth month, children parade with lanterns, precisely to light the way and hope for Cuoi's return to the human world, and the shadow on the moon is none other than Cuoi and the sacred banyan tree. In today's Vietnam, the Mid-Autumn Festival is a festival for all the people that combines the multiple identities of a reunion festival, a moon-viewing festival, and a children's festival. At that time, the streets are filled with flower lanterns and mooncakes, and children parade with lanterns and play lion dances, presenting a lively scene.
The migration of Chinese people is the main reason for the Mid-Autumn Festival's wide spread and popularity outside the East Asian cultural sphere. People are the carriers of culture, and when people move to a new environment, they often consciously preserve and transmit their own cultural traditions. Since the Ming and Qing dynasties, large numbers of Chinese have gone to the South Seas, and the Mid-Autumn Festival was accordingly introduced to Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Indonesia, and other Asian countries. Local Chinese regard the Mid-Autumn Festival as an important vehicle for maintaining memories of their homeland and consolidating community identity. On the one hand, they continue existing festival customs; on the other hand, they form new ways of observing the festival in light of local conditions. For example, in Malaysia, Chinese people gather at home, eat mooncakes, and also hold activities such as dragon and lion dances, lantern parades, and garden parties in public places. In Thailand, the Mid-Autumn Festival is also called the "Moon-Worshiping Festival." Every Mid-Autumn Festival, Chinese families in Thailand prepare mooncakes, fruits, lotus roots, and other items to offer to the moon goddess, praying for family happiness and completeness. Pomelo is an indispensable food, symbolizing reunion and sweetness. Mooncakes are also an important seasonal delicacy, with dozens of flavors; besides traditional fillings such as lotus seed paste and five kernels, there are also durian and coconut flavors with distinctly Thai characteristics. In regions such as Europe, the Americas, and Oceania, Chinese and overseas Chinese communities likewise continue Mid-Autumn culture, holding Mid-Autumn gatherings and evening parties, tasting mooncakes, and so on. Immigrants not only continue festival traditions within their own communities, but also, through interaction with local societies, gradually influence the surrounding non-Chinese groups with the Mid-Autumn Festival. This cultural exchange has not only expanded the scope of the Mid-Autumn Festival's spread, but also promoted mutual understanding and integration between different cultures, making it an important vehicle for cross-cultural exchange and enabling the Mid-Autumn Festival to gain broader recognition and acceptance globally.
"The bright moon rises over the sea; from the ends of the earth we share this moment." After a long history of transmission and evolution, the Mid-Autumn Festival today is not only a traditional Chinese festival, but is also popular in many countries and regions around the world. The Mid-Autumn Festival, sharing a common origin, has become a cultural symbol shared by many countries, while at the same time, through localization and indigenization, it presents rich diversity and strong vitality.
(The author is a researcher at Beijing Union University and vice president of the Chinese Folklore Society)
Return to TopBy: 黄玥瑜
After the Opium War, the great powers surrounded China, the maritime frontiers were repeatedly invaded and threatened, and Taiwan, isolated and cut off overseas, faced especially urgent defense needs. Far-sighted figures such as Lin Zexu and Wei Yuan proposed "learning the superior techniques of the barbarians to control them," and advocating Westernization, developing the shipbuilding industry, and building a modern navy gradually became the consensus of the era. In 1866, Zuo Zongtang memorialized the throne requesting the establishment of a bureau to build ships, and the Fuzhou Shipyard (船政) was established at Mawei in Fuzhou, pioneering China's modern shipbuilding industry, naval construction, and maritime education. From the day of its founding, the Shipyard was deeply connected to the security of the Taiwan Strait and the development of Taiwan—defending the national territory through maritime defense, building the treasured island through industry, and connecting the two shores through cultural ties. It wrote a weighty chapter in the history of Fujian-Taiwan relations and became a living historical witness to the two shores sharing a common destiny and sharing the same fate or interests (休戚与共, xiu qi yu gong - "rest, sorrow; together, share").
Laying the Foundation of Maritime Defense: The Shipyard Propped Up the Security Barrier of the Taiwan Strait
In the late Qing Dynasty, as the country's gates were forced open, the Western powers and Japan to the east repeatedly encroached upon the southeastern maritime frontiers. Because of its important strategic position, Taiwan became the focus of foreign covetousness. During the two Opium Wars, Taiwan's coasts were repeatedly harassed, yet the Qing government was powerless to resist due to its weak maritime defense. The Fujian Shipyard shouldered the mission of strengthening oneself to resist foreign aggression (自强御侮, zi qiang yu wu - "self, strengthen; resist, insult") and guarding the Taiwan Strait, opening the path of exploration for China's modern maritime defense and shipbuilding industry.
The Fujian Shipyard consolidated the foundation of Taiwan Strait defense from multiple dimensions. In shipbuilding, the Shipyard progressed from imitation to independent research and development, gradually mastering core technologies of modern shipbuilding, and built more than 40 modern warships in total. Nearly all of the main vessels of the Shipyard's own steamship fleet were equipped by it, and a considerable proportion of the main warships of both the Beiyang and Nanyang Fleets also came from the Shipyard. Among them, the Yangwu became the first cruiser built in Asia. In shipping and connectivity, the Shipyard built dual-purpose military-civilian vessels such as the Wannianqing and the Fubo, opening a regular route between Fuzhou and Keelung. These vessels transported rice, salt, coal, and other supplies back and forth, undertook the heavy responsibilities of troop dispatch, official document delivery, and maritime rescue, turning the strait from a natural moat into a thoroughfare. Through the circulation of goods, they sustained the economic lifeline of the Taiwan Strait and strengthened the bond between the two shores. In talent cultivation, the Shipyard Academy pioneered modern Chinese naval education, hiring foreign instructors to teach shipbuilding, navigation, marine engineering, and other skills, and selecting students to study in Britain and France. It trained modern naval officers and engineering talents such as Yan Fu, Liu Buchan, and Deng Shichang. These elites later went to the front lines of Taiwan Strait defense and became the backbone force in guarding the maritime frontiers and building Taiwan.
In 1874, Japan used the killing of Ryukyuan tribute-boat sailors in Taiwan's indigenous tribal areas as a pretext to send troops to invade Taiwan. Japanese forces landed at Langqiao and attacked and occupied multiple tribes including Mudan and Gaoshifo, attempting to occupy Taiwan for the long term. Because control over Taiwan's indigenous areas was weak at the time, land transportation was blocked, and there were loopholes in defense, the Qing government urgently appointed Shen Baozhen as imperial commissioner, ordering him to lead more than ten main warships built by the Shipyard and the core backbone personnel trained by the Shipyard Academy across the sea to Taiwan.
In mid-June, Shen Baozhen arrived in Taiwan. On the one hand, he negotiated with the Japanese forces for their withdrawal; on the other, he deployed defense across the island: adding fortifications at the prefectural seat and Penghu, and dispatching merchant ships to transport military equipment; transferring 6,500 Huai Army troops to garrison Fengshan, with land defense divided between the Taiwan garrison commander-in-chief and the Taiwan military intendant, each in charge of the southern and northern routes respectively. On the maritime side, six vessels including the Yangwu and the Feiyun were stationed permanently at Penghu to hold the throat of the strait; the Fuxing guarded Taipei, the Wannianqing was stationed at Xiamen, and the Ji'an protected Fuzhou. With multiple Shipyard vessels deployed, a tight defense network was constructed. At the same time, the Qing government also shipped in foreign cannons, gunpowder, and other ordnance and ammunition, greatly boosting morale. The Japanese troops invading Taiwan suffered from heat, acclimatization problems, and the spread of disease in their ranks. Seeing that they could hardly win militarily, they finally withdrew from Taiwan in December.
After the Mudan Incident, the Qing court established a Taiwan defense doctrine centered on "resisting foreign aggression," and both the court and the country gained a deeper understanding of Taiwan's strategic position. Zuo Zongtang referred to Taiwan as being "like the left and right hands that can protect the head, neck, and spine," and said that one must "urgently strengthen its defense and not relax it for a single day." Liangjiang Governor-General Li Zongxi called Taiwan "truly the number one gateway of China." Shen Baozhen also stressed that "Taiwan, isolated overseas, serves as the gateway for seven provinces; its importance is by no means light." To coordinate Fujian-Taiwan defense and maritime defense construction, Wenyu, Li Henian, Wang Kaitai, and Shen Baozhen jointly submitted the Memorial on Jointly Planning the Overall Situation of Taiwan, proposing that the governor-general concurrently oversee affairs of both Fujian and Taiwan provinces. They pointed out that "of everything Taiwan needs, eight or nine items out of ten are supplied by the Shipyard," and that "if a separate province were established, the Shipyard might not be able to maintain a single integrated effort," highlighting the relying heavily on each other for survival (唇齿相依, chun chi xiang yi - "lips, teeth; mutually, rely") relationship between the Fujian Shipyard and Taiwan's maritime defense.
As a result, Fujian and Taiwan maritime defense became integrated, Shipyard vessels patrolled the Taiwan Strait on a regular basis, and the Qing court's approach to Taiwan's defense shifted from passive response to active planning and construction, fundamentally changing the previous situation of weak Taiwan Strait defense.
New Policies Revitalized Taiwan: The Shipyard Opened the Journey of the Treasured Island's Modernization
Beyond resisting aggression, Shen Baozhen and others keenly understood that the foundation of stabilizing Taiwan lay in construction, in development, and in winning the hearts of the people. He strongly advocated abolishing the old prohibition system that "banned mainland people from crossing to Taiwan" and "restricted Han people from entering the mountains," and, with "opening the mountains and pacifying the indigenous peoples" as the core, opened a new chapter in Taiwan's modern governance. Thereafter, Shipyard elites such as Ding Richang and Liu Mingchuan continued the effort, carrying out comprehensive reform in three areas—governance, industry, and communications—propelling Taiwan from a closed frontier to the forefront of modernization.
Administrative governance and people's livelihood, culture, and education advanced in tandem. Administratively, Taiwan Prefecture expanded from one prefecture and four counties to two prefectures and eight counties, with an increasingly complete administrative structure and significantly enhanced central governance effectiveness; the Taiwan garrison system was reformed, redundant personnel were eliminated, military discipline was tightened, defense capabilities were strengthened, the rotation system for garrison troops was rectified, and cross-regional troop rotation was implemented. In people's livelihood, the ban on land reclamation was abolished, and people from Fujian and Guangdong were encouraged to cross to Taiwan to reclaim land, accelerating land development and population concentration; reclamation and pacification agencies were established to recruit and pacify the indigenous peoples, properly resettle them, and help solve their production and livelihood problems; prohibition steles were also erected, declaring that "grain purchased to replenish granaries shall be bought at the place where grain is available, at current market prices, through public tender announced in the market" and that "payment shall be made immediately upon purchase, and no apportionment shall be imposed on the people," thereby rectifying grassroots official governance. In culture and education, Shen Baozhen and Wang Kaitai jointly supervised the compilation of Xun Fan Li Yan (Plain Words for Instructing the Indigenous Peoples), modeled on the Three Character Classic, using five-character rhymed verse to form a basic textbook for indigenous children to recite. Later, the Quan Fan Ge (Song of Exhortation to the Indigenous Peoples) was promoted, using "benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness" to educate the people. At the same time, permission was obtained to build the Yannping Commandery Prince Shrine to honor Zheng Chenggong, strengthening cross-strait cultural identity and feelings of family and country. Shen Baozhen memorialized that children from the various tribes were sent to "learn language and writing, so as to express their feelings; practice bowing, kneeling, and etiquette, so as to soften their temperament," and that the indigenous people were all submitting completely and obediently (俯首帖服, fu shou tie fu - "bow, head; flat, obey"), with the indigenous peoples' identification with Chinese culture gradually taking root.
Industry and communications construction achieved historic breakthroughs. During his tenure as Fujian governor concurrently in charge of the Shipyard, Ding Richang introduced Western technology and equipment, developed China's first modern coal mine—the Keelung Coal Mine—breaking the energy bottleneck of Taiwan's modern industry, and also carried out oil exploration, laying the foundation for resource development. After Liu Mingchuan took charge of Taiwan, he further promoted modernization: building Taiwan's first railway from Keelung to Taipei to Hsinchu, improving land transportation; establishing a postal service and setting up a bureau of commerce, prospering cross-strait trade. Driven by economic policies, the Fujian-Taiwan ferry ports flourished, with merchant firms and guild halls standing in rows and economic ties more tightly linked than ever before. In the field of communications, Ding Richang oversaw the construction of the telegraph line from Qihou to the Taiwan prefectural seat—the first telegraph line independently built and managed by Chinese. In 1887, Liu Mingchuan oversaw the construction of China's first independently built cross-sea cable—the submarine cable from Chuanshi Island in Fuzhou to Tamsui in Taiwan. The cable, 117 nautical miles in total length, was laid by the cable-laying vessel Feijie, with graduates of the Shipyard Telegraph Academy serving as the technical backbone, and was completed in only two months from start to finish. After the cable was opened, military intelligence and government orders between Taiwan and the mainland could be transmitted instantly, changing the previous predicament of "no communication of information." In an era without satellites and without the internet, this cable became an "information bond" linking the two shores, closely connecting Taiwan with the motherland.
From the consolidation of defense to the reform of governance, from revitalizing the nation through industry to the connection of information, the modernization led by the Shipyard brought about an all-round transformation of Taiwan. A series of pioneering achievements—the Keelung Coal Mine, the Taiwan Railway, and the Fujian-Taiwan submarine cable—were all supported by the Shipyard's technology, talent, and equipment. Every step of Taiwan's modernization bears the deep imprint of the Shipyard, and the pattern of Fujian-Taiwan industrial complementarity, economic connectivity, and shared development was thus formed.
One hundred and sixty years of trials and tribulations. Although the physical remains of the Fujian Shipyard have weathered the vicissitudes of time, its cultural core has always been the spiritual bond linking Fujian and Taiwan. Fujian and Taiwan have been connected by the same mountains and seas and the same bloodline since ancient times, and the founding of the Fujian Shipyard elevated the integration of the two shores to the strategic height of national maritime defense and development. The history of the Fujian Shipyard is a history of Fujian and Taiwan looking out for and helping one another (守望相助, shou wang xiang zhu - "watch, guard; mutual, help") and thriving together. It protected Taiwan's security through maritime defense, promoted Taiwan's development through construction, and united the hearts of the people on both shores through culture, proving with ironclad historical facts that the integration of Fujian and Taiwan is an inevitability of both history and reality, and that compatriots on both shores of the strait have always been a community of shared destiny bound by blood.
Return to TopBy: 贺丹
The population issue has always been a comprehensive, long-term, and strategic issue bearing on the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that we must "advance the comprehensive reform of fertility policies, service management systems, family development support systems, and governance mechanisms," and that "we must promote the building of a fertility-friendly society." The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan, focusing on promoting high-quality population development, clearly deploys key tasks such as improving fertility support policies, improving the childcare service system, improving family development policies, and fostering a fertility-friendly environment, pointing the way forward for building a fertility-friendly society centered on supporting family development. The family is the basic cell of society and an important subject of population reproduction. As China's population development enters a new normal and family structures and functions undergo profound changes, accelerating the improvement of the family development support policy system and actively building a fertility-friendly society is both an inherent requirement for meeting the people's growing needs for a better life and an inevitable choice for supporting Chinese modernization with high-quality population development.
