Summary: The article reports remarks emphasizing that China and the United States have deeply intertwined interests and broad cooperation space, with China's door of opening-up remaining open to U.S. enterprises. It expresses hope that the U.S. side will treat Chinese enterprises fairly and work to lengthen the cooperation list while shortening the problem list. Both countries are noted as major AI nations with the capability and responsibility to keep AI development under human control and beneficial to the people. China is willing to strengthen cooperation with the United States in counternarcotics and law enforcement, and to increase direct flights to facilitate personnel exchanges and economic and trade interactions.
Summary: The article discusses the modernization of social governance in Chinese megacities, drawing on General Secretary Xi Jinping's directives from his April 2024 inspection of Chongqing and the 2025 Central Urban Work Conference. It outlines the internal logic, difficulties, and practical paths for this modernization, emphasizing Party building leadership, people-centered governance, grassroots consolidation, technological empowerment, and risk resilience. Specific challenges include population changes, diverse demands, complex spatial forms, digital transformation, and concentrated risks. The piece highlights Chongqing's initiatives, such as the "885" working mechanism, "Chongqing Matters Discussed Well" platform, and "Old Ma Leading Little Ma" mediation experience, as examples of local exploration.
Summary: At the Sixth Meeting of the 20th Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, General Xi Jinping stressed that "the scale of government conduct must be unified" and that localities must have clear rules on what can and cannot be done in economic promotion, especially in investment attraction. The article argues that regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct is essential for unifying the scale of government conduct, clarifying the boundary between government and market, overcoming local departmentalism, and advancing the modernization of government governance. It identifies deep-seated inducements of anomie in local conduct, including structural tensions between growth competition and the unified market, performance assessment mechanisms, and coordination between local autonomy and national unity. The practical path forward involves establishing a unified rule system, using lists of encouraged and prohibited matters for investment attraction, and building a closed-loop institutional system of assessment, supervision, and accountability. The author is the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shandong Academy of Social Sciences.
Summary: The article emphasizes that party consciousness and organizational concept are fundamental to party members' and cadres' conduct, directly affecting their ability to "move steadily and far into the future." It cites General Secretary Xi Jinping's call for members to achieve ideological identification, political reliance, work-related obedience, and emotional trust in the organization, framing these as tests of party spirit. The piece warns that weak organizational concept leads to individualism, liberalism, and disobedience, while stressing that personal growth depends on organizational cultivation. It outlines four practical requirements: ideological alignment with the Party Central Committee, political reliance on the organization, work-related obedience, and emotional trust, urging members to avoid becoming "two-faced persons" or "special party members." The article concludes that loyalty, reliance, and obedience to the organization must remain unchanged regardless of position changes, as members strive to be good cadres loyal to the Party and the people.
Summary: The article argues that cultural subjectivity is the foundation of cultural confidence and a core component of Xi Jinping's cultural thought, as emphasized by General Secretary Xi Jinping's statements on culture needing its own subjectivity to stand firm and radiate influence. It traces the problem consciousness behind this concept to the need for cultural confidence rooted in over 5,000 years of Chinese civilization, which is essential for national rejuvenation and cultural security. The piece explains that cultural subjectivity is established by the Communist Party of China leading the Chinese people on Chinese soil, through creative transformation of traditional culture, and by integrating Marxism with China's specific realities and fine traditional culture—the "Two Integrations." The author, identified as the Director of the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, concludes that this integration generates an organically unified cultural subjectivity encompassing Chinese civilization, the Chinese nation, and the Communist Party of China.
Summary: The article argues that using the Party's innovative theory to unify people's hearts and strengthen their convictions is a fundamental "heart-establishing" project of the Communist Party of China, citing General Secretary Xi Jinping's emphasis on the importance of strong theory for direction, unity, and confidence. It attributes the theory's unifying power to its scientific truth, firm belief, cultural nourishment from fine traditional Chinese culture, and guidance from vivid practice. The piece details how Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era answers major era questions, unites theoretical and value consensus, and tempers political character through faith and loyalty. It also highlights the role of "the Two Integrations" in activating cultural roots and building cultural subjectivity, and stresses that the theory's effectiveness is ultimately realized through practice and united struggle. The author is identified as the Dean of the School of Marxism at Zhejiang Gongshang University.
Summary: The article discusses the modernization of social governance in Chinese megacities, drawing on General Secretary Xi Jinping's directives from his April 2024 inspection of Chongqing and the 2025 Central Urban Work Conference. It outlines the internal logic, difficulties, and practical paths for this modernization, emphasizing Party building leadership, people-centered governance, grassroots consolidation, technological empowerment, and risk resilience. Specific challenges include population changes, diverse demands, complex spatial forms, digital transformation, and concentrated risks. The piece highlights Chongqing's initiatives, such as the "885" working mechanism, "Chongqing Matters Discussed Well" platform, and "Old Ma Leading Little Ma" mediation experience, as examples of local exploration.
Summary: General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that AI development should not erode the diversity of world civilizations, and that AI values should be shaped by the common values of all humanity. Chen Jianqi, Deputy Dean of the Institute of International Strategic Studies at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee, explains that AI values are accelerating in gestation due to breakthroughs in language and reasoning capabilities, which enable machines to engage with abstract value issues. He argues that AI values are not value-neutral, as data collection, model training, and applications embed human biases and interests, posing challenges like algorithmic bias and the intelligence divide. The common values of all humanity—peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom—provide the fundamental guidance for AI value alignment and for countering imbalances where some countries export ideologies through AI. Practical priorities include strengthening global multilateral cooperation, transforming these six values into AI criteria, and coordinating technological innovation with institutional norms to embed them throughout the AI lifecycle.
Summary: The article, authored by the Deputy Secretary of the Communist Youth League Hubei Provincial Committee, elaborates on General Secretary Xi Jinping's speech to young and middle-aged cadres, urging them to cultivate "the study of the mind" through rectification, nourishment, and purification. It emphasizes strengthening ideals and convictions by studying Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, tracing revolutionary martyrs' footsteps, and learning from role models like Jiao Yulu, Kong Fansen, and Gu Wenchang. The piece also stresses nourishing the mind with moral cultivation, advocating selfless love for the people and the spirit of the screw, while discarding selfish thoughts. Finally, it calls for purifying the mind by studying the Party Constitution and Party discipline, treating negative examples as a mirror to remain pure and untainted.
Summary: At the Sixth Meeting of the 20th Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, General Xi Jinping stressed that "the scale of government conduct must be unified" and that localities must have clear rules on what can and cannot be done in economic promotion, especially in investment attraction. The article argues that regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct is essential for unifying the scale of government conduct, clarifying the boundary between government and market, overcoming local departmentalism, and advancing the modernization of government governance. It identifies deep-seated inducements of anomie in local conduct, including structural tensions between growth competition and the unified market, performance assessment mechanisms, and coordination between local autonomy and national unity. The practical path forward involves establishing a unified rule system, using lists of encouraged and prohibited matters for investment attraction, and building a closed-loop institutional system of assessment, supervision, and accountability. The author is the Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shandong Academy of Social Sciences.
Summary: The Party Committee of Dong-E E-Jiao Co., Ltd. has created a Party building brand of "Original Aspiration, Huangdi and Qibo, Tempering the Fragrance of E-Jiao" to integrate Party building with business operations and lead high-quality development. The company adheres to the political underpinning of "central enterprises belonging to the Party," implements the "1238" strategy, and coordinates the layout of three growth curves to serve the Healthy China strategy and promote traditional Chinese medicine industry development. It promotes the "four major reshapings" and an "integrated system of compliance, risk, and internal control," while cooperating with regions such as Xifeng County, Dongfeng County, Hotan, Ili, and Alxa League to develop industries like sika deer, jujube, donkey breeding, and Cistanche deserticola. The company builds a "1+1+N" grand supervision system, advances "integrated construction of compliance, risk, and internal control," and creates the "Fragrance of E-Jiao, Rhyme of Integrity" integrity platform. Looking toward the 15th Five-Year Plan, it will implement a full industrial chain upgrading project and major projects such as the ten-billion-yuan health consumer products industrial park.
Summary: The article argues that strategic emerging industries are vital to a modern industrial system, and that Bao'an District of Shenzhen is leveraging a new generation of intelligent manufacturing as its main strategic direction to build a cluster area empowered by this technology. Bao'an, a top industrial district with a complete system covering 31 manufacturing categories, is promoting the intelligent transformation of traditional industries while making forward-looking layouts in future sectors like embodied intelligence, low-altitude economy, and aerospace technology. The district's approach includes taking technological innovation as the core engine to break through "bottleneck" technologies, using scenario applications to drive digital transformation, and cultivating an enterprise echelon with international competitiveness. It also emphasizes strengthening factor guarantees through spatial integration, institutional innovation, and a first-class business environment. The article concludes that Bao'an will accelerate the construction of this cluster area with global influence to contribute to Shenzhen's pilot demonstration area and the building of a manufacturing powerhouse.