Fertility support policies need to shift from focusing on individuals to focusing on families
The family is the basic unit connecting the individual and society, and a stable cornerstone of social governance. With the accelerated advancement of industrialization, urbanization, intelligentization, and marketization, the external environment facing traditional family development and its functions of production, child-rearing, and education have undergone profound changes. Building a support system centered on family development has increasingly become an urgent requirement for population work in the new era.
The accelerated evolution of the digital intelligent society is reshaping the technological and social conditions for family development. A new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is advancing in depth, and general-purpose technologies such as artificial intelligence, gene technology, and new energy are being applied more rapidly. Individuals' employment patterns, lifestyles, and social interaction methods are undergoing profound transformation, and the traditional family-based division of labor, emotional support, and care arrangements are facing readjustment. At the same time, new modes of production such as the digital platform economy, flexible employment, and remote work have blurred the boundaries between work and family, placing young people under new pressure in major matters such as forming families, bearing and raising children, and supporting elderly parents. The traditional functions of intergenerational mutual assistance and emotional comfort within families are showing a weakening trend.
The social security system is becoming increasingly complete, and traditional family security functions continue to shift outward. A multi-tiered social security system covering the entire population and coordinating urban and rural areas has been basically established. Socialized institutional arrangements for elderly care, medical care, housing, and education have to a large extent replaced some functions of the traditional family. Individuals' dependence on the family has decreased, and the intrinsic incentive to form families has correspondingly weakened. At the same time, with accelerated social mobility and widespread intergenerational separation, the traditional "intergenerational relay" model of population reproduction within families is tending to weaken, and both intergenerational support and intra-generational mutual assistance capacities of families need to be reshaped and strengthened through institutional arrangements.
The uncertainty of social risks is increasing, and the vulnerability of family development is becoming more prominent. Multiple risks such as economic cycle fluctuations, rapid technological iteration, changes in employment patterns, and sudden public events are superimposed, making the external shocks faced by families more frequent and their transmission more complex. As "small units for sharing risks," families find it difficult to cope alone with cross-domain, cross-cycle, and cross-regional social risks. There is an urgent need to enhance families' resilience in resisting risks and recovering development through policy-based and socialized means, and to promote the transformation of family development support from "family self-help" to "social mutual assistance."
On the whole, China is experiencing a dual transformation of population structure and family form. The trends of smaller family size, nuclearization of structure, dispersion of relationships, and specialization of functions are superimposed. The traditional "individual-family" binary fertility support framework can no longer meet the actual needs of family development. There is an urgent need to shift the focus of support from individuals to families and accelerate the building of a fertility support policy system centered on family development and viewed from a full life-cycle perspective.
Building a fertility-friendly society urgently requires a combined approach of "reducing burdens" and "providing incentives"
At present, the building of a fertility-friendly society faces a series of practical shortcomings. Traditional concepts of marriage and family are undergoing rapid transformation, the reshaping of a new marriage and childbearing culture has not yet been completed, and a positive view of marriage and childbearing still needs to be strengthened. First, some localities do not yet have a sufficient understanding of building a fertility-friendly society. Some departments lack a deep understanding of the strategic significance of long-term balanced population development and of the urgency of building a family-friendly policy system, and mechanisms for organizational leadership, overall coordination, financial investment, and supervision and assessment need to be improved. Second, the fertility concepts of the childbearing-age population are becoming increasingly diversified. Fertility motivations are diverse; young people increasingly pursue freedom and independence, place greater emphasis on the balance between personal pursuits and family responsibilities, and marriage and childbearing are no longer mandatory items in life. Having fewer and better children has become the mainstream concept of the younger generation; some people choose to have fewer children, adopt more refined child-rearing methods, and pursue high-quality educational resources and opportunities. Third, the algorithmic recommendation mechanisms of social media are gradually intensifying the individualization and polarization tendencies of young people's cognition of marriage and childbearing. At present, various forms of social media have become the main arenas shaping young people's views on marriage and childbearing. By influencing the visibility, repetition, and ranking of information, algorithmic recommendation mechanisms may cause cognitive biases such as amplifying fear, inflating expectations of the costs of marriage and dating, creating false social consensus, and reducing the visibility of authoritative information.
At the same time, it should be recognized that fertility intention is a "latent variable" of fertility behavior, and cost constraints are a "fundamental variable" affecting fertility intention. Unlike traditional societies, survival and livelihood in modern society are highly dependent on a developed market economy system. Major family matters such as marriage, housing, education, childcare, and elderly support are mainly realized through socialized services and commodified expenditures, and the costs of marriage and childbearing have become a key constraint affecting young families' fertility decisions. At present, the marriage and childbearing costs that urgently need to be reduced are concentrated in three areas. The first is the cost of marriage. "Marriage thresholds" such as high bride prices and wedding expenses impose obvious economic pressure on marriageable young people, especially rural youth and their families. The second is housing costs. Pressure from home purchasing and insufficient rental stability directly affect the willingness to form and expand families. The third is the cost of child-rearing and education. The full-chain investment from pregnancy and childbirth, childcare, and kindergarten to basic education and extracurricular tutoring is growing rapidly, and the parenting anxiety of "not losing at the starting line" has become an important factor suppressing second and third births. High marriage and childbearing costs directly affect young people's positive expectations for future life and further weaken the effective transformation of marriage and fertility intentions into fertility behavior. There is an urgent need to launch a "combined approach" to reduce the costs of marriage and childbearing, so that "being able to afford to have children, raise them well, and educate them well" becomes an achievable social reality.
Accelerate the building of a fertility-friendly society covering the entire population and the full life cycle
Fertility friendliness is, in essence, a policy expression of family friendliness. To build a fertility-friendly society, we must base ourselves on the macro background of family development, accurately grasp the inherent laws of family change, take supporting family development as the main thread, focus on reducing family burdens, stimulating family vitality, and enhancing family resilience, and accelerate the improvement of a population service system covering the entire population and the full life cycle, laying a solid foundation for promoting high-quality population development.
Strengthen the integrated design of fertility support policies and the capacity for comprehensive burden reduction. Establish and improve the fertility support policy system, and strengthen the organic articulation of economic support, time support, service support, and cultural support. Improve the childcare subsidy system that is compatible with the level of economic and social development and articulated with other social security systems, integrate various forms of cash support such as maternity subsidies, fertility allowances, childcare subsidies, and special additional deductions for individual income tax, so that "spending less or nothing to have children" becomes an attainable policy expectation. Improve the maternity insurance system, orderly include groups such as flexible employees and workers in new forms of employment within the coverage scope, and gradually include appropriate assisted reproductive technology projects within the scope of medical insurance payment, so that groups who "want to have children but cannot, or dare not" receive effective support. Improve the leave system compatible with infant and young child care labor, clarify the cost-sharing channels for leaves such as spouse care leave, parental leave, and hospital care leave for only-child employees caring for their parents, and promote the transformation of the leave system from "rights on paper" to "actual benefits."
Accelerate the improvement of an integrated 0–6 childcare service system. Focusing on early childhood development, vigorously develop affordable childcare services, establish mechanisms for routine operating subsidies, talent incentives, and quality supervision, coordinate the planning and layout of preschool education and infant childcare service resources, and accelerate the gradual realization of free affordable childcare services. Build a "1+N" childcare service network with comprehensive childcare service centers as benchmarks, public childcare institutions, kindergarten nursery classes, and publicly built and privately operated institutions as the backbone, and community-embedded childcare and family childcare points as support, enhancing the accessibility, safety, and family recognition of services. Improve the comprehensive supervision system for childcare services, strengthen standards and norms, teacher qualifications, and safety guarantees, and comprehensively improve population quality. Increase policy support for infant and young child care services in rural areas that have been lifted out of poverty and in areas with concentrated migrant populations, and fill the shortcomings of childcare services in less developed regions.
Build a friendly policy environment covering the entire process of dating and marriage, childbearing, child-rearing, education, and elderly support. Reduce the burden of education, expand the supply of quality educational resources, promote the high-quality and balanced development of compulsory education, establish a basic public education service supply mechanism coordinated with population changes, and promote the transformation of basic education from "filling shortcomings" to "improving quality." Reduce the burden of housing, accelerate the improvement of a housing security system with public rental housing, government-subsidized rental housing, and shared-ownership housing as the main body, implement differentiated housing support for newly married families, families with multiple children, and special families affected by family planning policies, so that young families and newly married families can "afford to live and live securely." Optimize the employment environment, fully implement policies against employment discrimination and for gender equality, correct fertility discrimination in the job market, enhance men's awareness of parenting, promote shared responsibility between parents, and build a gender-friendly employment environment.
Launch a project to enhance awareness of marriage and childbearing values in the new era. Build an all-channel communication system for marriage and childbearing values, open public-interest columns on marriage and childbearing in mainstream media to explain fertility support policies and a positive view of marriage and childbearing, build public-interest dating and marriage platforms in communities such as universities, industrial parks, and groups in new forms of employment, place public-interest short videos and micro-dramas on marriage and childbearing on social media, cooperate with family-oriented bloggers to disseminate the concepts of "marriage at an appropriate age, gender equality, and shared responsibility," guide platform algorithms to favor positive content on marriage and childbearing, and form a new pattern of marriage and childbearing cultural communication featuring "national advocacy, platform operation, algorithmic coordination, and public participation," so that the childbearing-age population forms stable and positive expectations of the value of marriage and family.
Improve the mechanisms for overall coordination and factor guarantee of family development support policies. Strengthen the Party's overall leadership over population work and family development work, incorporate high-quality population development and family development support into local comprehensive assessment systems, and consolidate the primary responsibility of Party committees and governments at all levels. Improve the mechanism for stable growth of financial investment, establish a reasonable proportion of family development expenditure in public finance, establish a cost transfer payment mechanism between population inflow and outflow areas, and clarify the cost-sharing ratios among the government, employers, families, and individuals. Accelerate the establishment of a dynamic monitoring and statistical system for population and families, improve the comprehensive information platform for population service management, and enhance the scientific, precise, and forward-looking nature of policy formulation. Improve the evaluation mechanism for fertility support policies, learn from international experience to establish a pre-review system for family policies, and ensure that all policies remain consistent with the orientation of fertility-friendly and family-friendly policies.
It must be recognized that a "fertility-friendly society" is not a simple replacement for "fertility support policies," but a systematic project covering multiple dimensions including the economy, society, culture, technology, and institutions. "Fertility friendliness" is in essence friendliness toward "marriage," friendliness toward "education," friendliness toward "employment," friendliness toward "housing," friendliness toward "child-rearing," and friendliness toward "old age." Its core is to make the family a stable fulcrum of population reproduction and a source of vitality for high-quality economic and social development through policy coordination, cultural cultivation, and social co-building. We should take supporting family development as a foundational strategy for actively responding to low fertility and population aging, promote the organic articulation and complementing each other in a mutually beneficial way (相得益彰, xiang de yi zhang - "mutual, benefit, each other") of building a fertility-friendly society with building child-friendly cities, youth development-oriented cities, a women-friendly society, and an age-friendly society, so that the fruits of reform and development benefit all families more extensively and fairly, and so that hundreds of millions of families gain more sense of fulfillment, happiness, and security through joint contribution, joint governance, and shared benefits.
(The author is Director of the China Population and Development Research Center and Chief Expert of the Health and Population Development Strategy Research Institute)
Return to Top(Study Times report)
On September 21, the book donation ceremony for targeted assistance by the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) was held in Mojiang Hani Autonomous County, Pu'er City, Yunnan Province. A total of 6,273 books were donated, with a cumulative value of nearly 300,000 yuan, including theoretical study books on the Party's innovative theories, Party history, and Party building, as well as practical books on grassroots governance and rural revitalization. The books were distributed by category and purpose to 15 townships across the county, the villages receiving targeted assistance from the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance), as well as units including the county Party school, the county federation of trade unions, the county committee of the Communist Youth League, the county women's federation, and the county supply and marketing cooperative.
This charitable book donation activity is a warm-hearted initiative by the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) to deepen cultural empowerment, care for grassroots development, and support cultural development in border-area counties. It is also an important practice for further implementing the rural revitalization strategy, advancing assisting both with intellectual and psychological development (智志双扶, zhi zhi shuang fu - "intellect, will, both, assist") to greater depth and substance, promoting the flow of high-quality cultural resources to the grassroots, and improving the theoretical and ideological capabilities of grassroots leading cadres.
Over the more than 10 years since the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) began its targeted assistance to Mojiang County, it has consistently made assisting both with intellectual and psychological development a work priority. In the past two years, it has continuously increased investment in education, investing a cumulative total of over 3 million yuan to build standardized English listening and speaking examination classrooms, multimedia classrooms, and spectator stands and other campus facilities; coordinating donations of educational materials worth over 2.8 million yuan; and investing nearly 700,000 yuan to establish student financial aid, assisting more than 1,100 students from families in difficulty, thereby supporting the high-quality development of Mojiang's education sector. The Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) will continue to support and assist the development of various undertakings in Mojiang County, help more high-quality resources reach the grassroots, transform the tangible results of assisting both with intellectual and psychological development into a powerful force for undertaking work and starting businesses, and jointly strive to write the Mojiang chapter of Chinese modernization.
Return to Top(Study Times report) The Party School (School of Administration) of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee has earnestly implemented the spirit of the National Conference of Presidents (Deans) of Party Schools (Schools of Administration), treating the in-depth study and implementation of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building as an important political task, making it a required course, a regular course, and a key course in teaching, and solidly and effectively carrying out the work of incorporating it into textbooks, into classrooms, and into minds.
Further build a scientific class system. Run the basic training classes well, coordinate the layout of training targets and duration of study, offer special courses on Xi Jinping's thought on Party building across all main training classes without exception, and ensure that all those who should receive basic training are trained. Together with the Organization Department of the Provincial Party Committee and relevant provincial departments, hold special seminars on Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and training classes such as the "Study and Implementation of Xi Jinping's Thought on Party Building and Comprehensive Capacity Improvement for Party Affairs and Organization Cadres in 2026," expanding the coverage and benefits of training and actively serving the education and training of Party members and cadres across the province. Hold collective lesson-preparation meetings and special teacher training classes for the study and implementation of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building in the provincial Party school (School of Administration) system, guiding teachers to explain Xi Jinping's thought on Party building thoroughly and clearly from multiple dimensions such as political positioning, problem orientation, theoretical contribution, practical value, and world significance, and enhancing the political level, policy level, academic level, and professional level of teaching.
Further build a complete content system. Adhere to making Xi Jinping's thought on Party building an important part of theoretical education and Party spirit education, list Volume I and Volume II of the Selected Works of Xi Jinping on Party Building as key study readings, promptly update existing teaching topics, organize the compilation of case-study textbooks, and deepen theoretical arming. In light of key contents such as the Fourteen Commitments (十四个坚持), organize the development of related sub-topic courses through various forms such as joint lesson preparation and shared use, designated development, and commissioned development, record a series of online courses, and build a "1+14" course matrix. Organize teachers to go to the front line at the grassroots level to investigate the vivid practice of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building in Anhui, promote the transformation of research findings into fresh lecture content, and enhance the pertinence and effectiveness of teaching. In response to the difficult and blocking problems in the course-teaching process, publish special research topics on "Study and Implementation of Xi Jinping's Thought on Party Building" for the provincial Party school (School of Administration) system, strengthen scientific research efforts, and help polish and improve the courses.
Further improve the training methods system. Vigorously promote research-based teaching, comprehensively apply lecture-based and interactive teaching methods, and increase the intensity of case-based teaching. Centering on the vivid practice of Anhui under the guidance of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building, focusing on fields such as Party spirit education and grassroots Party building, scientifically connect on-site teaching points, and carefully create on-site teaching routes for learning, thinking, and practicing along the footsteps of General Secretary Xi Jinping. Combine the in-depth study and implementation of Xi Jinping's thought on Party building with consolidating and expanding the educational achievements of establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, continue to carry out pre-class sharing activities of work cases on overcoming difficulties by students in the main training classes of Party schools at the provincial, municipal, and county levels under the theme of "learning thought and emphasizing practice," select excellent cases to record micro-courses for the study of Party members and cadres across the province, and promote mutual learning and reference (互学互鉴, hu xue hu jian - "each other, learn, each other, learn") and common improvement. Regularly carry out teaching activities such as student lectures, student forums, and exchanges on the "two things brought" questions, strengthen cross-class, counterpart, and cross-provincial exchanges among students, and promote the mutual improvement of teachers and students (教学相长, jiao xue xiang zhang - "teaching, learning, mutually, grow") and the mutual improvement of students. Make full use of modern information technology, and through forms such as "sharing excellent courses" and "live classrooms," promote the direct delivery of high-quality teaching resources to municipal and county Party schools with the same quality and equivalent effect.
(Fan Ruyin)
Return to Top(Study Times report) On September 4, a symposium of executive vice presidents (vice deans) of the Party schools (academies of governance) of the municipal Party committees of Jiangsu Province's districted cities was held. The meeting thoroughly studied and implemented Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and Xi Jinping's important expositions on the work of Party schools, further implemented the deployment of the national conference of presidents (deans) of Party schools (academies of governance) and the work requirements of the provincial Party committee, unified thinking, pooled consensus, exchanged work experiences, and summarized lessons, so as to better advance the high-quality development of the cause of Party schools (academies of governance) across the province. Yang Ming, executive vice president (vice dean) of the Provincial Party School (Academy of Governance), attended and delivered a speech.
The meeting pointed out that Party schools (academies of governance) across the province should bear in mind the original aspiration of Party schools of "cultivating talents for the Party and offering counsel for the Party," and consciously unify their thinking and actions with the decisions and deployments of the Party Central Committee and the work requirements of the provincial Party committee.
The meeting emphasized that it is necessary to be more firm and conscious in upholding the principle that Party schools are run under the Party's banner, making the study and implementation of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, especially Xi Jinping's thought on Party building, the primary political task, and taking practical actions to firmly support the Two Establishments (两个确立) and resolutely achieve the Two Upholds (两个维护). It is necessary to be more standardized and precise in strengthening teaching and training, highlighting the education of the Party's innovative theories, strictly and normatively carrying out Party spirit education, and keeping pace with the times (与时俱进, yu shi ju jin - "with, time, together, advance") in conducting training for improving work capability. It is necessary to be more proactive in enhancing the level of scientific research, continuously deepening the systematic and theoretical research and interpretation of the Party's innovative theories, and better serving the scientific decision-making of Party committees and governments. It is necessary to be more pragmatic and effective in advancing team building, adhering to both attracting and cultivating talent, smoothing the channels for practice, and continuously improving the overall quality and capability level of the teaching staff. It is necessary to be more solid and forceful in advancing strict governance of the school, running the strict requirements, strict standards, and strict measures through the entire process of running the school and education.
Responsible comrades from 13 Party schools (academies of governance) of the municipal Party committees of districted cities and the Kunshan Branch (Sub-academy) of the Provincial Party School (Academy of Governance) made exchange speeches around studying and implementing the deployment requirements of the central and provincial Party committees, in light of the actual conditions of running the schools.
(Su Xiao Xuan)
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"Accelerating the completion of the important strategic fulcrum for the rise of the central region" is the important task and glorious mission entrusted to Hubei by General Secretary Xi Jinping. From September 1 to 10, the Party School of the Hubei Provincial Party Committee (School of Administration) held a special reading class on the theme of "Deeply Studying and Comprehending Xi Jinping's Thought on Party Building, Comprehensively Improving the Quality and Efficiency of Services for Fulcrum Construction." Participants closely focused on deeply studying and implementing Xi Jinping's Thought on Party Building, earnestly implementing the deployment of the Twelfth Plenary Session of the Twelfth Provincial Party Committee on "Building at a High Level the Wuhan Regional Science and Technology Innovation Center, Accelerating the Completion of the Important Strategic Fulcrum for the Rise of the Central Region," and, based on the main responsibilities and core business of the Party school, shared insights, clarified thinking, examined shortcomings, and sought countermeasures. The atmosphere at the meeting was warm, the discussions were pragmatic and in-depth, and a strong joint force for serving the overall development of the province was consolidated.
This special reading class adhered to both theoretical study and demonstration and leadership, combining centralized guided study with tiered discussion. Since its opening, through forms such as special guidance, expert-led study, individual self-study, branch discussions, and transformation of results, faculty and staff were organized to study in full the first and second volumes of the Selected Works of Xi Jinping on Party Building and the communiqué of the Twelfth Plenary Session of the Twelfth Provincial Party Committee, grasping the essential meanings through reading each piece, calibrating the direction of performing duties through benchmarking and self-examination, and striving to find the entry points and focal points for the Party school to serve fulcrum construction, demonstrating the unique value of the Party school as a political school.
"The three-foot podium of the Party school is not a spectator's stand for noisy observation, but a bridgehead for firmly holding the political direction." Xiao Yang of the Political Science and Law Teaching and Research Department of the Hubei Provincial Party School said at the thematic report meeting of the special reading class that implementing the spirit of the plenary session means focusing on the key tasks deployed by the plenary session, deeply excavating vivid cases from the land of Jingchu, polishing high-quality courses with craftsmanship spirit, and turning the Party school podium into a frontline position for interpreting the Party's innovative theories, publicizing the deployments of the Provincial Party Committee plenary session, and serving fulcrum construction.
Teachers of the Economics and Economic Management Teaching and Research Department held heated discussions around the "six innovations" deployed by the plenary session. Hao Huayong, director of the teaching and research department, said that they will organize backbone teachers for collective lesson preparation, polish special courses around directions such as scientific and technological innovation, industrial innovation, and financial innovation, go deep into enterprises and the front line of construction to excavate vivid practical cases, and turn the province's "main battlefield" of development into a "living classroom" for Party school teaching.
The person in charge of the Academic Affairs Office said in exchange and discussion that they will organize special guidance, interpret the spirit of the Provincial Party Committee plenary session in an authentic and unadulterated (原汁原味, yuan zhi yuan wei - "original, juice, original, flavor") manner, explain thoroughly the overall arrangement of the "three-step" approach and the top-level design of "six innovations, six creations," analyze and interpret the most cutting-edge vivid cases of scientific and technological innovation and the front line of industrial development, organize students to carry out experiential teaching along the footsteps of General Secretary Xi Jinping, and help students grasp the overall situation and trends and strengthen their awareness of the fulcrum.
Comrades of the Information Management Office (Hubei Cadre Online College) reached a consensus in exchange and discussion: they should give full play to the advantages of the online front, iterate the model of "main classroom + branch classroom + cloud classroom," build and strengthen the Hubei Cadre Online College, amplify the radiating effect of the Hubei Provincial Party School lecture hall, promote the direct delivery of high-quality courses of the "Cadre Lecture Hall for Fulcrum Construction" to city and county Party schools, and make up for the shortcomings of training resources for grassroots cadres.
In the next step, the Hubei Provincial Party School will transform the achievements of the reading class into concrete actions to serve fulcrum construction, closely follow the Provincial Party Committee's strategic deployment of "six innovations, six creations," offer systematic courses, run well the Cadre Lecture Hall for Fulcrum Construction, and strengthen training on cadres' ability to perform their duties; strengthen organized scientific research and decision-making consultation, and produce high-quality countermeasure results needed for fulcrum construction; strictly implement the requirements of strict governance of the school and quality-based school running, continuously forge a high-quality faculty and staff team of the Party school, and strive to contribute the wisdom and strength of the Party school to building at a high level the Wuhan Regional Science and Technology Innovation Center and accelerating the completion of the important strategic fulcrum for the rise of the central region.
(Chu Xiaoxuan)
Return to Top(Study Times report) The Party School of the Shandong Provincial Committee of the CPC (Shandong Academy of Governance) has thoroughly implemented General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses on the work of Party schools, closely adhering to the original aspiration of Party schools to "cultivate talent for the Party and offer counsel for the Party," deepened organized scientific research, and introduced high-quality policy advisory achievements through multiple channels and measures, striving to build the brand of Shandong Party School think tanks. From 2023 to 2025, the number of policy advisory reports approved and signed by provincial and ministerial leaders achieved three consecutive years of growth.
Strengthen organizational leadership. A Decision Advisory Department was established to conduct strategic, forward-looking, and countermeasure-oriented research around the overall economic and social development of the province, providing decision-making advisory services to the Provincial Party Committee and Provincial Government. Deepen organized scientific research, focus on forming large teams, solving major problems, and making significant contributions, research and promulgate the "Implementation Opinions on Promoting the High-Quality Development of Scientific Research Work," formulate the "Development Plan for Scientific Research and Decision Advisory Work during the 15th Five-Year Plan" and the "Development Plan for Discipline Construction during the 15th Five-Year Plan," refine the key tasks of the scientific research "Summit" project and the decision advisory "Gathering Wisdom" project, optimize the organizational model of "platform undertaking—expert leadership—team tackling," and continuously improve scientific research capabilities and management levels. Invite relevant experts to strengthen business training for teaching and research personnel in policy analysis, field research, and policy advisory writing through various forms such as the "Famous Teacher Lecture Hall" and special guidance. Optimize the work process of decision advisory, improve the three-level joint review mechanism, establish and improve a whole-process political review mechanism, and strictly review all advisory topics, research processes, and result submissions.
Strengthen demand alignment. Establish normalized cooperation mechanisms with more than 20 provincial departments directly under the provincial government, hold joint topic selection meetings every quarter, and determine topics closely aligned with decision-making needs through regular alignment, joint research, and joint planning. Around key work such as the compilation of Shandong Province's "15th Five-Year Plan," the construction of the green, low-carbon, high-quality development pilot zone, and the ecological protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin, adopt methods such as leaders "assigning topics," departments "recommending topics," experts "finalizing topics," and trainees "discussing topics" to sort out and form key topics that are strategic, forward-looking, and reserve-oriented. Through dynamic tracking of the latest deployments of the central government, the Provincial Party Committee, and the Provincial Government, publish the "Hot Topic Dynamics" monthly on a regular basis, and provide hot topics to teachers and trainees on a normalized basis.
Improve the tackling model. Promote "open-door think tank building," and actively explore collaborative tackling models such as "Party School + Department," "Party School + University," "Party School + Research Institution," and "Party School + Enterprise." Relying on Party schools across the province to establish a vertical linkage mechanism, build an information sharing platform, promote the co-construction and sharing of data resources, form a research chain of "provincial guidance, municipal organization, county-level participation" and a research pattern of upper-lower linkage and internal-external coordination, establish an annual list of key advisory directions, and organize and guide teaching and research personnel of Party schools across the province to carry out joint tackling. Promote the deep integration of teaching priorities, research hotspots, and advisory difficulties, encourage the transformation of National Social Science Fund projects and high-level paper achievements into advisory suggestions, promote high-quality approved and signed achievements into classrooms and textbooks, and realize the mutual promotion and positive, self-sustaining cycle (良性循环, liang xing xun huan - "good, positive, cycle") of teaching, research, and advisory work. Fully leverage the advantages of trainees, and innovatively promote trainees' full participation in the topic selection planning, research, and result evaluation of advisory reports.
Promote transformation and application. Establish quantitative indicators of "approval and adoption rate" and "policy transformation rate," and produce a batch of results that are thoroughly researched, effective, and useful. For high-quality advisory achievements, organize teaching and research personnel to further deepen and enhance them, and create a batch of excellent works with high positioning, accurate judgment, practical measures, and operability. Strengthen communication and collaboration with relevant provincial departments, and for research results with decision-making value, organize research teams to conduct in-depth alignment and continuous tracking, promoting the transformation of research results into policy measures. In 2025, a total of 3 achievements won the Second Provincial Government Decision Advisory Award.
(Chang Jin, Meng Hongen)
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To thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on the work of Party schools, to consolidate and expand the achievements of the study and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, and to promote ideological work to go deeper and more practical, on September 18, the Party School (School of Administration) of the Heilongjiang Provincial Party Committee held the "Strengthen Party Spirit, Observe Discipline, and Uphold Rules" themed education meeting for the 2026 autumn semester. Education Director Shi Yanze conveyed the spirit of the relevant documents and put forward requirements for teaching work in the 2026 autumn semester.
The meeting pointed out that 2026 is the opening year of the 15th Five-Year Plan. All faculty and staff must consciously enhance their political awareness and strictly guard against risks in the ideological sphere. Strengthen the management of students and graduate students, strictly perform the procedures for reporting (exit and entry) in accordance with relevant regulations, and pay close attention to the ideological dynamics of young people; strictly enforce classroom discipline, strengthen positive guidance, and resolutely resist all kinds of erroneous trends of thought and harmful remarks; treat artificial intelligence scientifically, and when applying artificial intelligence to teaching activities, accurately grasp the applicable boundaries and guard against various derivative risks and hidden dangers.
The meeting emphasized that it is necessary to strengthen communication and coordination, improve the quality and efficiency of work, and comprehensively do a good job in all tasks for the autumn semester, including course development, scientific research and policy consultation, and student management. Strictly implement the collective lesson preparation system, consciously complete lesson preparation on time, ensure the timeliness of courses, and improve course quality; make comprehensive and coordinated arrangements, encourage teachers, especially young teachers, to attend classes in the main training programs, and promote mutual progress in teaching and learning (教学相长, jiao xue xiang zang - "teach, study, mutually, grow"); strengthen classified guidance, enhance the enthusiasm of students for scientific research and policy consultation, and do a good job in the decision-making consultation report work of the middle-aged and young cadre training class; enhance mutual understanding between teachers and students, hold supervisor-student meetings at appropriate times, and achieve scientific and precise matching of graduate student supervisors.
All teachers of the teaching and research departments, all Party members and cadres of the Academic Affairs Office, and the heads of the Party Committee of the Organ, the Student Affairs Office, the Graduate Student Affairs Office, the Training Office, and the Cadre Education Research Center attended the meeting.
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Recently, Chen Huizong, Executive Vice President (Vice Dean) in charge of daily work of the Party School of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the CPC (Fujian Administration Institute), presided over a special meeting to hear opinions and suggestions on student management and to study and deploy student management work for the autumn semester.