Summary: The article describes how Mianyang Cigarette Factory of China Tobacco Sichuan Industrial Co., Ltd. has built a comprehensive regulatory and supervision operation system to implement full and rigorous self-governance of the Party. The Factory established a "cross-shaped" supervision matrix with horizontal coordination across five lines and vertical penetration through a four-level supervision system, alongside ten standardized working mechanisms. It improved coordinated supervision through joint consultation for major matters, a "five-dimensional" linkage model, and hierarchical education training to involve all employees. The Factory also created a precise supervision model combining normalized inspections, special rectifications in areas like procurement and engineering, and digital empowerment through smart supervision platforms. The author, the Factory's Party Committee Secretary, concludes that the Factory will continue optimizing this system to transform governance achievements into development momentum and foster a clean and wholesome atmosphere.
Summary: The article discusses aligning public service resource allocation with population trends, as proposed in the 15th Five-Year Plan outline. It notes that population migration has caused insufficient public service supply in inflow areas and idle resources in outflow areas. The Study Times high-end think tank edition conducts an in-depth discussion on optimizing public service resource layout and structural adjustment under these trends.
Summary: The article discusses how China's population mobility patterns have shifted toward two-way, intra-provincial movement, requiring public service resources to follow the people rather than household registration. It identifies three structural difficulties: spatial mismatch between inflow and outflow areas, fiscal transfer payments not following population movement, and information silos under the separation of residence registration and actual residence. The authors propose using big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain to build population monitoring systems, dynamic fund adjustment mechanisms, and digital service continuation systems. They also recommend region- and category-specific policy implementation, including piloting reforms in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, Yangtze River Delta, and Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The authors are the Deputy Director of the Economic Forecasting Department and the Director of the Population Monitoring, Forecasting and Development Policy Research Office of the National Information Center.
Summary: The article argues that public service resource allocation must break the inertia of expansionist thinking as population trends shift and urban development moves toward quality improvement. It criticizes the outdated mindset that "the more public service facilities built, the better," noting drawbacks such as inefficient idle facilities in depopulating regions and tight supply-demand balances in growing cities. The piece calls for allocation based on actual resident population, citing the State Council's *Implementation Opinions on Providing Basic Public Services Based on the Place of Residence*. It also urges a shift from construction-focused approaches to full life-cycle management, including revitalizing existing stock and converting idle facilities for new uses. The author is a senior engineer at the Policy Research Department of the China Center for Urban Development, a think tank affiliated with the National Development and Reform Commission.
Summary: The article analyzes the underlying logic of achieving victory in warfare, arguing that mechanisms of victory—such as the large defeating the small, the strong defeating the weak, and the fast defeating the slow—remain constant despite changes in warfare forms from cold weapons to intelligent systems. It traces the evolution of battlefields from ancient hand-to-hand combat to modern domains like cyberspace and outer space, emphasizing that future wars will involve intelligentization and hybrid approaches. Victory can be achieved through firepower, quick decision, systems, or hybrid means, with major powers leveraging advantages in technology, operational theories, and combat experience. The piece warns against overconfidence in any single mechanism, noting that weaker sides may need strategies like concentrating superior forces locally to accumulate momentum. It concludes that future wars may involve mobilizing entire national strength and coalition operations across multiple domains to overwhelm opponents.
Summary: The article details the complementary roles of drag parachutes and arresting nets in ensuring fighter takeoff and landing safety, with the former handling routine deceleration and the latter serving as an emergency fallback. It highlights their layered protection system, combat value in training and wartime forward airfields, and evolution toward lightweight, intelligent, and integrated technologies. The piece emphasizes how new materials, smart sensing, and system integration are enhancing performance and maintenance across the full operational cycle.
Summary: The article describes a crude earthen cannon displayed in the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Museum, designated a national first-class cultural relic and called the "steel last testament" of the three-year guerrilla war on the Hunan-Jiangxi border. It recounts the guerrilla struggle from August 1934, when five independent Red Army regiments were left behind after the Sixth Red Army Corps marched west, facing heavy Kuomintang "encirclement and suppression" and economic blockade. After betrayals by Provincial Party Committee Secretary Chen Hongshi and heavy losses, Tan Yubao, chairman of the Hunan-Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government, convened an emergency meeting at Qipan Mountain that shifted strategy to "preserving strength, developing steadily," turning the war from decline to resurgence. The cannon is the one Tan Yubao used, hidden by guerrilla fighter Zeng Zhaofu in 1937 and handed to cultural relics authorities in 1962.
Summary: The article argues that the Kaicheng Stone Classics, as the culmination of Tang-dynasty official Confucian classics carved in stone, played a crucial intermediary role in the "Tang-Song transition" of Chinese character usage by implementing orthographic standards onto the texts. These standards, derived from the *Wujing Wenzi*, were later propagated through the Five Dynasties and Song imperial academy woodblock-printing system, transforming classical usage into everyday social usage. Using the characters "壻" (son-in-law) and "願" (wish) as examples, the author demonstrates how the stone classics' prescription of correct forms, despite initial resistance, led to their widespread adoption and the elimination of competing variants. The author concludes that the Kaicheng Stone Classics, by linking dictionary-prescribed characters with actual textual usage, were the medium that drove this standardization from the manuscript era's errors to the printed era's norms. The author is identified as the Deputy Dean of the School of Humanities, Zhejiang University.
Summary: The Library of Congress, established in 1800, holds a notable collection of Chinese classics that began arriving in the mid-19th century, starting with books brought back by Caleb Cushing, the first U.S. minister to China, and a gift of 933 volumes from Emperor Tongzhi in 1869. The collection grew through donations from diplomats, missionaries, and sinologists, and was systematized with the establishment of a Chinese Division in 1928 under Arthur W. Hummel, expanding to over 290,000 volumes. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, rare books were covertly shipped to the Library of Congress for safekeeping, and bibliographer Wang Chongmin later cataloged over 1,700 titles, published in 1957 as *A Descriptive Catalog of Rare Chinese Books in the Library of Congress*. In the late 20th century, Sino-American relations normalized, leading to resumed exchanges with the National Library of China, and by 2004 the collection exceeded one million volumes. The Library has since digitized its Chinese rare books, including nearly 2,000 titles and 41 volumes of the *Yongle Encyclopedia*, making them freely available worldwide, with ongoing projects in 2025 and 2026 to enhance cataloging of Chinese materials.
Summary: Cai Xi, a Ming-dynasty statesman and Neo-Confucian scholar, centered his thought on the three characters "wu zi qi" (do not deceive oneself) from the *Great Learning*, which he held as the master key to self-cultivation and governance. His concept emphasized sincerity of intention through being careful when alone, extending from inner mind to outward affairs and daily conduct, as embodied in his frugal personal life and upright official career. In office, he promoted benefits and eliminated evils, submitted memorials against harsh governance and for the early establishment of the heir apparent, earning praise as "returning to public office after retirement." After retiring, he established a "Great Learning Hall" and lectured on "wu zi qi," transmitting Neo-Confucianism between the Yangtze and Huai rivers. The article concludes that Cai Xi transformed the Way of sincerity into a practical posture of life, examining itself within and acting with sincerity without.
The interests of China and the United States are deeply intertwined, and the space for cooperation is very broad. Although China-U.S. cooperation cannot solve all problems in the world, without cooperation between the two countries, many problems in the world will be difficult to resolve. China's door of opening-up has always remained open, and we welcome U.S. enterprises to invest and do business in China. We hope the U.S. side will treat Chinese enterprises fairly, and work together with us to lengthen the list of cooperation and shorten the list of problems. Both China and the United States are major countries in artificial intelligence, and both have the capability and the responsibility to develop and manage AI well, ensuring that AI development always remains under human control and benefits the people. China is willing to strengthen cooperation with the United States in areas such as counternarcotics and law enforcement. The two sides can increase direct flights to make personnel exchanges and economic and trade interactions between the two countries more convenient.
Return to TopBy: 重庆市政协主席 程丽华
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out during his inspection of Chongqing in April 2024 that "Chongqing is the city with the largest administrative area and population in our country, and it must deeply practice the people's city concept and actively explore new paths for modern governance of megacities." At the 2025 Central Urban Work Conference, General Secretary Xi Jinping further emphasized "shifting the focus of urban work and paying greater attention to governance investment." Governance of megacities is a systematic project, of which social governance is an important component; its core is people, and its focus lies in balancing interests, coordinating relationships, and preventing and controlling contradictions and risks. The leap in the order of magnitude of the population and construction scale of megacities has not only created unlimited development opportunities but also brought many new social governance challenges. On the new journey of Chinese modernization, advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities is both a major theoretical topic and an urgent practical task.