The meeting pointed out that student management is an important link in achieving the training goals of the Party School (Administration Institute), serves as a bridge connecting teaching and learning, and plays an important role in improving the quality and effectiveness of students' theoretical study, Party spirit training, and performance of duties.
The meeting put forward the "four requirements" for student management: First, there must be a "model." Carry out student management work with a high sense of responsibility, fully leverage the role of class teachers in ideological guidance, behavioral demonstration, and study style promotion, carry out guidance, promotion, and supervision of learning, and achieve leading by example (以身作则, yi shen zuo ze - "take, body, do, rule") and setting an example for others to follow (率先垂范, lv xian chui fan - "first, lead, hang, model"). Second, there must be a "measure." Adhere to the combination of strict management and care, grasp the management scale, service discretion, and work boundaries well, reflect organizational care while maintaining management authority, and enable students to enhance their initiative and consciousness in learning in a strict and tight atmosphere. Third, there must be a "method." Deeply grasp the inherent laws of student management, do a good job of connecting and coordinating with teaching work, and gather the joint force of working together in a coordinated manner (齐抓共管, qi zhua gong guan - "together, grasp, jointly, manage"); regularly listen to students' voices, promptly sort out opinions and suggestions, and continuously optimize and improve management measures. Fourth, there must be "rules." Adhere to the basic policy of strict governance of the school, strictly implement training regulations, improve management systems, achieve management in accordance with regulations and handle affairs according to rules, and effectively persist in the strict tone, strict measures, and strict atmosphere for a long time.
Responsible persons and relevant staff from the Academic Affairs Office, the Civil Servant Training Office, the Student Work Office, and the Cadre and Teacher Further Education Institute (Continuing Education Institute) of the Party School of the Fujian Provincial Committee of the CPC attended the meeting.
(Li Liangbin)
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On September 12, the theoretical seminar "Accelerating the Construction of an Independent Knowledge System for Chinese Philosophy and Social Sciences and Chinese Modernization" and the 2026 Guangdong Provincial Party School (Academy of Governance) Philosophy Annual Conference were held in Zhanjiang. The conference was jointly organized by the Philosophy Teaching and Research Department of the Guangdong Provincial Party School (Academy of Governance) and the Zhanjiang Municipal Party School (Academy of Governance). Zhou Feng, member of the School (Academy) Committee and Director of Education of the Provincial Party School (Academy of Governance), and He Luyang, Deputy Principal (Vice President) of the Zhanjiang Municipal Party School (Academy of Governance), attended the meeting and delivered speeches.
The conference noted that this year marks the tenth anniversary of the publication of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important speech at the Symposium on Philosophy and Social Sciences Work. Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping has issued a series of important instructions on promoting the high-quality development of philosophy and social sciences, requiring the acceleration of the construction of an independent knowledge system for Chinese philosophy and social sciences, better answering the questions of China, the questions of the world, the questions of the people, and the questions of the times, and providing fundamental guidance for the high-quality development of philosophy and social sciences in the new era. As an important force among the "five major contingents" of philosophy and social sciences research, Party schools must firmly grasp the fundamental path of the Two Integrations, uphold the "soul vein" of Marxism, continue the "root vein" of fine traditional Chinese culture, base themselves on the Guangdong practice of Chinese modernization, extract subjective and original theoretical viewpoints from vivid practices such as the "Hundred-Thousand-Ten-Thousand Project," the Green and Beautiful Guangdong Ecological Construction, and the development of the marine economy, and break free from Western-centric academic dependence.
The conference emphasized that Party schools (academies of governance) across the province must adhere to the fundamental principle of the Party school being loyal to the Party, making the research and dissemination of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era the primary political task; must better undertake the important responsibility of "offering counsel to the Party," adhere to seeking truth from facts, deepen field investigations, write theses on the land of the motherland, and provide high-quality decision-making consultation for Party committees and governments; must strengthen the talent team in the philosophy discipline, foster an academic ecosystem that values pragmatism and innovation, and help advance the Guangdong practice of Chinese modernization.
At the meeting, Professor Zhu Huiyu, Deputy Director of the Philosophy Teaching and Research Department of the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance), and Professor Xue Xiujun, Director of the Research Institute of Huaqiao University, delivered keynote reports. Professor Zhu Huiyu, closely centering on the "Two Integrations" and the "Six Musts," systematically expounded the eight pairs of relationships in constructing an independent knowledge system for Chinese philosophy; Professor Xue Xiujun, centering on the fourfold implications of promoting the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture, systematically interpreted the rich connotations of the creative transformation and innovative development of fine traditional Chinese culture. The two keynote reports were lofty in vision and broad in perspective, bringing profound philosophical enlightenment to the participating experts and scholars.
In the exchange and discussion session, six teacher representatives from the Guangdong Provincial Party School and Party schools in Dongguan, Meizhou, Shantou, Heyuan, Zhanjiang, and other places exchanged research results in light of their teaching and research practice. Participants also conducted group discussions and group reports, carrying out full academic exchanges around the theme of the annual conference.
More than 80 people attended the conference, including representatives of paper authors from municipal Party schools across Guangdong Province and the Haikou Municipal Party School, heads of the School (Academy) Scientific Research Office, all teachers of the Philosophy Teaching and Research Department, and graduate students majoring in philosophy.
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Recently, the Party School (School of Administration) of the Shaanxi Provincial Party Committee held a meeting of its Party Building Work Leading Group, earnestly studying and implementing Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and the important instructions of General Secretary Xi Jinping on the study and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, conveying and studying the spirit of the Central Party Building Work Leading Group meeting and the spirit of the Provincial Party Committee Standing Committee meeting and the Provincial Party Committee Party Building Work Leading Group meeting, summarizing the effectiveness of the school's (institute's) study and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, and researching and deploying work to consolidate and expand the results of the study and education. Fan Yongbin, Executive Vice President (Vice Dean), presided over the meeting and delivered a speech.
The meeting pointed out that General Secretary Xi Jinping's important instructions fully affirmed the work and effectiveness of the study and education, and put forward clear requirements for consolidating and expanding the results of the study and education and establishing a long-term mechanism for establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements. It is necessary to deeply understand the core essence, spiritual substance, and practical requirements, and effectively unify thoughts and actions with the Party Central Committee's decisions and arrangements and the Provincial Party Committee's work arrangements. Consciously establish and practice a correct view of political achievements, anchor the mission and responsibility of the Party school in the new era, continuously gather the joint force for progress, promote the transformation of learning results into a powerful driving force for the development of the school's (institute's) undertakings, and promote the producing tangible results and effectiveness (见行见效, jian xing jian xiao - "see, act; see, effect") of all work tasks.
The meeting emphasized that the school (institute), through solidly carrying out the study and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, has strengthened layered and categorized theoretical learning and warning education to consolidate the ideological foundation; deepened the integration of learning and application, strengthened the main business of teaching, research, and political consultation, and improved the level of management, service, and support; strictly advanced rectification and remediation, improved institutional mechanisms, strengthened the teaching staff, and solidly grasped the construction of propaganda positions, continuously transforming the results of the study and education into tangible results in promoting the high-quality development of the school (institute). In the next step, it is necessary to thoroughly study and implement Xi Jinping's thought on Party building and General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, and regularly carry out education on the view of political achievements. It is necessary to continuously deepen theoretical learning, continuously vigorously grasp rectification and remediation, continuously strictly temper work style, continuously improve the institutional system, continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of running the school, adhere to the original aspiration of the Party school of "cultivating talents for the Party and offering counsel for the Party," and better serve the overall situation of the province's high-quality development.
The meeting required that the current development of the school (institute) has entered the final stage of the "three-year foundation strengthening" period. All faculty and staff should further improve their political positioning, strengthen their sense of responsibility, continuously consolidate and expand the results of the study and education on establishing and practicing a correct view of political achievements, run the establishment and practice of a correct view of political achievements through the entire process of running the school and governing the school, continuously deepen connotative construction, strive to achieve new breakthroughs in improving the quality and effectiveness of basic training, the output of research and political consultation results, the coordinated development of system linkage, and the optimization and improvement of service support, and contribute to the school's (institute's) realization of the "five-year first-class" development goal.
(He Lu)
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Recently, Tang Zhuo (Tang Zhuo), Executive Vice President (Vice President) of the Party School of the CPC Gansu Provincial Committee (Gansu Institute of Administration), led a research effort on student management work and presided over a research symposium on student management work, listening to the work reports of the principal responsible comrades of the Continuing Education Department and the Training Department and the exchange speeches of departmental comrades, with the focus on making arrangements and deployments around building a close and clean relationship between teachers and students.
The meeting emphasized that the Party school is a school led by the Party for training Party leading cadres, and student management is an important link and lever for achieving the training goals of the Party school. It is necessary to fully understand the basic requirements of establishing a close and clean teacher-student relationship and its importance and necessity, accurately grasp the institutional guidelines for correctly handling teacher-student relationships in cadre education and training, strictly benchmark against the deployments of the Party Central Committee and the requirements of the Provincial Party Committee, implement in detail the various institutional rules and regulations on student management of the school (institute), rely on institutional rigidity to establish the yardstick and hold the bottom line, and provide a strong work-style guarantee for the high-quality development of the school's (institute's) undertakings.
The meeting pointed out that in recent years, the school (institute) has adhered to strict governance of the school and establishing the school by quality, with the institutional system continuously improving, training discipline continuously tightening, students' Party spirit tempering deepening and becoming more solid, and the assessment and evaluation mechanism becoming increasingly sound, and student management work has achieved positive results. At the same time, it is also necessary to clearly see that there are still problems in the work such as deviations in ideological cognition, gaps in institutional implementation, weak risk awareness, and shortcomings in responsibility and action. It is necessary to deeply draw lessons from negative case examples, use cases to clarify discipline, use cases to promote rectification, grasp things early and grasp things small, and nip problems in the bud before they become serious (防微杜渐, fang wei du jian - "prevent small, stop growing"), truly engraving discipline and rules in the heart and externalizing them in action.
The meeting required that building a clean and wholesome, harmonious and pure teacher-student relationship in the Party school of the new era, the key lies in implementing the four-character guideline of "close, clean, strict, and practical." It is necessary to use "close" to nourish the heart, cultivate teacher-student friendship, achieving closeness with measure, closeness with method, and closeness with action; it is necessary to use "clean" as the boundary, hold the bottom line of interaction, achieving clean conduct in handling affairs, clean and refreshing interactions, and clean personal conduct; it is necessary to use "strict" to establish rules, build a disciplinary barrier, adhering to strict governance in teaching, strict governance in learning, and strict enforcement of discipline; it is necessary to use "practical" to consolidate the foundation, consolidate the foundation of running the school and governing the school, achieving solid work style, rigorous performance of duties, and practical results. The student management department should base itself on its post responsibilities, adhere to high standards and strict requirements, further improve political positioning, uphold the original aspiration of educating people, temper professional skills, enhance the ability to perform duties, uphold fundamental principles and break new ground, improve management efficiency, pay attention to grasping details and grasping the routine, serve as a model and example, and with a strong team ensuring excellent management and a clean atmosphere, strive to promote the improvement of quality and efficiency in the school's (institute's) cadre education and training work.
Return to Top(Study Times report) To consolidate the "1+18" city-wide Party school system development pattern, advance basic training work at grassroots Party schools, and continue to extend high-quality teaching resources to the grassroots level, the first special activity of the 2026 autumn semester "delivering courses to the grassroots" by the Harbin Municipal Party Committee Party School (School of Administration) was recently held at the Daowai District Party Committee Party School.
This course delivery closely followed the practical needs of grassroots cadres in performing their duties and the annual training priorities, precisely matching the real needs of grassroots cadres for capacity improvement. Wang Honglei (王宏蕾), lecturer at the Teaching and Research Department of Society and Public Administration of the Harbin Municipal Party Committee Party School (School of Administration), gave a special lecture titled "Unswervingly and steadily (坚定不移, jian ding bu yi - "firm, steady, not, move") Following the Path of Food Security with Chinese Characteristics." The lecture firmly anchored the core mainline of Party spirit education, based on the overall situation of the era's development, centered on food security as a "matter of national importance," and through theoretical explanation and logical analysis, systematically interpreted the great significance, core essence, and practical direction of China's food security work, guiding grassroots Party members and cadres to further raise their ideological understanding, firmly establish an overall situation perspective, and continuously enhance the ideological and practical consciousness of fulfilling their duties.
Participating trainees universally stated that this course delivery had prominent themes, rich content, and was practical and profound. They will effectively transform what they have learned into work motivation for fulfilling their duties and taking on responsibilities with real action, and will work diligently and practically in their positions.
In the next step, the Harbin Municipal Party Committee Party School (School of Administration) will continue to focus on the training needs of grassroots Party members and cadres, further advance the course delivery activities at grassroots Party schools, deepen the working mechanism of "teaching exchange, scientific research collaboration, joint talent cultivation, information sharing, resource sharing, and service integration," and help improve the teaching quality and effectiveness of grassroots Party schools across the city.
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Recently, the Jinan Municipal Party School (School of Administration) of the CPC held a themed event titled "Footprints — Glory Illuminates the Original Aspiration, Earnest Practice Forges First-Rate Excellence" to celebrate the 42nd Teachers' Day. Chen Yang, member of the Standing Committee of the Jinan Municipal Party Committee, head of the Organization Department, and president (dean) of the Municipal Party School (School of Administration), attended and delivered a speech. Hu Shucheng, vice president (vice dean) in charge of routine work of the Municipal Party School (School of Administration), presided over the event.
Chen Yang pointed out that it is necessary to thoroughly study and implement the spirit of the National Conference of Presidents (Deans) of Party Schools (Schools of Administration), always adhere to being clear and outspoken in stance (旗帜鲜明, qi zhi xian ming - "flag, bright") in speaking about politics, and firmly grasp the fundamental principle that the Party School bears the Party's name; always adhere to cultivating talents for the Party and continuously improve the quality and effectiveness of teaching and training; always adhere to offering counsel for the Party and continuously enhance the capacity and level of scientific research and policy consultation; always adhere to strengthening the school with talent and effectively build a high-caliber talent team; always adhere to striving for first-rate excellence in all endeavors and comprehensively elevate the level of school operation and governance, striving to achieve new breakthroughs in teaching, research, management, service, and all other work.
The themed event was structured in three chapters — "Clarifying the Heart," "Tempering the Heart," and "Uniting the Heart" — and, through forms such as themed storytelling, achievement displays, special interviews, scenario performances, and video shorts, it reviewed the development journey of the Jinan Municipal Party School (School of Administration) in recent years, interpreted the original aspiration and essence of Party School workers, paid tribute to the dedication and contribution of Party School teachers, and showcased the spiritual outlook of Party School personnel in the new era, further inspiring Party Schools (Schools of Administration) across the city to hold fast to their original aspirations, anchor on first-rate standards, raise the benchmark, and continue striving, so as to act with practical, earnest diligence (实干笃行, shi gan du xing - "solid, work; earnest, practice") in advancing the cause of the school (academy) to a new level and achieving a new leap forward.
(Jia Sai)
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The "Regulations on the Work of Party Schools (Academies of Governance) of the Communist Party of China" clearly states that scientific research is the foundational work of Party schools (academies of governance), and that the scientific research work of Party schools (academies of governance) should pay close attention to the development and changes in the domestic and international situation and strengthen theoretical research and countermeasure research. As the main channel and main front for training grassroots Party members and cadres, the scientific research level of county-level Party schools is directly related to the quality of Party school education and the foundation of cadre development. The Party School of the Dehong Prefecture Committee of the CPC in Yunnan Province has adopted a coordinated and linked approach to effectively solve the problems of low project approval rates, weak scientific research strength, and difficulty in publishing results at county-level Party schools, helping to improve the scientific research level of county-level Party schools.
Strengthen coordination and linkage of research projects, and make concentrated efforts to solve the problem of "difficulty in project approval." First, establish a paired assistance mechanism to improve the quality of project applications. Establish a "one-to-one" paired linkage mechanism between backbone teachers of the Prefecture Committee Party School and county-level Party schools, forming a whole-process assistance system around key links such as topic selection and argumentation, text polishing, and filling in application forms, and focusing on solving prominent problems such as imprecise topic selection, insufficient argumentation, and non-standard texts in county-level Party school projects. Second, open up project application channels and promote the co-construction and sharing of resources. Break down hierarchical barriers, eliminate information asymmetry, and extend project resources to county-level Party schools. In 2026, the Prefecture Committee Party School and the Prefecture Federation of Social Sciences launched for the first time a "joint special project," clearly supporting county-level Party schools in applying and providing a certain amount of matching funds, effectively broadening the project application channels of county-level Party schools and stimulating the scientific research enthusiasm of teaching and research personnel. Third, build a tiered cultivation system to consolidate the foundation of project research. Promote project polishing and application in a stratified and classified manner, forming a graded cultivation pattern of "provincial and ministerial-level projects—department and bureau-level projects—county and division-level projects," consolidating the research foundation through systematic and step-by-step cultivation, and steadily improving the success rate of project application and approval. From January 2026 to the present, the five county-level Party schools in Dehong Prefecture have obtained 7 prefecture and department-level project approvals and 21 county and division-level project approvals, with a marked improvement in the approval rate.
Strengthen coordination and linkage of teaching and research, and make concentrated efforts to solve the problem of "weak teams." First, dynamically carry out the "upward secondment and downward attachment" mechanism, strengthen two-way exchange of talent, allowing backbone teachers of the Prefecture Committee Party School to go down to the front line to provide hands-on guidance and instruction (手把手, shou ba shou - "hand, grasp, hand") in teaching and mentoring, and allowing young teachers of county-level Party schools to be seconded upward to follow classes, "connect with the higher level," and become familiar with business. In 2026, the Prefecture Committee Party School selected 2 backbone teachers to serve as deputy principals at county-level Party schools, and the two county-level Party schools in Ruili and Yingjiang each selected 1 young teacher to train at the Prefecture Committee Party School, effectively promoting the two-way flow of talent. Second, hold annual Party school system teacher training sessions on a fixed basis, focusing on key business such as project application, paper publication, and writing decision-making consultation reports, and setting up teaching modules such as special lectures, practical exercises, case analysis, and interactive Q&A, precisely filling the weak points in the scientific research and consultation business of county-level Party school teachers. Third, precisely select backbone teachers to study and train at higher-level Party schools, allowing selected training teachers to benchmark against frontier teaching and research concepts, learn from advanced experience in scientific research and consultation, and improve their project research capabilities. Since 2025, the Prefecture Committee Party School has coordinated the selection of 12 county-level Party school teachers to study and train at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) and the Party School of the Yunnan Provincial Committee.
Improve the linked transformation mechanism for results, and make concentrated efforts to solve the problem of "difficulty in publication." First, build a publication platform to solve the problem of grassroots publication. Relying on the journal Dehong Forum run by the school, the Prefecture Committee Party School widely solicits scientific research results from county-level Party school teachers, implementing regular solicitation of manuscripts and periodic publication. From 2025 to the present, Dehong Forum has published a total of 67 articles, including 21 articles by county-level Party school teachers. At the same time, the Prefecture Committee Party School also uses the paired linkage mechanism with county-level Party schools to actively help county-level Party school teachers revise and submit papers to relevant journals for public publication. Since 2025, it has helped county-level Party schools submit 7 articles for public publication in newspapers and periodicals such as the Yunnan Daily. Second, focus on real pain points and improve the quality and effectiveness of decision-making consultation. The Prefecture Committee Party School adheres to a problem-oriented approach, focusing on the decision-making and deployment of the Party Central Committee and the work requirements of the Provincial Committee and the Prefecture Committee, closely tracking difficult and blocked problems in real development, and writing and submitting decision-making consultation reports through joint research by prefecture and county Party schools, effectively improving the ability and level of county-level Party schools to "offer counsel to the Party." Since 2025, the Prefecture Committee Party School has helped county-level Party school teachers write and submit 5 decision-making consultation reports, of which 3 have received instructions from leaders at the department level and above. In particular, in April 2026, one decision-making consultation report mainly written by a teacher of the Ruili Municipal Committee Party School was adopted by relevant central authorities, achieving a "zero breakthrough" in the adoption of county-level Party school decision-making consultation reports at the central level across the entire prefecture. Third, open up the transformation chain and promote the integrated development of teaching, research, and consultation. Establish a two-way transformation mechanism of "research promoting teaching, teaching feeding back into research," integrating high-quality scientific research results into cadre education and training courses, transforming the latest theoretical research and grassroots research findings into teaching cases and special courses, enriching the content system of cadre training, and improving the pertinence and effectiveness of teaching.
(The author is the head of the Scientific Research Section of the Party School of the Dehong Prefecture Committee of the CPC in Yunnan Province)
Return to TopBy: 冻小林白占一
The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan explicitly proposes "deepening national defense education for all the people and consolidating unity between the military, the government, and the people," which, at a new historical starting point, entrusts national defense education for all the people with a higher mission, task, and contemporary connotation. At the same time, the National Defense Education Law of the People's Republic of China stipulates that personnel of state organs should possess a relatively high level of national defense literacy and play an exemplary and leading role in national defense education for all the people. The Party School (School of Administration) of the Chaoyang District Committee of the Communist Party of China in Beijing closely follows the work deployment requirements for national defense education for all the people, relies on the "Xuexi Qiangguo" national defense education micro-position, integrates and revitalizes existing venue resources, builds national defense education classrooms, strengthens the construction of the curriculum system, continuously improves management and support mechanisms, and explores a new path for national defense education characterized by "building a foundation through positions, casting the soul through courses, empowering through practice, and strengthening management through mechanisms."
Build a strong main position for national defense education and create a "touchable and perceptible" teaching space. Adhere to high-standard construction and high-efficiency utilization, emerging from nothingness (从无到有, cong wu dao you - "from nothing, to having") and progressing from having to excelling, to build a modern national defense education classroom integrating theoretical teaching, equipment experience, and simulated shooting, providing a solid platform of support for leading cadres. In response to the shortcomings of traditional national defense education that "emphasizes theory and neglects practice," actively introduce social forces, give full play to the professional advantages of retired military teachers, plan scientifically, coordinate and integrate comprehensively, and advance systematically. In March 2026, it was officially listed as the "Beijing National Defense Mobilization Publicity and Education Base." Adhere to the principle of "functional zoning, diverse scenarios, and integration of learning and training," dividing the classroom space of more than 500 square meters into three major functional areas, namely the theoretical teaching area, the equipment experience area, and the simulated shooting area. Achieve a full-chain teaching process from classroom to training ground and from theory to practice. Rely on the digital training system to create immersive and interactive teaching scenarios.
Build a national defense education curriculum system and form an education chain of "casting the soul and strengthening capabilities." Adhere to taking curriculum construction as the core content of national defense education, build a curriculum system of "building the foundation through theory, strengthening capabilities through practical training, and casting the soul through experience," so that trainees can consolidate their ideological foundation, temper their practical combat skills, and cultivate deep feelings for the family and the country in the course of learning. Strengthen ideological guidance and consolidate political loyalty; focus on practical training and temper solid skills; emphasize situational experience and cultivate deep feelings for the family and the country; deepen summary and exchange and promote the transformation of results.
Improve the management mechanism for national defense education classrooms and consolidate the support foundation of "standardized and orderly." Adhere to strict-standard management, full-chain support, and whole-process control. By standardizing procedures and strengthening responsibility, ensure that national defense education is not merely going through the motions (不走过场, bu zou guo chang - "not, walk, pass through, field") and takes effect on the ground. Strictly implement militarized management and temper a solid work style; strictly implement whole-process confidentiality and build a solid security defense line; standardize operation and maintenance management to ensure normal, long-term, and effective operation.
Deepen the equal emphasis on learning, thinking, and practice in national defense education and consolidate the national defense awareness of "firm as a rock." The Party School (School of Administration) of the Chaoyang District Committee has always aimed at building a "distinctive first-class grassroots party school," deeply embedding national defense education into the entire process of cadre education, using the "key minority" to demonstrate and drive the overwhelming majority, demonstrating the value of the party school and showing the responsibility of the party school in serving the overall situation of national defense education for all the people, and promoting the transformation of the district's national defense awareness from ideological consciousness into action consciousness. Deepen political training and build a solid national defense political foundation for serving regional development; anchor to the integrated national strategic system and strengthen the national defense mobilization thinking for serving the central work of the region; deepen digital strategy empowerment and promote the transformation of national defense education results into momentum for regional development.
Return to TopBy: 刘晋生
General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that "the development of Party schools must always maintain a holistic perspective." The newly revised Regulations on the Work of Party Schools (Academies of Governance) of the Communist Party of China require that "the scientific research and decision-making consultation work of Party schools (academies of governance) should be oriented toward society, and strengthen cooperation and exchange with Party committees and government departments, institutions of higher learning, research institutes, and other entities." The Party School of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the CPC strives to fulfill the important responsibility of contributing ideas for the Party, adheres to a systematic approach, strengthens the holistic perspective, and promotes the formation of a new pattern of think tank development characterized by "Party school leadership, multi-party cooperation, coordinated linkage, and integrated force," effectively improving the quality of decision-making consultation.
Build a think tank work system centered on coordinated linkage. "Adhering to a systematic approach, emphasizing overall planning and resource integration, and continuously enhancing the integrity and coordination of work" is an important principle that must be followed in the work of Party schools (academies of governance). The Party School of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the CPC adheres to an open-door approach to think tank development, jointly with Sun Yat-sen University and other universities in Guangzhou, research institutes, Party and government departments, mainstream media, and a total of 10 units, jointly building a think tank work system characterized by "coordinated linkage, complementing each other's strengths (优势互补, youshi hubu - "advantage, complement"), sharing resources (资源共享, ziyuan gongxiang - "resource, share"), and co-creation of outcomes," establishing and improving a rapid response mechanism and joint research mechanism for major themes featuring "multi-level linking different levels of an organization (上下联动, shangxia liandong - "up, down, link"), multi-disciplinary cross-complementarity, and multi-field exchange and cooperation," empowering decision-making consultation professionally and efficiently. In terms of organizational structure, a joint meeting is established as the deliberative and decision-making body, with its secretariat affiliated with the Scientific Research Office of the Party School of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the CPC, clarifying the working mechanism of "the joint meeting sets the direction, the secretariat implements the tasks," and defining the boundaries of responsibilities of all parties. In terms of process management, a full-process management mechanism of "early planning and guidance, mid-term precise coaching, and later-stage sustained focus" is established, publishing topic intentions around the central work of Party committees and governments, coordinating the implementation of joint research, academic salons, and other project activities, ensuring that research always precisely aligns with decision-making needs. In terms of response measures, a rapid response mechanism for major themes is constructed, and for immediate major topics, cross-unit and cross-disciplinary collaborative teams are quickly formed, allowing think tank voices to quickly reach the decision-making horizon. In terms of exchange platforms, each unit voluntarily applies to host or takes turns hosting relevant academic conferences based on the concept of sharing, carrying out exchange activities such as special lectures, forming a virtuous cycle of "joint topic selection, joint research, and shared outcomes." This series of institutional designs aims to promote the systematic integration of collaborative research, facilitate the smooth flow of research elements, and enhance the organizational and professional level of think tank work.
Integrate decision-making consultation forces with project research as the traction. The Party School of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the CPC adheres to planning annual think tank topics with a systematic mindset, forming an architecture system where major projects serve as the traction, driving research on other topics. The Action Plan for the Scientific Research and Consultation Work of the Party School of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the CPC (Guangzhou Academy of Governance) to "Consolidate the Foundation of Scientific Research" is formulated, which, while further refining the disciplinary positioning, research fields, and key research directions of various teaching, research, and auxiliary departments, also connects the disciplinary and professional advantages of off-campus research collaboration units, achieving complementarity between think tank research and disciplinary construction and professional advantages, allowing disciplines and specialties to nourish think tank construction, and allowing think tank construction to enhance the influence of disciplines and specialties, enhancing the value of policy recommendations through long-term academic research, and forming a scientific research and consultation academic system with a solid foundation, focused direction, clear priorities, and distinctive characteristics. For example, in the field of Party history and Party building research, the Party school fully leverages its disciplinary advantages, based on Guangzhou's unique position and role in reform and opening up, taking reform and opening up as the theme, and cooperating with the Party History Research Office of the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee, the Party History and Literature Research Office of the Guangzhou Municipal Party Committee, and other units to carry out relevant research; jointly with the Guangzhou Daily, it constructs a "Party school + Party media" theoretical dissemination model, opening columns such as "Voice of the Party School" and "Kapok Policy Discussion," promoting think tank outcomes to both enter the decision-making horizon and reach the hearts of the people. In the field of urban governance research, it strengthens cooperation with government service and data management departments, sharing government data and business scenarios to provide empirical support for think tank research. Through disciplinary co-construction, project cooperation, and collaborative research, it strengthens cooperation with different types of think tanks and relevant departments, truly achieving "researching one issue, forming a batch of outcomes, and advancing one piece of work," striving to transform think tank outcomes into governance effectiveness.
Consolidate decision-making consultation support with team building as the starting point. The Party School of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the CPC closely focuses on the needs of Party school development to systematically plan team building, striving to provide talent support for high-level decision-making consultation. The Scientific Research Office organizes various teaching, research, and auxiliary departments to sort out the scientific research and consultation outcome information of teaching and research personnel over the past five years, focusing on publications in high-level journals, approval of high-level projects, approval of high-level consultation reports, and selection for high-level talent programs, comprehensively analyzing the advantages, strengths, and shortcomings of teaching and research personnel in scientific research and consultation, and through "soil-cultivating" work such as building platforms, honing internal skills, and creating an ecosystem, strives to build a reasonably structured talent echelon of "academic leaders - scientific research and consultation backbone - young innovative talents." First, expand talent cultivation platforms and focus on cultivating academic leaders. Fully leverage the supporting role of seven research platforms, including the Research Base of the Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era in Guangdong Province, the Key Research Base for the Cultivation of Young Marxist Theory Talents in Guangzhou, and the Guangzhou Party Building Research Base, promoting teaching and research personnel to further optimize their advantages and further strengthen their strengths. At present, some teaching and research personnel have been able to continuously publish articles in the "Three Newspapers and One Journal," engage in in-depth exchanges and dialogues with experts at high-level academic seminars, and their academic research capabilities and levels have been effectively improved, gradually growing into academic leaders. Second, continuously hone internal skills and focus on cultivating scientific research and consultation backbone. Treating the "honing of internal skills" of teaching and research personnel as a routine task to be persistently grasped and implemented, taking scientific research writing, field research, reading sharing, theoretical interpretation, and topic planning as the main content of "honing internal skills," and through activities such as technique exchange meetings, organized research, reading sharing sessions, work review meetings, and mentoring workshops, allowing teaching and research personnel to exchange experiences and insights and spark intellectual collisions. In addition, leveraging the platforms of off-campus research collaboration units, teaching and research personnel are selected to participate in the National University Faculty Seminar hosted by the Lingnan College of Sun Yat-sen University, exchanging and learning with experts and scholars from well-known universities and research institutions across the country. Third, optimize the scientific research ecosystem and focus on cultivating young innovative talents. Innovate scientific research management services, establish and improve incentive mechanisms, cultivate new research paradigms through organized research, and promote new disciplinary integration. Actively build a "dynamic" research ecosystem, providing direction, creating conditions, and offering opportunities for newly recruited teaching and research personnel to adapt to and become familiar with Party school scientific research work, forming an all-round and multi-dimensional development model, and vigorously cultivating young academic backbone.