The Internal Logic of Modernizing Social Governance in Megacities
The modernization of social governance in megacities is an important component of the modernization of national governance and an important part of Chinese modernization. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee has placed social governance in a more important position in governance and administration, and General Secretary Xi Jinping has made a series of important expositions that profoundly elucidate a series of major theoretical and practical issues in social governance in the new era, promoting major achievements in the modernization of social governance in our country.
General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on urban governance and social governance provide the fundamental guidance for advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities. In terms of concepts and principles, General Secretary Xi Jinping has clearly proposed "unswervingly following the path of socialist social governance with Chinese characteristics, and being adept at transforming the Party's leadership and the advantages of our country's socialist system into advantages in social governance"; emphasizing that "urban governance is an important part of advancing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity," and calling for "improving the level of urban planning, construction, and governance, and accelerating the transformation of the development mode of megacities and very large cities." In terms of value positions, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "innovating social governance must take the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the people as the fundamental coordinate," requiring "transforming urban development concepts and paying more attention to putting people first," "striving to build modern people's cities," and "making the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security fuller, more guaranteed, and more sustainable." In terms of implementation paths, General Secretary Xi Jinping required "building a social governance pattern of joint contribution, joint governance, and shared benefits. Strengthening the construction of social governance institutions, improving the social governance system with Party committee leadership, government responsibility, social coordination, public participation, and legal safeguards, and raising the level of socialization, rule of law, intellectualization, and specialization of social governance," and "adhering to systematic governance, law-based governance, comprehensive governance, and source governance." In terms of work orientation, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized "advocating the 'embroidery kung fu' approach in urban governance" and "resolving conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level and in the bud in a timely manner." General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions systematically answer major theoretical and practical questions such as "for whom to govern, how to govern, and by what to govern," pointing out the direction and providing scientific guidance for advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities on the new journey of the new era.
Our country's social governance has gone through three stages—social control, social management, and social governance—which constitute an important historical coordinate for understanding the modernization of social governance in megacities. The modernization of social governance is a major achievement of the Chinese Communist Party leading the people through long-term exploration and practice, having gone through the three stages of social control, social management, and social governance. After the founding of New China, in order to maintain social stability, comprehensive control was mainly carried out through the "work unit system" and "household registration system." With the deepening of reform and opening up, the pattern of social interests underwent profound adjustment and ideological concepts underwent profound changes; our Party increasingly attached importance to resolving social contradictions and equalizing public services, continuously improving the social management pattern with Party committee leadership, government responsibility, social coordination, and public participation. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has attached great importance to social governance work. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee proposed the concept of "social governance," emphasizing "improving the methods of social governance." The 19th National Congress of the Party proposed "building a social governance pattern of joint contribution, joint governance, and shared benefits." The 20th National Congress of the Party required "accelerating the modernization of municipal-level social governance." The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposed "advancing the modernization of governance of megacities and very large cities." After more than 70 years of exploration, the modernization of social governance in our country has continued to advance and develop. The one-character change from "management" to "governance" is a comprehensive elevation of the Party's governing philosophy in the social sphere, manifesting an all-round transformation in governance logic, governance thinking, and governance paradigms, and centrally reflecting the profound transformation from administrative control to pluralistic co-governance, from compartmentalized governance by department and region to systematic governance, and from end-stage response to source governance, constituting an important historical coordinate for understanding the modernization of social governance in megacities.
The modernization of social governance in megacities is an inherent requirement of Chinese modernization. The modernization of social governance is an important part of the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. Chinese modernization is a modernization in which material civilization and spiritual civilization are coordinated, and it is also a modernization of social civilization and governance capacity. Without high-level social governance, there cannot be high-level modernization. The modernization of social governance is an inevitable requirement for meeting the people's needs for a better life. Under the new circumstances, the people's demands for fairness and justice, democracy and the rule of law, security and stability, and environmental quality are growing day by day. Only by continuously raising the level of modernization of social governance can we better respond to the concerns of the masses and enhance people's well-being. The modernization of social governance is a practical need for preventing and defusing major risks. At present, changes unseen in a century are accelerating, and our country's development has entered a period in which strategic opportunities and risks and challenges coexist and uncertain and unpredictable factors increase. Only by consolidating the foundation of national governance through the modernization of social governance can we effectively respond to various risks and challenges and provide solid guarantees for the steady and long-term progress of Chinese modernization. This is the deepest source of strength for the modernization of social governance and the fundamental value orientation that social governance in megacities must always uphold.
Difficulties and Challenges Facing Social Governance in Megacities
Megacities are complex systems with a high concentration of population, factors, and functions, and the challenges their governance faces stem from their own unique urban characteristics. In 2024, our country's urbanization rate reached 67%, and the number of megacities with an urban population exceeding ten million reached 10. Accurately grasping the practical challenges derived from these urban characteristics is the prerequisite for advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities.
Challenges of governance load brought by new trends in population change. Population is the core element and key variable of social governance. At present, the urban population is characterized by huge scale, high-frequency mobility, and aging and declining birthrates. The most notable feature of megacities is the leap in the order of magnitude of population scale. The resident population exceeds ten million, and the actual managed and served population is often even larger; the population's origins cover the whole country, and there are significant differences in age structure, occupational structure, and cultural background. High mobility has made the separation of household registration and actual residence the norm, and the traditional territorial management model based on household registration is difficult to accurately cover the actual population distribution. At the same time, the population structure is undergoing a profound transformation, and megacities generally face the dual pressure of "the elderly and the young." Shanghai and Chongqing have formed the "9073" elderly care pattern (that is, 90% home-based care, 7% community-based care, and 3% institutional care), but high-quality medical resources and elderly care services are highly concentrated in central urban areas, while grassroots service capacity in suburban areas is weak; the gap in public service provision between urban and rural areas and between regions is obvious, and public service provision faces problems such as insufficient total supply and structural imbalance. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan requires "improving the population development strategy with a focus on responding to population aging and declining birthrates, improving the population service system covering the entire population and the entire life cycle, optimizing the population structure, improving population quality, and supporting Chinese modernization with high-quality population development." This raises new requirements for population management, public services, and resource allocation, meaning that social governance in megacities must shift from managing population quantity to placing equal emphasis on optimizing population structure and improving population quality, and from managing the registered population to serving the resident population.
Challenges of governance coordination brought by diverse demands. Megacities have huge economic volumes and bring together the country's richest economic activities and social groups, with diverse interest subjects, complex interest relationships, and varied interest demands. The allocation of resources in livelihood areas such as housing, education, medical care, and employment involves a wide scope and is highly sensitive, making it easy to become the focus of social contradictions. Major projects such as urban renewal and infrastructure construction involve adjustments to the interests of multiple parties, and any slight mishandling of issues such as compensation and resettlement, environmental assessment, and community renovation may trigger group incidents. Opinion expression in cyberspace has further amplified the aggregation effect and transmission speed of interest demands, and the risks of offline problems becoming online, individual problems becoming collective, and local problems becoming global always exist. From the perspective of governance laws, the more diverse the interest subjects, the more necessary it is to find the greatest common divisor; the more diverse the demands, the more necessary it is to build social consensus. How to build the greatest consensus among multiple subjects, achieve effective balance among diverse interests, and coordinate harmonious relationships among diverse demands poses a severe test for the interest integration capacity of megacities.
Challenges of governance boundaries brought by complex spatial forms. The jurisdictions of megacities often encompass multi-level spatial forms such as central urban areas, new urban areas, suburban areas, and counties. The rapid expansion of cities in the past has caused administrative divisions, functional zoning, and management boundaries to become disconnected from the actual distribution of the population. Separation of workplace and residence and cross-district commuting have become common phenomena, and the physical boundaries of grassroots governance units are inconsistent with social boundaries. Areas such as urban-rural fringe zones and urban villages have weak infrastructure, shortage of public services, and vague management subjects, becoming governance blind spots. In addition, in recent years, the regional differentiation of the population has intensified, with populations from townships and even some county towns and less developed regions continuously flowing to economically developed large cities, bringing about a mismatch of public service resources such as education, medical care, and elderly care between urban and rural areas and between regions. This complexity of spatial forms requires the governance system to possess cross-level, cross-regional, and cross-field coordination capabilities, while the existing compartmentalized management system is difficult to adapt to the governance needs of such composite spaces. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, transforming the urban development mode means that spatial governance of megacities and very large cities can no longer rely on outward expansion, but must achieve stock optimization through governance means within the existing spatial pattern, blazing a new path of connotative and intensive urban spatial governance.
Challenges of governance adaptation brought by digital transformation. Megacities are the most active regions for the development of the digital economy and the front line for the digital transformation of urban governance. The number of workers in new forms of employment nationwide has reached 84 million, and groups such as couriers, food delivery riders, and ride-hailing drivers are highly concentrated in megacities. The flexible employment, virtual scenarios, and loose organizations spawned by the platform economy have made traditional employment management, rights protection, and organizational coverage methods face adaptation difficulties, and traditional residents' committees, work units, and industry management find it difficult to effectively reach them. The digital transformation of urban governance is also accelerating, but there are problems among digital platforms such as data barriers, inconsistent standards, and insufficient interoperability. More deeply, new topics such as algorithmic governance, data ethics, and privacy protection have put entirely new demands on governance concepts, institutional rules, and execution capacity.
Challenges of governance resilience brought by high concentration of risks. The concentration and coupling of risks in megacities are the most prominent features distinguishing them from ordinary cities. Urban lifeline systems such as transportation, energy, water supply, drainage, communications, and gas are highly concentrated and interdependent, and a failure in any one link may trigger a chain reaction. Public safety risks such as rail transit, commercial districts and scenic spots, and large-scale events are ever-present; once natural disasters, public health incidents, and other emergencies occur, social governance pressures such as material support, order maintenance, and public opinion guidance surge sharply. More complexly, economic risks, social risks, security risks, and cyber risks are intertwined and transmit to each other in megacities, and a single risk may trigger a composite crisis. The limited strength of grassroots governance, the weak foundation for social mobilization, and the poor mechanism for switching between peacetime and emergency modes, combined with the structural contradiction between the compartmentalized management system and the reality of cross-boundary risk transmission, subject megacities to a practical test of their resistance and recovery capabilities when facing systemic risks.
Practical Paths for Modernizing Social Governance in Megacities
General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly pointed out that "the city is a living organism and an organic whole; we must revere the city, treat the city well, establish a 'full life cycle management' awareness, and strive to explore new paths for modern governance of megacities." Advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities is a complex systematic project. It is necessary to deeply implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on urban governance and social governance, firmly establish the people's city concept, proactively recognize, respond to, and seek change, scientifically grasp the laws, dare to explore and innovate, act in light of local conditions, and take comprehensive measures, striving to blaze a new path of social governance that conforms to the characteristics and laws of megacities.
Adhere to Party building leadership and improve the governance system of overall coordination. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "strengthening the construction of grassroots Party organizations and consolidating the Party's governing foundation must be a red line running through social governance and grassroots construction," and "solidly advancing Party building leading grassroots governance." The Party's leadership is the greatest advantage and fundamental guarantee of social governance in megacities. It is necessary to improve the governance system with unified leadership of Party committees, multi-party coordination, and vertical and horizontal collaboration, improve the organizational system that is connected from top to bottom and strong in execution, and promote the extension of Party organizations to the grassroots and their expansion into emerging fields. It is necessary to summarize and promote the successful experience of "building Party branches in residential communities," integrate the forces of residents' committees, owners' committees, property service enterprises, and other parties, explore new forms of organization such as regionalized Party building, industry Party building, and functional Party organizations, cover office buildings, commercial districts, industrial parks, platform enterprises, and new employment groups, achieve the unity of organizational coverage and work coverage, and transform the Party's political and organizational advantages into governance effectiveness. In recent years, Chongqing has fully integrated social governance into the municipal Party committee's Party building leadership "885" working mechanism (that is, 8 report forms, 8 problem lists, and 5 mechanisms), achieving joint planning, joint deployment, and joint advancement with central work, providing a useful exploration for Party building leadership of social governance in megacities.
Adhere to putting the people first and improve the governance pattern of joint contribution, joint governance, and shared benefits. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly proposed that "people's cities are built by the people and serve the people," emphasizing "being adept at summarizing the laws of the Party's mass work in the new era from advancing social governance." In response to the problems of diverse interest subjects, complex demands, and frequent contradictions in megacities, it is necessary to improve the basic public service system, enhance balance and accessibility, promote the balanced distribution of high-quality resources such as education, medical care, and elderly care, and focus on solving the urgent, difficult, and anxious problems of the masses. It is necessary to deepen the reform of the household registration system, promote the equalization of basic public services for the resident population, protect the legitimate rights and interests of the migrant population, and enable new citizens to settle stably, develop, and integrate in the city. It is necessary to broaden the channels for the masses to participate in governance, allowing the masses to have a voice in governance and benefit from participation. Chongqing has vigorously promoted the construction of 15-minute and 30-minute high-quality life service circles in urban and rural areas, innovatively built the "Chongqing Matters Discussed Well" consultation platform, promoted the sinking of the focus of consultation, vigorously promoted the "Old Ma Leading Little Ma" contradiction mediation experience, established more than 3,000 "Old Ma Studios" and "Little Ma Workstations," enabling the Fengqiao model of the new era to take firm root in the land of Bayu.
Adhere to strengthening the foundation and consolidating the basis, and build a solid governance foundation with the center of gravity moved downward. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "if the grassroots are strong, the country is strong; if the grassroots are secure, the world is secure," and emphasized "upholding and developing the 'Fengqiao model' of the new era." The grassroots are the "last kilometer" of social governance and the key to solving the boundary difficulties of spatial governance in megacities. In response to the problems of vast jurisdictions and complex spatial levels in megacities, it is necessary to promote the downward shift of the center of gravity of governance, the downward flow of resources, and the downward movement of forces, so that the grassroots have positions, authority, resources, and personnel, and to focus on solving difficulties such as the "inversion of authority and responsibility." In recent years, Chongqing has taken the "one center, four sectors, one grid" grassroots intelligent governance system as its starting point, strengthened the command centers of towns and streets, optimized the setting of functional sectors, improved the grid system, achieved the aggregation of forces in the grid, the resolution of problems in the grid, and the defusing of contradictions in the grid, effectively consolidated the grassroots foundation of social governance, and effectively solved the boundary difficulties of spatial governance in megacities.
Adhere to empowering through science and technology and improve governance capacity in the digital era. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized "following the trend of digitalization and intelligence, innovating governance concepts, models, and means, strengthening scientific and technological support, and continuously improving the level of intelligent and refined urban governance." From the perspective of technical governance theory, digital technology is not only a revolution in governance tools but also a profound transformation of governance paradigms. It is necessary to rely on the urban operation and management service platform, break down data barriers, accelerate the collection and sharing of basic data, and achieve the aggregation of governance data in one map and comprehensive overview on one screen. It is necessary to build a new "artificial intelligence +" social governance model and promote the transformation of governance models from passive response to active prevention and control. It is necessary to adhere to technology for good, strengthen the protection of personal information, pay attention to the needs of special groups such as the elderly, and make digital governance both fast and warm. However, the embedding of technology in governance also faces the risk of "technology suspension"; the disconnection between technical systems and institutional systems leads to "data looking good, but problems remaining." At the same time, technological empowerment must advance in tandem with institutional innovation. Chongqing has deepened the reform of the "large comprehensive integration" urban comprehensive governance institutional mechanism and the construction of a three-level digital urban operation and governance center of "municipal brain—district and county hub—town and street terminal," promoting the iterative upgrading of social governance from "experience-based judgment" to "data-based decision-making," accumulating practical experience for empowering social governance in megacities through science and technology.
Adhere to overall planning and balanced consideration, and enhance the governance resilience of eliminating dangers and consolidating security. General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized "adhering to preventing and defusing major security risks from the source, truly solving problems before they sprout and before they become disasters." Risk governance in megacities cannot rely solely on "rigid prevention and control"; more attention must be paid to "resilience building" to enhance the ability to resist risks and recover quickly. This requires coordinating development and security, improving the two defense lines of "civil defense + technical defense," forming a vivid situation of universal participation and mass prevention and mass governance, improving the closed-loop management mechanism of the entire chain of risk identification, early warning, disposal, and recovery, establishing mechanisms for calling, circuit breaking, and pre-positioning in disaster response and disposal, and achieving early detection, early warning, and early disposal of risks. In accordance with laws and administrative regulations such as the Emergency Response Law of the People's Republic of China, the Regulations of Chongqing Municipality on the Transfer of Persons Avoiding Natural Disaster Risks have been issued, granting townships (subdistricts) the power of on-the-spot disposal, sinking the power of emergency decision-making to the front line of danger through institutional authorization, solving the practical problem of reporting level by level and delaying the opportunity for disposal, implementing active avoidance, preventive avoidance, and emergency avoidance, ensuring that those who should be transferred are transferred, all who should be transferred are transferred, and those who should be transferred are transferred early, and maximizing the protection of the safety of the people's lives.