(The author is the Executive Vice President of the Party School of the Guangzhou Municipal Committee of the CPC)
Return to TopBy: 孟祥文
The newly revised "Regulations on the Work of Party Schools (Academies of Governance) of the Communist Party of China" points out: "Party schools (academies of governance) at all levels should strengthen exchanges and cooperation in teaching, scientific research, decision-making consultation, management, and services, establish mechanisms for the joint construction and sharing of resources, and give play to their overall advantages." In order to fully leverage the advantages of Party school training resources and better shoulder the sacred responsibility of cultivating talent for the Party, the Party School of the Rizhao Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China in Shandong Province adheres to the correct orientation in running the school, deeply explores new pathways for cooperative education, and actively builds a distinctive brand of cooperative Party school training. Since 2025, on the basis of successfully completing the main class tasks of basic training, it has undertaken more than 270 sessions of various cooperative training classes and trained more than 27,000 trainees, presenting a sound situation in which "basic training advances steadily, and cooperative training increases in both quantity and quality."
Strengthen the training brand. Fully leverage the advantage of the Party school as the main channel for educating and training cadres and Party members, and make every effort to build a cooperative training brand with Rizhao characteristics. First, take on-site teaching as an important support. Adhere to the principle that wherever key projects advance, on-site teaching extends. Carefully build 10 fine on-site teaching routes, including the integrated development of port, industry, and city and the Sunshine Coast Greenway, as well as more than 50 on-site teaching sites, including the Rizhao Advanced Steel Manufacturing Industrial Cluster, the Wulian Mountain—Bailu Bay Qilu Model Demonstration Zone for rural revitalization, and the Ju State Ancient City, forming five major teaching matrices: "Forging the Soul," "Deep Blue," "Green Charm," "Common Prosperity," and "Cultural Heritage." Second, take training outside the city as an important supplement. Strengthen contact and cooperation with relevant departments and units outside the city, and continuously optimize the structure of cooperative training classes. Since 2025, it has undertaken more than 130 sessions of various classes from outside the city, including state organs, enterprises and public institutions, people's organizations, and provincial-level units, training more than 11,400 trainees, with the scale of schooling continuously expanding and the quality of schooling continuously improving. Third, take serving local development as an important focus. Fully play the role of a bridge and bond, and through cooperative training, welcome leading organs at higher levels and sister units to the doorstep of Rizhao, build an exchange platform between municipal units directly under the city and training units, effectively promote the in-depth development of various work in Rizhao, and form a vibrant situation in which the whole society supports the Party school in running training well.
Integrate training resources. Take running cooperative training well as the starting point to promote the sharing of high-quality cadre education and training resources on a larger scale. First, expand the scope of training. With regard to business training of enterprises and public institutions not included in the scope of basic training, highlight the characteristics of "urgently needed and scarce" and "practical combat," successively undertake more than 70 sessions of "topic-designated" special training for municipal departments and units directly under the city, share the high-quality resources of basic Party school training, effectively improve the quality and effectiveness of departmental business training, and optimize and extend the Party school training business chain. Second, improve teaching quality. Explore the establishment of a linkage mechanism between basic training and cooperative training courses, actively promote the sharing of excellent courses, using courses to drive courses, and using training to promote training. Since 2025, taking the opportunity of holding cooperative training, it has invited well-known experts and scholars from the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) and Peking University, as well as more than 200 leading cadres at or above the department and bureau level, to give lectures in Rizhao. Trainees in the main classes at the school and all Party school teachers attended the lectures together, broadening their horizons and deepening their understanding, greatly improving the quality of basic training lectures and the level of teachers' lecturing. Third, improve school management. Form a team of more than 20 full-time and part-time personnel to coordinate and serve the course design, route arrangement, trainee management, teaching organization, as well as transportation, accommodation, and emergency response matters of cooperative training classes, raising the level of standardization of class-running procedures and the scientific level of training management.
Expand training pathways. Based on reality, continuously optimize and improve class-running forms and training models. First, revitalize various trainee resources, organizational resources, and industry resources. Jointly with municipal departments directly under the city, actively strive for national ministries and commissions and provincial-level units to come to Rizhao to carry out cadre training, and mobilize all parties to organize the "expanding classes" action. With Party committee support and departmental coordination, a strong force is gathered to promote the development of the Party school. In 2025, the number of cooperative training classes held increased significantly, and the influence of Party school cadre education and training continued to rise. Second, innovate the publicity model of "online promotion + offline visits." Actively publish typical reports and major articles in mainstream media, comprehensively introducing the practices, characteristics, advantages, and results of cooperative training at the Rizhao Municipal Party School, and enhancing the attractiveness of cooperative training. Members of the school committee took the lead in carrying out more than 30 visits for cooperative training, successively connecting with more than 100 departments and units in Beijing, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Sichuan, Gansu, and within the province, continuously expanding stable cooperative relations for open schooling. Third, strengthen overall planning and coordination. Integrate municipal and county resources, jointly build a characteristic course library and a backbone teacher pool, realize the sharing of resources across the city, effectively solve the problems of insufficient personnel and insufficient resources, enhance the capacity for the sustainable development of cooperative training, and form a sound situation in which basic training and cooperative training promote each other, and the cause of the Party school and the development of Rizhao advance in sync with one another (同频共进, tong pin gong jin - "same, frequency, together, advance").
(Author affiliation: Party School of the Rizhao Municipal Committee of the Communist Party of China, Shandong Province)
Return to TopBy: 杨志勇
The Party School (School of Administration) of the Party Committee of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region firmly upholds the original aspiration of the Party school of "cultivating talents for the Party and offering counsel for the Party," and takes the "Three Together" practical exercise — living, eating, and working together with the masses — as a compulsory component of Party spirit education in the training classes for young and middle-aged cadres. It insists on strict management of study style, tempers Party spirit through grassroots practice, organizes trainees to step out of government offices and go deep into the countryside, and to stand rooted at the grassroots frontline to weather storms, sharpen their original aspirations, and grow their abilities, promoting the deep extension of Party spirit education from "listening in the classroom" to "working on the ground," and building a cadre education and training system that forges the soul with theory and sharpens abilities through practice.
Overall planning lays a solid foundation, and standardized management clarifies standards. The school (academy) follows the laws of growth of young and middle-aged cadres, deeply integrates the "Three Together" practical exercise into the entire process of trainee training, with unified standards, full coverage, and meticulous preparation, promoting the practical exercise to take effect and proceed on a regular basis. First, standardize teaching arrangements and unify management standards. The "Three Together" practical exercise is clearly designated as a compulsory teaching module for the young and middle-aged cadre class, with two weeks arranged for each session, and four core tasks set: entering villages and households, labor experience, public sentiment research, and handling affairs for the people. In light of the actual conditions of each "Three Together" teaching site, a "Work Manual for the 'Three Together' Practical Exercise" is formulated, detailing target tasks, activity content, disciplinary requirements, and other matters, ensuring that there are plans, supervision, records, and summaries, and safeguarding the quality of the practical exercise from being compromised through institutionalized means. Second, expand the teaching layout and enrich the scenarios for tempering. Since the launch of the first teaching site in 2008 — the Zhangjiayuan Village teaching site in Tongxin County, Wuzhong City — the "Three Together" teaching sites have gradually expanded to villages in multiple counties and districts including Xiji, Longde, Jingyuan, Haiyuan, and Hongsipu, covering the Liupan Mountain area, the banks of the Yellow River, the hinterland of Xihaigu, and new ecological resettlement villages. The teaching sites cover different types of villages, including mountainous areas, plain areas, and resettlement areas, effectively promoting trainees to comprehensively understand the real conditions of rural revitalization, grassroots governance, industrial development, and livelihood security, and to grasp the actual situation at the grassroots level beyond the perspective of government offices. Over the years, a total of 33 batches of 1,575 young and middle-aged cadres have been organized to go deep into the grassroots frontline to participate in the "Three Together" practical exercise. Third, make meticulous pre-departure preparations and clarify the practical orientation. Insisting on going down to the frontline with problems in mind, mobilization and deployment meetings are held to clarify practical requirements, strictly enforce discipline and rules, and delineate research priorities. Research groups are formed, instructors are assigned, and communication and coordination with the "Three Together" teaching sites are conducted in advance to grasp the local industrial status, governance difficulties, and the urgent concerns and expectations of the masses, promoting trainees to reside in villages with tasks and practice with reflection, ensuring that the practical exercise fits the actual conditions of the grassroots.
Deep cultivation in practice solidifies the process, and meticulous management improves quality and effectiveness. The core of the "Three Together" practical exercise is to promote trainees to get close to the masses and integrate into the countryside, which requires strict process control to guarantee its effectiveness. The school (academy) takes trainee management as the starting point, grasps whole-process management, continuously enriches the connotation of the practical exercise, does solid work with the masses, and guides trainees to strengthen their party spirit (砥砺党性, di li dang xing - "grind, polish; party nature") and improve their work style in going deep into the frontline and serving the masses. First, strictly manage village residency and promote style transformation. Trainees uniformly stay in the homes of farming households, without special treatment, and without adding burdens to the grassroots or the masses. During the day, they participate together with the masses in farm work such as crop planting, silage harvesting, and environmental improvement, undergoing labor training; in the evening, they chat with the masses, listen to their demands, carefully keep records of public sentiment in diaries, and sort out opinions and suggestions. Throughout the entire cycle, all systems are strictly implemented, "commuting-style" and "punch-card-style" exercises are eliminated, and trainees are truly made to settle down and integrate with the masses. Second, closely follow the needs of the masses and do more practical and good things. On the basis of participating in farm household labor, trainees are simultaneously organized to carry out activities such as policy publicity, convenience services, helping to resolve difficulties, and offering suggestions. Trainees are guided to proactively connect with assisted farming households and, doing what one can within one's power (力所能及, li suo neng ji - "strength, what, can, reach"), help them solve practical difficulties in production and life; focusing on weak links such as industrial cultivation, rural governance, and improvement of the living environment, they proactively plan pragmatic and effective development ideas and measures for the locality. Third, simultaneously carry out research and improve the ability to perform duties. Insisting on advancing practical exercise and investigation and research simultaneously, the fields and farmhouse courtyards are taken as research classrooms. Focusing on key tasks such as rural revitalization and the quality improvement of characteristic industries, trainees are organized to visit veteran Party members, leaders in getting rich, and ordinary masses, to find out the current development situation, sort out development bottlenecks and practical difficulties, and distill fresh grassroots experience. In the past three years, trainees have cumulatively formed more than 30 research reports, providing a reference basis for the scientific decision-making of Party committees and governments, and also enabling trainees to improve their ability to analyze and solve practical problems through research.
Strict management strengthens supervision, and sound mechanisms guarantee long-term effectiveness. The school (academy) insists on putting strictness first and being strict throughout the entire process, establishing a working mechanism of school-local linkage, whole-chain management, and regular supervision, to ensure that the "Three Together" practical exercise achieves solid results. First, improve the school-local linkage mechanism. A work pattern is established in which the Organization Department of the Autonomous Region Party Committee provides overall guidance, the Party school implements specifically, counties and townships coordinate and cooperate, and class teachers accompany the class throughout. Class teachers accompany the class throughout for management, promptly grasping the ideological dynamics and practical performance of trainees. Second, strictly enforce discipline and style requirements. The code of conduct for trainees in the "Three Together" practical exercise is clarified, disciplinary red lines such as leaving the team without authorization and engaging in formalism are drawn, and the spirit of the Central Committee's the Eight-Point Regulation (八项规定) is strictly implemented. The daily roll call and leave request and approval systems are strictly enforced, discipline reminders, safety inspections, and style reviews are carried out on a regular basis, and problems of a budding or tendency nature are promptly corrected, urging trainees to strictly abide by rules and perform their duties pragmatically, and to establish a good image of young and middle-aged cadres. Third, implement whole-cycle documentary management. Around aspects such as trainees' village residency performance, labor participation, public sentiment visits, and style development, tracking records are made at each stage. A three-level linked supervision and service model of "class committee home visits + district grid supervisor supervision + group check-in within the group" is promoted, and through daily observation and regular supervision, problems such as acting in a perfunctory or superficial manner (敷衍应付, fu yan ying fu - "perfunctory, respond") and floating on the surface are promptly corrected, urging trainees to take root at the grassroots and train steadily. Materials such as public sentiment diaries, research materials, and ideological reflections are systematically collected, and practical exercise archives are established, which not only truly record the trajectory of trainees' Party spirit tempering, but also accumulate practical experience for subsequent optimization of trainee management and improvement of the teaching system.
[The author is a member of the School (Academy) Affairs Committee and Director of the Training Department of the Party School (School of Administration) of the Party Committee of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region]
Return to TopBy: 毛颖
As an important form of teaching, on-site instruction is widely used in the education and training of cadres at Party schools. However, in current practice, on-site instruction still faces problems such as fragmented use of scenes and superficial theoretical interpretation, making it difficult to fully meet the requirements of cadre education and training in the new era. The Simingshan Branch of the Party School of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the CPC (hereinafter referred to as the Simingshan Branch) takes "what to teach, who teaches, and how to teach" as the key entry point, and innovatively implements the "one lesson, three lectures" on-site teaching model led by docents, witnesses, and teachers, further promoting the improvement of quality and efficiency in on-site instruction.