Return to TopBy: 袁红英
At the Sixth Meeting of the 20th Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "to advance the construction of the unified national market in depth, the basic requirement is 'five unifications and one opening,'" and explicitly stressed that "the scale of government conduct must be unified; when localities promote economic development, especially in investment attraction, there must be clear rules on what can be done and what cannot be done, and they must not act according to their own whims." These important statements directly target the key crux of the current construction of the unified national market, providing fundamental guidance for regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct and promoting a better combination of an effective market and a well-functioning government. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposes: "Regulate local governments' economic promotion conduct, formulate lists of encouraged and prohibited matters for local government investment attraction, and strengthen information disclosure in investment attraction." Local governments' economic promotion work is connected on one end to the functioning of a well-functioning government, and on the other end to the order of fair market competition. Only by calibrating the boundaries of conduct with a unified standard, breaking down segmentation barriers through strengthened positive guidance and rigid constraints, and shifting the focus of investment attraction work more toward optimizing the business environment, cultivating the industrial ecosystem, and providing high-level government services, can the vitality of local development be pooled into the overall effectiveness of high-quality development.
Regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct is the intrinsic essence of unifying the scale of government conduct
The key to building a high-level socialist market economy system lies in scientifically straightening out the relationship between the government and the market. As the strategic foundation for building the new development pattern, accelerating the construction of the unified national market, smoothing the domestic major cycle, and building a strong domestic market are particularly crucial. Regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct does not weaken localities' initiative in promoting development, but rather places local conduct on the track of the rule of law, pushing local governments to abandon policy competition that pursues policies that benefit oneself at the expense of others and shift toward a higher-quality, more sustainable development model.
An inevitable requirement for clarifying the boundary between government and market. Under the conditions of the socialist market economy, the market plays a decisive role in resource allocation, and the government mainly undertakes the functions of remedying market failures and maintaining competition order. In reality, a small number of localities simply equate economic promotion with policy concessions and administrative intervention, relying excessively on fiscal subsidies and targeted preferential treatment to intervene in enterprise operations, which both squeezes the space for fair competition and distorts factor allocation signals. Unifying the scale of conduct means drawing a clear reasonable boundary for administrative intervention, pushing localities to focus on improving public services, perfecting infrastructure, and building public technology platforms, returning the right to choose operations to business entities, and forming a sound situation in which business entities operate autonomously and the government performs its duties according to law.
A development requirement for overcoming local departmentalism. Administrative divisions objectively give rise to territorial interest considerations, but in the absence of institutional constraints, local demands can easily evolve into local protectionism and involutionary competition. Some regions rely on policy depressions to compete for projects, set up hidden thresholds to block factor circulation, and indirectly exclude external business entities through customized catalog databases and differentiated subsidies. In the short term, this boosts a locality's economic growth, but in the long term it brings duplicate construction and resource dissipation, harming the efficiency of national market allocation. Adhering to a unified scale of government conduct means guiding localities to step out of local thinking, plan regional positioning within the overall national development landscape, abandon the competition model of pursuing policies that benefit oneself at the expense of others, and promote a shift in regions from homogeneous competition to functional complementarity and coordinated progress.
An important pathway for advancing the modernization of government governance. The key to the modernization of government governance is to realize the institutionalization, standardization, and legalization of government performance of duties. Economic regulation, industrial support, and investment attraction are core areas of local government performance of duties and the most direct manifestation of governance capacity. For some time, due to the lack of unified standards, local governments have had relatively large discretionary power in economic policy-making, which has not only triggered involutionary competition within regions but also exposed shortcomings in the legalization and standardization of grassroots governance. Unifying the scale of local governments' economic promotion conduct is essentially about constraining administrative power with institutional rigidity, standardizing the performance of duties with unified standards, forcing local governments to transform governance concepts and optimize governance methods, and comprehensively enhancing governance capacity for targeted policy-making and service empowerment.
The superposition of multiple governance tensions is the deep-seated inducement of anomie in local governments' economic promotion conduct
Deviations in local governments' economic promotion conduct are not simply a subjective cognitive problem, but a realistic result bred by the interweaving and superposition of multiple tensions such as growth pressure, assessment mechanisms, and central-local rights and responsibilities.
The structural tension between growth competition and the unified market. Localities bear the territorial responsibility of stabilizing growth and ensuring employment. In homogeneous development competition among regions, when incentive and constraint mechanisms are not sufficiently complete, some localities tend to use policy tools to amplify local short-term advantages. Especially when facing competition for industrial projects, individual localities fall into "involutionary" competition, trading projects for landing through illegal fiscal awards and subsidies and land concessions. Once territorial development demands break away from institutional constraints, they will create friction with the goal of building the unified national market, indirectly raising entry thresholds, blocking the cross-regional flow of goods and factors, and causing conflicts between local interests and overall efficiency.
The institutional tension between performance assessment and conduct norms. Assessment is the baton for local government performance of duties. In the past period, the weight of economic growth indicators has been relatively high, which easily leads localities to prioritize short-term output and project quantity, with insufficient consideration of whether policies conform to fair competition and fit national unified rules. The root of some anomic local government economic promotion conduct lies not in the subjective willingness of local governments to develop, but to a considerable extent in the fact that assessment orientation has not fully balanced local development with overall order, thereby inducing performance deviations that emphasize the short term and neglect the long term.
The coordination tension between local autonomy and national unity. In China's central-local coordinated governance pattern, localities have the autonomy to promote the economic development of their own regions and need to explore distinctive development paths in light of their resource endowments. But local autonomy does not mean acting according to one's own whims. In reality, some localities do not fully understand and grasp unified institutional rules; in the process of formulating industrial support and investment attraction policies, they base themselves more on local realities, with insufficient consideration of institutional unity at the national level, and policy design does not connect smoothly with higher-level rules, forming a coordination problem of "rules above, adaptations below," making it difficult for unified market rules to be implemented and take root.
Moving from establishing rules to building institutions is the practical path for regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct
Regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct cannot stop at campaign-style correction; it should adhere to simultaneously breaking and establishing, building a closed-loop institutional system across the entire chain of rule standards, list guidance, assessment supervision, and implementation, leaping from "establishing rules" to "building institutions."
Delineate the boundaries of conduct with a unified rule system and establish the institutional framework. Institutional unity is the premise of behavioral unity. Benchmarking against the requirements of building the unified national market, consolidate foundational institutions such as property rights protection and fair competition review, and embed fair competition requirements into the entire process of local industrial support and investment attraction. Strengthen the foundational status of competition policy; any economic promotion policy involving business entities must undergo fair competition review, preventing at the source the issuance of policy documents containing tendencies toward local protectionism and market segmentation. Advance the construction of institutions for property rights protection, market access, information disclosure, social credit, merger and reorganization, and market exit, and improve the statistical, fiscal and tax, and assessment systems conducive to building the unified national market. On the basis of upholding the bottom line of national institutional unity, preserve policy space for localities to act in light of local conditions, achieving organic compatibility between national rule consistency and local practical innovation.
Clarify behavioral orientation with the "two lists" and refine institutional norms. Make good use of the institutional achievements of the national unified list of encouraged and prohibited matters for local government investment attraction, and simultaneously connect with the national unified negative list management mechanism for local fiscal subsidies. The list of encouraged matters clarifies the direction of a well-functioning government's efforts, focusing on areas where action can be taken such as optimizing the business environment, improving public services, and building common technology platforms, and strengthening positive guidance. The list of prohibited matters and the negative list for fiscal subsidies together delineate the red lines of conduct, explicitly prohibiting behaviors that artificially restrict factor mobility such as illegal fiscal rebates, discriminatory access, and making local investment a precondition for business operations, and strengthening rigid constraints. Rely on list-based management to clarify what can and cannot be done, compress the space for policy discretion, and enhance the transparency and predictability of local governments' economic promotion conduct. Strictly implement the "one national list" for market access, eliminate various forms of local protectionism and market segmentation, and rectify typical problems such as hindering fair enterprise access and autonomous operation, restricting the free flow of goods and factors, differentiated qualification recognition between inside and outside, and improperly implementing credit evaluations to set up hidden barriers in bidding.
Guarantee institutional operation with assessment evaluation and supervision accountability, and perfect the institutional closed loop. Make good use of the assessment "baton," optimize the performance assessment system for high-quality development, incorporate the implementation of fair competition review, the elimination of local protectionism, and service to the construction of the unified national market into assessment content, correct local performance orientation, and guide the establishment and practice of a correct view of political achievements. Improve the routine supervision mechanism, comprehensively carry out spot checks of policy documents and verification of typical cases, and promptly correct behaviors of issuing economic promotion policies in violation of regulations. Perfect the accountability chain, distinguish unintentional deviations from subjective intent, and seriously pursue accountability for those who repeatedly correct and repeat violations and cause adverse consequences of market segmentation, forming a complete closed loop of "policy formulation — supervision and inspection — correction and accountability."
Test the actual effectiveness of operation by breaking down barriers and unifying the scale, and promote the deep rooting of institutions. The vitality of institutions lies in implementation. Take the elimination of local protectionism and administrative monopoly as the yardstick for testing, continuously clean up various "local policies" and "hidden rules" that hinder market unity, properly handle existing illegal investment attraction policies and projects, strengthen information disclosure in investment attraction, and compress the space for black-box operations. Promote the unification of regulatory rules, standards, and law enforcement scales, achieving one ruler measured to the end, and avoiding imbalances in the strictness or leniency of law enforcement among regions. Encourage localities to carry out reform pilots within the institutional framework, promptly summarize replicable grassroots experience and elevate it into institutional achievements, and ensure that all types of business entities enjoy equal development opportunities nationwide.
(The author is Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shandong Academy of Social Sciences)
Return to TopBy: 叶子鹏
Party consciousness and organizational concept are important components of the party spirit cultivation of party members and cadres, and are also the foundation for conducting oneself in office, performing duties, and fulfilling responsibilities. Whether party consciousness and organizational concept are strong or not directly relates to what party members and cadres believe in, rely on, and do, and determines whether they can move steadily and far into the future (行稳致远, xing wen zhi yuan - "walk, steady; reach, far") on the path of undertaking work, holding office, and serving the people. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, "Every party member, especially leading cadres, must strengthen party consciousness and organizational concept, and consciously achieve ideological identification with the organization, political reliance on the organization, work-related obedience to the organization, and emotional trust in the organization." This important exposition is both a touchstone for testing the party spirit of party members and cadres and a yardstick for guiding the healthy growth of cadres.
The Party's strength comes from the organization, and the organization can multiply strength. Our Party was established in accordance with the Marxist principles of party building, and it is precisely by relying on a rigorous organizational system and strict organizational discipline that it has been able to grow from small to large, from weak to strong, and always maintain strong cohesion and combat effectiveness. The Party Constitution establishes democratic centralism as the Party's fundamental organizational principle, clearly stipulating that individual party members obey the Party organization, the minority obeys the majority, lower-level organizations obey higher-level organizations, and all organizations and all party members of the whole Party obey the National Congress of the Party and the Central Committee. The "four obediences" are not only the most basic organizational discipline but also the institutional guarantee for the unity and solidarity of the whole Party. Obedience to the organization has never been an optional "soft constraint" but the most basic political character of Communists. Every party member must always remember that he or she is a person of the Party and a member of the organization, bear in mind that his or her first identity is that of a Communist Party member, and that his or her first duty is to work for the Party, achieving loyalty to the organization and sharing the same goals and values (同心同德, tong xin tong de - "same, heart; same, virtue") with the Party at all times. Once party consciousness and organizational concept become weak, with no organization in mind and no discipline in sight, all kinds of absurd things may be done. It can be said that party consciousness and organizational concept are the ballast stone of a cadre's life; once lost, the path of holding office will deviate from its course.
It should be clearly recognized that in reality, the problem of weak party consciousness and organizational concept among some party members and cadres still exists. Some have serious individualism and liberalism, disregard organizational discipline, bargain with the organization, and refuse to obey organizational arrangements; some attribute all progress entirely to personal ability, speaking in a logical and reasoned manner (头头是道, tou tou shi dao - "head, head; is, way") about achievements but saying nothing about the organization; some treat organizational arrangements as bargaining chips for personal advancement and retreat, harboring resentment and responding passively when things are not to their liking; some are evasive with the organization, failing to request instructions or report on major matters. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, "Good cadres do not emerge naturally. To grow into a good cadre, one relies first on one's own efforts and second on organizational cultivation." This profoundly reveals the law of cadre growth. Personal effort is certainly important, but personal growth and progress are ultimately the result of organizational cultivation and the trust of the people. Only under the guidance and restraint of the organization can individuals perform their duties and take responsibility along the correct direction. No matter how capable party members and cadres are, once they leave the organization they lose the stage on which to display their abilities; no matter how high their positions, once they deviate from the organization they will lose the direction in which to move forward. Only by continuously strengthening organizational concept, consciously placing oneself within the organization, and transforming the organization's guidance and restraint into conscious action in undertaking work can every step of growth be taken steadily and solidly.
Strengthening party consciousness and organizational concept must ultimately be reflected in action, in concrete matters one by one. First, one must identify with the organization ideologically. Consciously maintain a high degree of consistency with the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core in ideology, politics, and action, resolutely uphold the authority of the Party Central Committee and its centralized, unified leadership, and never become a "two-faced person" who is disloyal and dishonest to the Party. Second, one must rely on the organization politically. Proactively open one's heart and mind to the organization, strictly implement the system of requesting instructions and reporting on major matters, request instructions on what must be requested, report on what must be reported, refrain from engaging in individualism, refrain from acting solely on one's own whims without consultation (自行其是, xing ji qi shi - "act, self; its, is"), and never become a "special party member" detached from the organization. Third, one must obey the organization in work. Resolutely obey organizational arrangements and strictly implement organizational decisions is the duty of every party member; go wherever the organization needs, subordinate personal will to organizational needs, subordinate personal interests to overall interests, and refrain from being selective or picky (不挑肥拣瘦, bu tiao fei jian shou - "not, pick; fat, select; lean"), from cutting corners, and from bargaining. Fourth, one must trust the organization emotionally, always maintain gratitude and treat the organization with sincerity, correctly view personal gains and losses and advancement, retreat, transfer, and retention, and refrain from claiming credit, shifting blame, or engaging in comparison. In sum, it means keeping the organization in mind, following the organization closely in action, and tying honor and disgrace to the organization, being a person of the organization and doing the work of the organization in a down-to-earth manner.
A party member is a banner, and a cadre is a responsibility. Party consciousness and organizational concept are not abstract slogans but a lifelong required course. On the new journey, no matter how positions and posts change, loyalty to the organization must not change, the resolve to rely on the organization must not change, and the consciousness of obeying the organization must not change. The broad masses of party members and cadres must always correctly position the relationship between the individual and the organization, embody the strengthening of party consciousness and organizational concept in the entire process and all aspects of performing duties and fulfilling responsibilities, and strive to grow into good cadres who are loyal and reliable to the Party and the people and worthy of the heavy responsibilities of the era.
Return to TopBy: 张志强
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "For any culture to stand firm and go far, to have leading power, cohesive power, shaping power, and radiating power, it must have its own subjectivity. The Communist Party of China has always attached importance to culture. In the new era, on the basis of confidence in our path, theory, and system, we have added cultural confidence. Cultural confidence comes from our cultural subjectivity." The high importance attached to strengthening cultural confidence and consolidating cultural subjectivity is a theme that runs consistent throughout the whole process (一以贯之, yi yi guan zhi - "one, go, through") of Xi Jinping's cultural thought. As an important signature concept in Xi Jinping's cultural thought, cultural subjectivity constitutes an important component of Xi Jinping's cultural thought. A profound grasp of the connotation of cultural subjectivity allows us to understand more thoroughly the essence and key points of Xi Jinping's cultural thought.
The Problem Consciousness and Historical Conditions Under Which Cultural Subjectivity Was Put Forward
The emphasis on culture, the love for history and culture, and the concern for the prosperity and development of socialist culture with Chinese characteristics are the deep feelings that run consistent throughout the whole process of Xi Jinping's cultural thought. The emphasis on culture is built upon a profound understanding of the function and role of culture. This profound understanding comes, on the one hand, from Marxist cultural theory, and on the other hand, it is also a reflection of the era in which the Communist Party of China attaches importance to cultural practice. More importantly, the Communist Party of China's emphasis on culture reflects rich connotations of the times, possesses distinct characteristics of the times, and demonstrates original theoretical connotations. It is a creative enrichment and historic development of Marxist cultural theory at a new height of the era, and a further advancement and expansion of the cultural practice led by the Party under new historical conditions.