Tap local resources and optimize teaching content. Focusing on "what to teach," the Simingshan Branch leverages the rich local resources of Yuyao, Zhejiang, where it is located, to create teaching sites with distinctive features. First, consolidate the "red soul-forging" site. Relying on the former site cluster of the Anti-Japanese Base Area in Eastern Zhejiang, Zhengmeng Academy, and other red resources, and centering on core content such as tracing and following the path of the Party, original aspiration and founding mission, and the mass line, it has developed on-site teaching courses such as "Inheriting the Red Gene and Forging a Solid Foundation of Loyalty" and "Let the Spirit of Hard Struggle Shine Forever," tempering the Party spirit of Party members and cadres and continuously polishing their political background. Second, deepen the "culture-nourishing heart" site. Delving into local humanistic resources such as the Hemudu (Jingtoushan) prehistoric civilization, Yangming culture, and the Eastern Zhejiang school of thought, it has created on-site teaching courses such as "Decoding the Hemudu Cultural Gene and Its Contemporary Implications" and "The Powerful Voice of the Times and Its Contemporary Echo: Huang Zongxi's People-Oriented Thought," educating and guiding trainees to always strengthen their cultural confidence. Third, expand the "development-empowering" site. Deeply exploring vivid local practices under the guidance of the Party's innovative theory, selecting typical cases from them, and anchoring on contemporary themes such as scientific and technological innovation, common prosperity, grassroots social governance, and Chinese modernization, it thoroughly explains the truth power and practical force of the Party's innovative theory, enhancing trainees' ability to lead modernization. At present, the Simingshan Branch has 4 provincial-level on-site teaching demonstration sites and 7 municipal-level on-site teaching demonstration sites.
Build a collaborative mechanism and standardize the teaching process. Focusing on "who teaches," relying on three types of teaching subjects—on-site docents, grassroots witnesses, and full-time teachers—it constructs a collaborative teaching process. First, context sorting. Leveraging the advantage of on-site docents in scene narration, closely following the theme and purpose of the on-site teaching, they introduce in detail the relevant situation of the teaching site, helping trainees form a basic understanding of the situation and laying the groundwork for subsequent teaching. Second, practical corroboration. Leveraging the advantage of grassroots witnesses such as village and community leaders, business experts, and enterprise technical backbones who are familiar with specific practices, they share vivid experiences in clearing development bottlenecks, solving governance difficulties, and responding to transformation pain points in reform and tackling tough issues, guiding trainees to deeply grasp and comprehend the teaching content. Third, theoretical elevation. Leveraging the advantage of full-time Party school teachers with profound theoretical foundations, teachers connect the two links of context sorting and practical corroboration, conduct theoretical interpretation around the teaching theme, deeply interpret institutional mechanisms, development laws, and methodological insights, so that trainees' ideological understanding is further enhanced. From the perspective of teaching evaluation, the excellent rate of on-site teaching under the "one lesson, three lectures" teaching mechanism is generally high and is welcomed by trainees.
Create a closed loop of thinking and enrich teaching forms. Focusing on "how to teach," in terms of teaching forms, emphasis is placed on promoting the formation of a closed loop of thinking through trainees' immersive participation, truly achieving the effect of entering the mind and heart. First, promote immersive participation. Avoid the one-way output of "a superficial or cursory glance at things (走马观花, zou ma guan hua - "walk, horse, look, flower")-style visits," and through designing question-and-answer sessions during the visit, organizing trainees to review the Party admission oath, reading red family letters, and other forms, ensure that trainees maintain focused attention and full engagement throughout the entire on-site teaching process. Second, organize topic-based discussions. Make efforts in transforming trainees from "passive listening" to "active thinking," combining the characteristics of the on-site teaching site and the teaching theme, closely centering on themes such as high-quality development, common prosperity, and Chinese modernization, using research-based teaching methods such as group discussions and case analysis to guide trainees to think deeply based on their own job positions. Third, promote targeted internalization. Do solid and detailed work in the summary segment of on-site teaching, through a systematic review of the entire on-site teaching in 10-15 minutes, integrating what trainees have seen, heard, thought, and felt, forming a closed loop of thinking and cognition, promoting the combination of theory and practice, and making the entire on-site teaching precisely focus on the teaching objectives. In the past 3 years, the Simingshan Branch has undertaken more than 130 on-site teaching sessions annually for commissioned classes from Party schools at all levels, including the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance), the Party School of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the CPC (Zhejiang Academy of Governance), and the Party School of the Ningbo Municipal Committee of the CPC (Ningbo Academy of Governance), achieving good results.
(Author affiliation: Simingshan Branch of the Party School of the Zhejiang Provincial Committee of the CPC)
Return to TopBy: 胡遵远
The memorial sculpture of "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August" located in Banzhuyuan Town, Jinzhai County
The Dabie Mountains region is an important cradle of the Chinese revolution and an important birthplace of the people's army. In the long course of revolutionary struggle and practice, the people of the Dabie Mountains forged a brilliant red history and revolutionary culture with their own blood and lives. The classic revolutionary song "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August" is a typical representative of the revolutionary culture of the Dabie Mountains, and to this day it remains widely sung and remaining fresh after a long time (历久弥新, li jiu mi xin - "pass, long, time; new, old").
According to historical records such as the History of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Revolutionary Base Area and the History of the Red Army in Jinzhai, the lyricist of "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August" was Luo Yinqing, a native of Banzhuyuan Town, Jinzhai County.
In the early 1920s, Marxism spread to the Dabie Mountains region. In the autumn of 1924, Party organizations were established in the western part of Jinzhai (then under the jurisdiction of Shangcheng County, Henan Province, abbreviated as the Shangnan region). Under the Party's leadership, the peasant movement occurred in successive waves (高潮迭起, gao chao die qi - "high, tide; fall, rise") and the flames of revolution burned fiercely. Beginning in May 1929, the Shangnan Uprising and the Liu-Huo Uprising broke out successively within Jinzhai, the 32nd and 33rd Divisions of the 11th Army of the Chinese Workers' and Peasants' Red Army were established, and the revolutionary base areas of southeastern Henan and western Anhui were opened up.
In the eighth lunar month of 1929, Soviet governments at all levels in the western part of Jinzhai were established one after another, and the masses of the people were being in high spirits and cheering (欢欣鼓舞, huan xin gu wu - "joy, delight; drum, dance") and celebrating warmly. However, at the celebration meetings held in various places, people could only sing a few revolutionary songs such as the "Internationale." In order to fully express the joy of the laboring masses at their liberation and at celebrating the establishment of the Soviet government, to closely integrate with the local revolutionary reality, and to better educate and mobilize the masses, Li Tiyun, a leading member of the Shangcheng County Party Committee of the Communist Party of China and Secretary of the Party Committee of the 32nd Division of the Red Army, and others held a meeting to study the matter and decided to create a revolutionary song eulogizing the Soviet government and the Red Army ranks, to be performed at the founding meeting of the First District Soviet Government to be held at Changlinggang in Banzhuyuan. The task was entrusted to Xu Qian, Secretary of the Youth League County Committee, and it was ultimately decided that Luo Yinqing, principal of Futang'ao Model Primary School (located in today's Guoziyuan Township, Jinzhai County) and a member of the Communist Party, would be responsible for the creation.
Luo Yinqing had gone out in his early years and once studied at the Central Peasant Movement Institute in Wuchang. He joined the Party in 1927, and after returning to his hometown, he carried out revolutionary activities under the cover of teaching. He was skilled at writing poetry and songs, speaking eloquently and with literary grace (出口成章, chu kou cheng zhang - "exit, mouth; become, chapter"), and was called the "Shangnan Talent" by the local masses. When he accepted the task, he had just attended the celebration meeting for the founding of the township Soviet government. It was then the golden autumn season, with osmanthus blossoms in full bloom everywhere, their fragrance spreading far and wide, refreshing and heart-warming (沁人心脾, qin ren xin pi - "soak, person, heart, spleen"). The moving scene of the masses at the township Soviet government founding meeting, in high spirits and full of enthusiasm (兴高采烈, xing gao cai lie - "interest, high, pick, vigorous") and cheering with joy, still floated before his eyes. Being moved by a scene (触景生情, chu jing sheng qing - "touch, scene, produce, feeling") and being filled with surging emotions (心潮澎湃, xin chao peng pai - "heart, tide, surge, surge"), his literary inspiration surged. Humming the tune of the local folk song "Eight-Section Brocade," he composed the lyrics of "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August": "Osmanthus blossoms bloom everywhere in August, the bright red banner is raised, raised high, lanterns are hung and colors are displayed, lanterns are hung and colors are displayed, a glorious and brilliant new, new world. Dear worker comrades, ah, dear peasant comrades, ah, sing a song of the 'Internationale' to celebrate the Soviet..." After submitting the lyrics to Li Tiyun for review and approval, Luo Yinqing also choreographed a dance for the song in the form of beating flower sticks.
At the founding meeting of the First District Soviet Government, the song-and-dance performance of "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August" was a great success. Taking part in this performance were 16 students, including Fang Ziyi (later awarded the rank of major general after the founding of New China), Fang Taisen, and Xiao Daqing. They sang and danced with extraordinary liveliness; their sonorous singing resounded through the mountain valleys, and their graceful dance postures were enchanting; the scene was met with thunderous applause and people leaped and cheered. Li Tiyun immediately commended the Model Primary School and made teaching the song a part of the meeting's agenda. Luo Yinqing distributed the printed lyrics and sheet music to the participants and taught them to sing on the spot. After the meeting, the Shangcheng County Youth League Committee printed and distributed the song to all branches and township Soviet governments, requiring everyone to learn to sing it. The Shangcheng County Party Committee and the Party Committee of the 32nd Division of the Red Army also designated the song as a required song for the Party, government, military, and civilians of Shangcheng County and the 32nd Division of the Red Army. From then on, this newly composed revolutionary song was widely sung throughout the southeastern Henan revolutionary base area.
The lyrics of this song are divided into four parts: the first part depicts the festive scene in the golden autumn season when osmanthus blossoms are in full bloom, the initial victory of the agrarian revolution has been achieved, and the broad masses of soldiers and civilians, being overjoyed and jubilant (欢天喜地, huan tian xi di - "joy, sky, happy, earth") and decorating with lanterns and colorful streamers (张灯结彩, zhang deng jie cai - "hang, lamp, knot, color"), sing the "Internationale" to celebrate the Soviet. The second part eulogizes those revolutionary comrades who, in order to establish Soviet political power and enable the masses of the people to stand up and become masters, feared no sacrifice and charged ahead. The third part tells everyone that the new Soviet political power is a big family, educating the broad masses of workers and peasants to unite as one and cherish their big family. The fourth part calls on the broad masses of workers and peasants to support the Red Army ranks, to dare to struggle against the reactionaries, and to follow the Communist Party to achieve even greater victories.
In the lyrics, there is narration and description, metaphor and refrain, lyricism and reflection, reasoning and education — full of passion, directly expressing the heart, plain and easy to understand, with joy leaping off the page and revolutionary principles contained within, possessing strong political character and appeal. The musical score of this song was adapted on the basis of "Eight-Section Brocade." "Eight-Section Brocade" is a folk song widely circulated in the Dabie Mountains region, with a lively rhythm, beautiful melody, and pleasant sound; many people could sing it and loved to sing it, giving it a solid mass foundation. According to the needs of expressing the content of the lyrics, Luo Yinqing boldly innovated, simplified and streamlined, and adjusted the melody, making its theme more distinct, its melody more beautiful, and its rhythm more brisk.
New lyrics set to an old tune, new blossoms on old branches. This traditional folk ballad, widely circulated locally, when paired with revolutionary lyrics possessing strong visual imagery and rhythm, strong pertinence and guidance, immediately produced excellent artistic results. Hong Xuezhi recalled that during the war years, this song was like a battle mobilization order. In March 1932, when he served as company commander of the 29th Regiment of the 10th Division of the 4th Red Army, before the Battle of Sujiabu commenced, in order to boost the fighting morale of his company, he led all the soldiers of the company to a mountain hollow and held a competition to sing "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August." Later, on the Korean battlefield, he saw that the soldiers of his old unit were still singing this revolutionary song amidst the ice and snow.
Because "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August" was easy to sing, pleasant to hear, easy to learn, and easy to remember, it was deeply loved by the masses and Red Army soldiers and produced enormous appeal. The masses sang it as they went to join the Red Army and support the Red Army, and Red Army soldiers sang it as they fought bravely and established revolutionary base areas. It can be said that wherever the Red Army ranks went, this song was sung; wherever this song was sung, revolutionary base areas were established. In 1931, when Qi Dewei, Deputy Commander of the 32nd Division of the Red Army, and others were ordered to transfer to work in the Central Soviet Area, this song was sung in southern Jiangxi and western Fujian; after the Fourth Front Army of the Red Army marched west to Sichuan and Shaanxi, this song was sung in the Bashan and Shushui regions; after the 25th Red Army arrived in northern Shaanxi after the Long March, this song was sung on the northwestern plateau. It was in this way that the lively and enthusiastic "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August," accompanying the march of the Dabie Mountains Red Army, spread throughout the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Soviet Area, the Central Soviet Area, the Sichuan-Shaanxi Soviet Area, and the Shaanxi-Gansu Soviet Area.
According to records such as the History of the Hubei-Henan-Anhui Revolutionary Base Area, "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August" was processed and adapted soon after its creation; some new drama troupes and music bands even adapted it into Peking opera and instrumental pieces for performance. After it spread to the Central Soviet Area, people adapted its lyrics according to the revolutionary situation and tasks of the time, adding new content such as "Capture Zhang Huizan alive, ah, defeat Luo Zhuoying, ah, smash Chiang Kai-shek's great encirclement."
In 1959, composer Li Huanzhi and lyricist Huo Xiyang adapted "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August" into a folk song chorus, giving it more forms of musical expression. Five years later, Li Huanzhi adapted and recreated it once again, and it was included in the second scene, "A Single Spark Can Start a Prairie Fire," of the large-scale music-and-dance epic The East Is Red, presented in the form of a female chorus with dance, making it even more widely circulated and rapidly spreading throughout the country.
With the passage of time and the development of the era, "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August" has been continuously given new life by new performers. Through processing, refinement, and innovation, it has not only preserved its original musical style but also incorporated many modern elements, maintaining vigorous vitality in continuous inheritance. What is especially gratifying is that with the widespread dissemination of "Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August," a series of literary works, film and television works, and song-and-dance works on this theme have been spawned. The charm and influence of this classic revolutionary song have grown ever greater, resounding across the nation and enduring without decline.
"Osmanthus Blossoms Blooming Everywhere in August" contains the profound red culture of the Dabie Mountains and the revolutionary spirit of the Dabie Mountains. It has spread from the Hubei-Henan-Anhui revolutionary base area to all of China, from the arduous revolutionary war years to the present day, from song to dance, from near to far, from a single form of expression to a rich and diverse series of performances, and has long since become an important vehicle for people to remember red history and carry forward revolutionary traditions. Singing it, the scenes of the soldiers and civilians of the base area fighting bravely during the revolutionary war years appear before one's eyes; singing it, the call for military-civilian unity and jointly creating the future echoes in one's ears; singing it, the state of being spiritually invigorated and brimming with energy is always maintained; singing it, the consciousness of "a strong nation depends on me" and of innovative development is forever remembered in the heart.
Return to TopBy: 缪贞谊
Tang Dynasty poets were always fond of composing verse through the medium of "wind," intoning the four seasons each with its own distinct character. For instance, Luo Ye's "Each year it comes from the east to aid the burgeoning life, dancing aloft and drifting far across the world" laments the ease and openness of spring; Gao Pian's "The crystal curtain stirs as a gentle breeze rises, roses over the full trellis perfume the whole courtyard" praises the ardor of summer; while Han Hong's "The cold wind shakes the earth, the atmosphere vast and dim, the transverse flute first wails the long lament of leaving the frontier" narrates the fierce intensity of winter.