Culture is the root and soul of a country and a nation, the vitality of a country and a nation, and the source of national identity and ethnic identity. Culture is both the crystallization jointly created by our ancestors through the ages and the force that shapes and cultivates our country and nation. No matter which country or which nation, if it discards its own culture, it is as if it has discarded its own soul. If it does not cherish its own thought and culture, and discards the soul of thought and culture, then this country and this nation cannot stand up. The strength and prosperity of a country and a nation are always supported by cultural prosperity. The great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation requires the development and prosperity of Chinese culture as a condition, and requires a strong cultural self as support.
Only a nation with cultural confidence can stand firm, stand steady, and go far. Cultural confidence is a major issue concerning the rise and fall of national fortunes, concerning cultural security, and concerning the independence of the national spirit. China has firm confidence in its path, theory, and system, the essence of which is cultural confidence built on the inheritance of more than 5,000 years of civilization. Cultural confidence is the foundation of confidence in path, theory, and system, is an inherent part of confidence in path, theory, and system, is a more fundamental, broader, and deeper confidence, and is also a more basic, deeper, and more enduring force. The putting forward of cultural confidence and cultural subjectivity profoundly echoes the needs of the times and fundamentally reflects the inevitable requirements of historical development.
Cultural Subjectivity Is the Root of Cultural Confidence
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out, "With cultural subjectivity, there is a firm self in the cultural sense, and cultural confidence has a fundamental support." Cultural confidence is full affirmation of the value of one's own culture and a firm belief in the vitality of one's own culture. Cultural confidence comes from our cultural subjectivity, while cultural inferiority reflects a crisis of cultural subjectivity.
Cultural confidence is the result of cultural self-awareness, a confidence established in cultural self-awareness. Cultural self-awareness is the self-awareness of cultural subjectivity. Cultural self-awareness first requires a warmth and respect for one's own past history and culture. The emergence of this warmth and respect comes from the inner sense of oneness that is inevitably attached to history and culture. This inner sense of oneness is built upon the self-awareness of the cultural life entity. This warmth and respect is the self-knowledge and self-awareness of the unity of the ancient and the present of the cultural life entity. The self-awareness and self-knowledge of one's own history and culture generated in warmth and respect is precisely the process of generating cultural subjectivity based on the cultural life entity.
Cultural subjectivity reflects a country's and a nation's self-conscious awareness of its own culture and its proactive spirit for cultural innovation and creation. Cultural subjectivity is autonomy gained in self-knowledge, and is the consciousness of the autonomy over survival, development, and innovation and creation. The process of cultural self-awareness is the process of generating cultural subjectivity. The essence of cultural confidence is not only the awareness of the cultural self, but also, in the self-awareness of the cultural self, the confidence in the autonomous capacity for survival, development, and innovation and creation, and the confidence in one's own cultural subjectivity.
Cultural confidence is a conscious manifestation with a self and a soul; cultural confidence comes from cultural subjectivity. With cultural subjectivity, there is a firm self in the cultural sense, and cultural confidence has a fundamental support. Therefore, it can be said that putting forward cultural confidence grasps the fundamental crux of the problems of the times, conforms to the inevitable requirements of historical development, embodies a deep historical sense based on the history of civilization, and demonstrates a profound theoretical insight into the problems of the times. The relationship between cultural confidence and cultural subjectivity has become the theoretical core of Xi Jinping's cultural thought.
The Ways, Methods, and Structure for Establishing and Consolidating Cultural Subjectivity
Xi Jinping's cultural thought clarifies the ways and methods for establishing cultural subjectivity. First, our cultural subjectivity was established on the land of China by the Communist Party of China leading the Chinese people. This shows that our cultural subjectivity is rooted in the land of China, based on the great practice of the Chinese people, and crystallized as the cultural subjectivity of the Communist Party of China. The Chinese Communists, leading the Chinese people, struggled and sacrificed on the land of China, continued the cultural lineage, sought truth from facts, independently found the Chinese path, and fundamentally overcame the crisis of cultural subjectivity. Therefore, the Chinese Communists are the most profound embodiment of our cultural subjectivity and the most vivid expression of the inner vitality of the cultural life entity that is Chinese civilization. The Chinese Communists are the most direct bearers of our cultural subjectivity.
Second, our cultural subjectivity is established on the basis of creatively transforming and innovatively developing the fine traditional Chinese culture, inheriting revolutionary culture, and developing advanced socialist culture, as well as on the basis of drawing on and absorbing all the outstanding achievements of human civilization. This shows that our cultural subjectivity is established in the creative transformation and innovative development of the fine traditional Chinese culture, is built upon the foundation of Chinese civilization, which continues unbroken through constant innovation and development, and is a reflection of the times of the cultural subjectivity and vigorous vitality that Chinese civilization possesses for self-development, responding to challenges, and opening up new prospects. Our cultural subjectivity is also built upon the profound and powerful cultural subjectivity of the Chinese nation. The Chinese nation is both the result of being shaped and cultivated by Chinese civilization and the fundamental force that creates and develops Chinese civilization. The course of development of the Chinese nation proves that the Chinese nation has the determination and will for unremitting self-improvement. The mutual shaping and mutual achievement of the Chinese nation and Chinese civilization is the theme of the history of Chinese civilization. Our cultural subjectivity is rooted in the cultural subjectivity of Chinese civilization and is carried by the cultural subjectivity of the Chinese nation.
Finally, our cultural subjectivity is established by integrating the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific realities and with the fine traditional Chinese culture. This assertion shows that the Two Integrations (两个结合) is the fundamental path for establishing cultural subjectivity.
The integration of Marxism with China's specific realities generates a practical cultural subjectivity. The principle of seeking truth from facts, of proceeding from reality in everything and linking theory with practice, as the "First Integration," not only liberates the knowing subject, but more importantly, liberates the practical cultural subjectivity. The principle of seeking truth from facts is a principle of mutual generation between the object and the method. The mutual generation of the object and the method generates the dialectical unity of the knowing object and the knowing subject in practice, and generates the real subject and its real world created in practice or in the historical dialectic. Therefore, the methodological principle of seeking truth from facts also has the principled significance of generating subjectivity. In the more than one hundred years of practice of the Communist Party of China, it has generated the subject of revolution, the subject of construction, and the subject of reform and opening up, and has created the subjectivity of the times of the Chinese people and the Chinese nation under the leadership of the Communist Party of China.
The integration of Marxism with the fine traditional Chinese culture generates the subject of civilization and the subject that continuously engages in cultural creation. Strictly speaking, the transition from the "First Integration" to the "Second Integration" is not a change of the object of "integration," but a deepening of "integration." The practical subject created by seeking truth from facts is a subject created in practice. The practical subject is both the premise of practice and the result of practice. The practical dialectic of premise and result is precisely the principle of subjectification or the generation of subjectivity. The subject as a result is a result created in the self-awareness of the subject as a premise. In this sense, the concrete and actual national conditions are the result of the historical practice of the ancient Chinese civilization. They are not merely empirical facts, but also the premise for the continued creation of Chinese civilization. Therefore, the active subject created by seeking truth from facts, as a practical subject, must necessarily be a creative self-awareness of this civilizational subject. The practical subject will inevitably carry out the creative transformation and innovative development of the civilizational tradition in practice, and will inevitably consciously establish the subjectivity of civilization in practice, establishing the subjectivity of continuously engaging in cultural creation under given premises.
The Two Integrations completely reveals the principle of subject generation or subjectification, profoundly elucidates the subjective connection between the Communist Party of China and Chinese civilization, and fully clarifies the generation mechanism of the cultural subjectivity of Chinese civilization and the Chinese nation. The practice of integrating the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific realities and with the fine traditional Chinese culture is a practice in which the Chinese Communists, the advanced elements of the Chinese nation, use Marxism, this advanced theory, to activate the vitality of Chinese civilization. In the practice of "integration," not only was the Communist Party of China created, but Chinese civilization was also made modern, Marxism was made to thoroughly possess the life of Chinese culture, and a new, organically unified cultural life entity was created. The generation of the cultural subjectivity of the Chinese Communists profoundly demonstrates the cultural subjectivity of Chinese civilization and the Chinese nation, and also fully represents the cultural subjectivity of Chinese civilization and the Chinese nation. The cultural subjectivity of Chinese civilization, the cultural subjectivity of the Chinese nation, and the cultural subjectivity of the Communist Party of China constitute an organically unified cultural subjectivity.