The "autumn wind" that blows through Tang poetry is no exception, and it is of a hundred sounds and colors—sometimes light, clear, and melancholy, as in Du Fu's "The autumn wind rustles, blowing my clothes; beyond the eastward flow, the western sun grows faint"; sometimes rich, mellow, and brilliant, as in Shen Quanqi's "The golden wind blows the green tips, the jade dew washes the red bamboo shoots."
In the countryside, as long as the doors and windows stand open, gusts of autumn wind come whooshing in from before the house, pass straight and unhindered through the hall, and then slip away out the back door. This "passage draft" truly lives up to its name, and Liu Jian's verse captures it most aptly: "As the plain rhythm first returns, the pillow and mat turn cool; the pine wind drifts and wanders into the splendid hall." Sometimes the wind playfully rolls a somersault in the courtyard, startling the parasol leaves into a rustling flurry—just matching the poetic mood of Li Zhong's "The sound of autumn is in the parasol leaves; the moist air presses against the book curtain." Sometimes, sitting by the window at night, gazing at the night sky, streams of coolness brush over the hair bun and over the heart, and the Chan-like serenity of Qian Qi's "A good wind can come of itself; the bright moon needs no appointed time" brings a sudden feeling of clarity or enlightenment (豁然开朗, huo ran kai lang - "open, bright; sudden, clear") to the state of mind.
If one invites two or three good friends for a stroll at the edge of the village, then the autumn wind raises quite another sound. Walking with a staff along mountain paths, winding onward, there is no lack of the leisurely ease of Li Bai's "The land is distant, pines and rocks ancient; the wind lifts, strings and pipes are clear." Treading songs by the stream, speaking freely and at ease, there is the hearty abandon of Li Qunyu's "For ten li the hidden current's sound never ceases; above the traveler's head it murmurs past." Walking and stopping, chanting and humming, a few old men wave palm-leaf fans, now hesitant, now slow and deliberate—their bearing quite comparable to the scene in Qi Ji's "Rising from illness I see the autumn fan; before the wind I awaken to grief." But when autumn comes to the human world, the summer heat clears; perhaps the intent in waving the fan lies not in "cooling off," but in "dispelling melancholy" over the evening of life!
Returning from the ride in the wind, a reclining chair and half a pot of white tea suffice to soothe one's weariness. At that moment the autumn wind urges drowsiness; while their master takes a nap, they secretly lodge themselves in the dream, softly singing Huang Chao's "The rustling west wind fills the courtyard with plantings; the stamens are cold, the fragrance chill, and butterflies find it hard to come." In the dream, the master follows the musical scale of the field paths, plucking clumps of frost chrysanthemums, intoxicated with the autumn scenery where a lingering, subtle fragrance clings to one's clothes (暗香盈袖, an xiang ying xiu - "hidden, fragrance; fill, sleeve")! Suddenly a bird's cry rends the air, cutting through the clear, serene weather with high skies and sparse clouds (天高云淡, tian gao yun dan - "sky, high; cloud, light"), leaving behind the autumn trace of Bai Juyi's "The west wind blows a single leaf; before the courtyard it is already cool," and seeping out drops of autumn dew from Ma Dai's "The startled bird departs beyond the horizon; the cold cricket chirps at my side." Ah, the lovely dream is shattered; gazing into the distance at wisps of wind and smoke above the hamlet, curling and wafting, it seems like the compositional method of regulated verse, telling the heart's autumn affairs at leisure according to the structural transitions of a poem or narrative (起承转合, qi cheng zhuan he - "rise, accept; turn, combine").
The autumn wind blows through the countryside, and it also blows through the city. Perhaps the most widely recited line is Zhang Ji's "In Luoyang city I see the autumn wind; wanting to write a letter home, my thoughts are ten thousandfold." The city's autumn wind treads over taverns and inns, treads over the heavy, bustling traffic of carriages and horses (车马骈阗, che ma pian tian - "cart, horse; side by side, many"), treading out the resonance of Du Mu's "All things are already startled by autumn." The autumn wind drifts over layer upon layer of ward walls, and amid the smoke of daily life beneath the eaves ripples the melancholy of parting, just as Meng Jiao wrote, "The rustling autumn wind arises; the sorrowful man resents separation." The wind sweeps past the courtyard trees of the streets and lanes, and the wandering son in the city always perceives the tidings of autumn earlier than others; Liu Yuxi's "From where does the autumn wind come? Soughing, it sends off the flock of geese" captures fully the homesick mood of the solitary traveler in the courtyard. As the setting sun slants low over the lanes, the evening wind spreads toward the city walls and the open fields; Geng Wei's "On the ancient road no one walks; the autumn wind stirs the millet" extends the autumn mood beyond the city walls. As dusk steepens over the towers, the remnant leaves on the tall trees atop the city wall fall and the cicada's song gradually ceases—this is the bleak scene depicted by Liu Cang: "The autumn wind, the tall willows put forth perilous leaves; alone I listen to the cicada's song as the sun nears dusk."
The autumn wind in the city is not like that of the open countryside—unrestrained and free, wantonly passing through halls; it lacks the ease and relaxation of stretching out. This wind wraps up the longing of a whole city's people, drifting leisurely through the streets and lanes, gently stirring the autumn thoughts dormant at the bottom of people's hearts. Even if passersby have no time to listen, the gratitude of life still splashes drop by drop onto autumn's poetic paper, drop by drop interpreting the sentiments of Tang poetry.
The poetry of the autumn wind also quietly blows into different periods of time, dense and continuous, rising and falling. For example, in early autumn, when the residual warmth of late summer still lingers in the air, Sun Ti's line "The fading heat greets the approach of autumn; the cool wind drifts on this very day" suffices to glimpse the subtle wonder of the changing seasons; by mid-autumn, when the clear radiance bathes all as if in a bath, the autumn thoughts that rise unbidden are those of Wang Jian's "The courtyard ground is white, the trees roost crows; the cold dew silently moistens the osmanthus flowers"—at this time the sound of the wind is most balanced, most full, and also most easily missed; in the blink of an eye, it is already late autumn, the west wind is piercing and fierce, and the sorrow is thick and strong; softly chanting Du Fu's "The wind is swift, the sky is high, the apes wail in sorrow; the islet is clear, the sand is white, the birds wheel and return," one sighs deeply and asks: how much faded makeup remains unwashed, how much deep feeling awaits sending?
The autumn wind rises! Indoors and outdoors, in the countryside and the city, and also between the lines of Tang poetry.
Tang poetry sings! Singing a string of level and oblique tones, as the autumn wind blows past, it is no longer time spent in vain.
Return to TopBy: 李蔚
In the costume drama The Longest Day in Chang'an, a steaming bowl of water-basin lamb soup (shuǐpén yángròu) on the streets of Chang'an won over many viewers. Many people assume that the characters in the show are eating heartily and with great gusto (大快朵颐, dà kuài duǒ yí - "great, fast; eat, feast") at a roadside stall over lamb paomo (shredded flatbread in lamb soup), but that is not the case.
A few days ago, a friend from out of town came to Xi'an and excitedly told me he had eaten the "same dish" as in the TV drama, even emphasizing that to let the flatbread absorb the flavor, he had torn it into pieces for quite a while, until his hands were sore. On hearing this, I realized he had clearly confused water-basin lamb soup with lamb paomo. Although both are combinations of lamb, flatbread, and broth, they are in essence quite different: water-basin lamb soup has a clear, abundant broth and is served with leavened crescent-shaped flatbread, which you can soak in the soup or use to sandwich the meat, all for the sake of that fresh, brisk taste; lamb paomo, by contrast, uses unleavened tuotuo flatbread torn into pieces and boiled back in the pot, where the bread soaks up the meat broth fully, and what you savor is that hearty, rich flavor.
In Shaanxi, the mere mention of "water basin" (shuǐpén) lets everyone know the reference is to water-basin lamb soup, no further explanation needed. But why the dish is named "water basin" is a matter of differing accounts. Some say it is because the shopkeeper keeps the cooked lamb broth in a large basin and ladles it into bowls when customers order; others say it derives from the fact that the bowl used to hold the soup and soaked flatbread is as big as a basin. Preparing water-basin lamb soup requires slow, patient work: lamb bones go at the bottom, large chunks of lamb are layered in on top, clear water is poured in to the brim, and after a rolling boil over high heat the foam is skimmed off, then the heat is turned down low. What comes next is left to time. Over six hours of slow simmering over a gentle flame, the meat and water become intimately connected or in harmony (脉脉相通, mài mài xiāng tōng - "pulse, pulse; mutually, connect"), and the bones gradually separate from the meat. When the lid is finally lifted, the broth has turned clear and the meat is tender enough to fall apart. Served up in a big bowl, white steam curls upward carrying the aroma. The wait of the slow simmer condenses into a single mouthful of freshness on the tongue.
The meat, flatbread, and broth of water-basin lamb soup form a system of their own. A standard serving comes with two crescent-shaped baked flatbreads, hollow and puffy in the middle. One can be used to sandwich the lamb from the bowl, along with some pickled vegetables, in a manner similar to eating roujiamo; the other can be torn by hand into pieces and soaked in the broth, and after being steeped in the lamb soup, the bread gives off a distinctive wheat fragrance. This flatbread should not be underestimated. As the saying goes, "anything can go in a flatbread" — the hollow bread can hold any ingredient, and that is how it acquires a thousand flavors.
Interestingly, water-basin lamb soup also has an alias, "June Freshness," a name particularly favored by the older generation. What origin lies behind this name of "June"? It turns out that the sixth month of the lunar calendar is precisely the best season for eating lamb. At this time, the Guanzhong region has abundant water and lush grass, and after a spring of nourishment, the goats are plump and their meat tender — firm yet not greasy, arguably at their most delicious of the year. Beyond that, June also falls in the busy "three summers" (sānxià) season of Guanzhong. Farmers are rushing to harvest, rush to plant, and rush to tend the crops, expending enormous physical energy. At such a time, a steaming bowl of water-basin lamb soup down the hatch becomes an excellent choice for replenishing their strength, and after sweating profusely, the body and mind instead feel a surge of ease and comfort. This is a vivid embodiment of the folk wisdom of "relieving heat with heat."
In Weinan, in the eastern prefecture of the Guanzhong Plain, the water-basin lamb soups of Pucheng and Chengcheng are the most authentic and the most renowned. A particular stretch of land nurtures its people, and it also nurtures a bowl of soup with its own hardness and softness. The water-basin lamb soups of the two places were inscribed on the Shaanxi provincial intangible cultural heritage list in 2013 and 2016 respectively, telling visitors from all directions about the distinctive flavors of daily life and homesickness of these two small towns.
I remembered Pucheng's water-basin lamb soup after a single taste. It is led by Sichuan peppercorn; with one sip of the broth, the numbing, spicy aroma shoots straight to the top of your head, making my nose sweat from the heat, yet the more I drank, the more satisfying it felt. That fiery, forthright character inevitably calls to mind two heroes who came from this land. One is Wang Ding, a Grand Councilor of the Qing dynasty who insisted that "treaties must not be lightly conceded, and bad precedents must not be lightly set," and who died for his country; the other is Yang Hucheng, a patriotic general born into a poor farming family who dared to entrust the fate of the nation to his own courage. One civil, one military; one councilor, one general — they earned Pucheng the reputation of "hometown of councilors and generals." The uprightness and toughness in the bones of Pucheng's people are all dissolved into this bowl of numbing, spicy, surging soup.
Chengcheng's water-basin lamb soup, by contrast, is led by cumin. Cumin not only gives the broth a mild, mellow flavor but also adds a nourishing benefit of strengthening the stomach and regulating the flow of qi. There is a saying: "Down a bowl of water-basin lamb soup, and call out 'Chengcheng old brother.'" That faint hint of cumin fragrance is understated and restrained, never stealing the spotlight, yet one never tires of drinking it — just like the simple, honest nature of the Chengcheng old brothers. In earlier times, the people of Chengcheng mainly made their living selling coal. On the roads across ravines and over plateaus to neighboring counties, they would rest at inns for carts and horses, reluctant to spend money on food, so they would take out the dry flatbread they had brought and say to the shopkeeper, "Could you trouble yourself to give me a bowl of hot water? I'll just soak my bread." Seeing that these men were hardworking and able to endure hardship (吃苦耐劳, chī kǔ nài láo - "eat, bitterness; endure, labor") and honest, simple, and kind-hearted (淳朴厚道, chún pǔ hòu dào - "pure, simple; thick, kind"), the shopkeeper would respectfully address them as "old brother." In time, "Chengcheng old brother, flatbread soaked in hot water" spread far and wide. This appellation, carrying the smell of coal dust and wheat fragrance, is full of respect, praising the industrious and thrifty (勤劳节俭, qín láo jié jiǎn - "diligent, labor; frugal, save") and honest, kind, and trustworthy (敦厚诚信, dūn hòu chéng xìn - "honest, thick; sincere, trust") character of the people of Chengcheng. Gradually, it became the shared calling card of the people of Chengcheng.
Water-basin lamb soup has also, in a manner of influencing others subtly and quietly (润物细无声, rùn wù xì wú shēng - "moisten, things; fine, no, sound"), become woven into the everyday folk customs of the common people. In the Weinan region, there is a distinctive kind of gift voucher known as the "lamb ticket." Whether for taking a bride, marrying off a daughter, or major events in ordinary people's lives such as a child's full-month celebration or entering school, for friends who cannot attend the banquet in person, the host family will afterward always send a few lamb tickets as a return gift. A lamb ticket is not only a voucher for guests to enjoy a bowl of delicious water-basin lamb soup at any time; it is also a token of feeling between distant relatives and close neighbors alike.
As the footsteps of time move across the land, water-basin lamb soup, carrying a full measure of loess-plateau sentiment, also brings a touch of warm comfort to people bustling through modern cities. In the streets and alleys of Xi'an, water-basin lamb soup is quietly "changing its face": some shops add vermicelli to the broth, enriching what is in the bowl; some shops have launched a "water-basin lamb soup + Ice Peak soda" combo, aiming at young people's palates; and still others have renovated their storefronts to be trendy and bright, with slogans on the wall reading "Down a bowl of water-basin, be a happy soul," drawing in wave after wave of diners taking photos for social media. There is a water-basin lamb soup shop near my home; its sign, tucked among a crowd of milk-tea shops and fast-food joints, is utterly unremarkable. Yet at every mealtime, people in suits, in work uniforms, and in school uniforms come in an endless stream or continuous flow (络绎不绝, luò yì bù jué - "continuous, not; cease"). When it gets crowded, strangers share tables, squeezing together around one table, each cradling a big bowl, slurping up the soup and bread with a rumble. A single bowl of water-basin lamb soup turns strangers of different professions and different origins in one city into tablemates sharing a meal. It puts on no airs at all; just as the loess land recognizes its crops, it earnestly nourishes every person who picks up a bowl.
A single bowl of water-basin lamb soup holds a universe. It holds the depth of loess culture, the temperament of a particular stretch of land, and the genuine human feeling of streets, lanes, and paths between fields. When the bowl of soup is drained, a warmth lingers in the heart. That is the warmth and substance that the people of this land have simmered out of time itself.
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