(The author is the Director of the Institute of Philosophy of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)
Return to TopBy: 李梦云
Persisting in using the Party's innovative theory to unify people's hearts and strengthen their convictions (凝心铸魂, ning xin zhu hun - "conge, cast, soul") is a fundamental "heart-establishing" project of the Communist Party of China. General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out: "For our Party, the world's largest Marxist governing party, only with strong theory can the direction be clear, hearts be united, and confidence be sufficient." Emphasizing ideological Party-building and theory-strengthening the Party is the fundamental reason for our Party's historic achievements. The fundamental reason why the Party's innovative theory can unify hearts and strengthen convictions lies in its broad vision that connects history and reality, relying on the guidance of scientific truth, the inspiration of firm belief, the nourishment of fine traditional Chinese culture, and the transformation of vivid practice, continuously clearing away ideological fog, tempering political character, activating the power of roots, and stimulating conscious action. The Party's innovative theory systematically answers the major propositions of how a Marxist party can unite hearts, forge souls, consolidate foundations, and gather strength, containing profound insights into the laws of Communist Party governance, the laws of socialist construction, and the laws of human social development.
Clearing away ideological fog, uniting hearts with scientific truth.
The vitality of scientific theory lies in accurately grasping the pulse of the times. The Party's innovative theory unites directional consensus by answering the questions of the era. Facing the major propositions of China's questions, the world's questions, the people's questions, and the questions of the times, Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era profoundly answers a series of major era questions such as what kind of socialism with Chinese characteristics to uphold and develop in the new era and how to uphold and develop socialism with Chinese characteristics, guiding the whole Party to maintain strategic resolve and grasp the correct direction amid complex situations.
Uniting theoretical consensus with a rigorous logical system. Marx pointed out: "Theory can grasp the masses once it persuades people; and theory can persuade people once it is thorough." Whether theory is thorough depends on whether its logic is rigorous and its reasoning is penetrating. Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era is precisely such a complete scientific system with rigorous logic and comprehensive coverage, in which the "Ten Clarifications," the Fourteen Commitments (十四个坚持), the "Thirteen Aspects of Achievements," and the "Six Musts" are interconnected and organically unified. This "thoroughness" of theory enables the whole Party to move from "knowing what it is" to "knowing why it is so," thereby dispelling cognitive confusion and achieving genuine learning, genuine belief, and genuine application.
Uniting value consensus by criticizing erroneous trends of thought. Uniting hearts requires not only "clarifying" truth but also "breaking" fallacies. Situated in the realistic environment where various erroneous trends of thought in the ideological sphere constantly cause disturbance, we must always uphold Marxism's guiding position in the ideological sphere, adhere to the stance, viewpoint, and method of historical materialism, expose the theoretical essence and practical harm of various erroneous trends of thought, manifest truth in clarifying fallacies, and build a firm foundation of faith through refutation and analysis.
Tempering political character, forging the soul with firm belief.
"Maturity in theory is the foundation of maturity in politics; firmness in politics stems from clarity in theory." The Party's innovative theory is not limited to uniting thought but takes building firm faith and conviction as its fundamental orientation. Forging the soul means relying on the ideals and convictions contained in the Party's innovative theory, elevating recognition at the level of theory into adherence at the level of faith, internalizing scientific theory into the political soul of Chinese Communists, better tempering Party members' Party spirit cultivation, and strengthening Party consciousness.
Relying on the faith and conviction contained in the theory, tempering the spiritual foundation of Communists. Faith in Marxism and conviction in socialism and communism are the political soul and spiritual pillar of Communists. This faith and conviction are rooted in the scientific understanding of the laws of human social development contained in the Party's innovative theory, the conscious application of the Marxist worldview and methodology, and firm confidence in realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. The Party's innovative theory profoundly explains the fundamental questions of for whom Communists strive and why they set out, guiding the broad ranks of Party members and cadres to grasp the general trend of historical development through the complex surface of reality, consciously discard impetuous mentality, resist erroneous trends of thought, adhere to their original aspirations and advance steadfastly amid the complex and changing circumstances of the times, and forever maintain the unswerving commitment to a goal (矢志不渝, shi zhi bu yu - "aim, will, not, change") of Communists' political character.
Relying on the political core contained in the theory, cultivating the political consciousness of loyalty to the Party. Loyalty to the Party is an essential political character of Communists. Firm political stance and political resolve stem from ideological stance and ideological resolve. The Party's innovative theory contains distinct political positions and strict political principles, revealing that the Party's leadership is the fundamental guarantee for China's development and progress. It is precisely through continuous ideological baptism that the whole Party can constantly sharpen Party spirit cultivation, achieve a high degree of unity at the ideological level, and forge loyalty to the Party into an intrinsic political character.
Activating the power of roots, consolidating the foundation with cultural nourishment.
Upholding the Marxist soul vein and the root vein of fine traditional Chinese culture is the foundation and premise of theoretical innovation. Relying on the Two Integrations (两个结合), the Party's innovative theory activates the root veins of fine traditional Chinese culture and red culture, fully absorbs the rich nourishment of Chinese civilization, builds cultural subjectivity in the continuation of the cultural lineage and in upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, and from the root strengthens the foundation and revitalizes the essence (固本培元, gu ben pei yuan - "solidify, root, nourish, origin") and unifies hearts and strengthens convictions.
Adhering to the correspondence between the soul vein and the root vein, building theoretical identity through the common origin of the cultural lineage. Marxism and fine traditional Chinese culture have different origins, but there is a high degree of compatibility between them. This theoretical characteristic that connects the ancient and the present is the continuation and elevation of fine traditional Chinese culture, eliminating ideological estrangement among the people from the root, enabling the masses to recognize the Party's innovative theory from the bottom of their hearts and support the Party's leadership. Relying on red cultural carriers and popularized forms of dissemination, the Party's innovative theory transforms abstract discourse into perceptible and knowable realistic narratives, "flying into the homes of ordinary people," cultivating emotional identity and gathering the power of people's hearts in concrete presentation.
Adhering to the interconnection between inheritance and innovation, consolidating ideological identity with cultural subjectivity. Cultural subjectivity is the fundamental support for cultural confidence and self-strengthening. It not only nurtures a positive, upward, rational, and peaceful mental state across the whole society, but also enables Chinese civilization, amid exchanges and collisions among the world's diverse civilizations, to always uphold its own independent character and retain its distinct Chinese characteristics.
Stimulating conscious action, gathering strength with vivid practice.
The value of theory lies in guiding practice, and the effectiveness of unifying hearts and strengthening convictions must ultimately be implemented in action. The Party's innovative theory not only answers the fundamental stance and value pursuit of "for whom to work and why to work," but also provides practical methods of "how to view and how to do," providing action guidance for the broad ranks of Party members and cadres to fulfill their duties in their posts and for the broad masses of the people to create a better life, uniting the Party's heart and the people's heart into a powerful force for united struggle.
Practice tests theory, deepening ideological and emotional identity with tremendous results. The persuasiveness of theory is rooted in the practical power of answering the questions of the era and solving development problems. The key reason why the Party's innovative theory can unify hearts and strengthen convictions lies in demonstrating the mighty power of truth through vivid practice. From historically eradicating absolute poverty to the continuous resolution of urgent and difficult problems such as schooling, medical care, and elderly care, one visible and tangible livelihood matter after another has truly transformed scientific truth into tangible and accessible benefits for the people. Party members and cadres take a firm people's stance in rooting themselves at the grassroots, the masses perceive the mighty power of truth through changes in their own lives, and the Party and the people, united in heart, deepen emotional identity with theoretical clarity, transforming the original aspiration and founding mission and the aspiration for a better life into firm conscious action.
Practice gathers joint force, consolidating the foundation of united struggle in working together in the same direction. The Party's innovative theory guides the direction of endeavor, and being down-to-earth and practical (脚踏实地, jiao ta shi di - "foot, step, solid, ground") practice tempers and hones conscious action. The broad ranks of Party members and cadres and the masses of the people continuously consolidate and deepen ideological consensus in coordinated tackling of difficulties. In the grid areas of grassroots governance and in the fields of rural revitalization, Party members and cadres and the masses of the people, guided by the Party's innovative theory, each displaying their own strengths (各展所长, ge zhan suo chang - "each, display, own, strength") and cooperating closely, actively integrate personal responsibility and hard work into the common goal of struggle. Facing difficulties, they share heavy responsibilities; facing tasks, they coordinate in tackling them; facing achievements, they share them together. This close cooperation built through practical work is precisely the transformation of ideological identity into the concrete action of "thinking with one mind and exerting strength in one direction," gathering lasting momentum for standing firm in one's own post and advancing steadily.
(The author is Dean of the School of Marxism at Zhejiang Gongshang University)
Return to TopBy: 重庆市政协主席 程丽华
General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out during his inspection of Chongqing in April 2024 that "Chongqing is the city with the largest administrative area and population in our country, and it must deeply practice the people's city concept and actively explore new paths for modern governance of megacities." At the 2025 Central Urban Work Conference, General Secretary Xi Jinping further emphasized "shifting the focus of urban work and paying greater attention to governance investment." Governance of megacities is a systematic project, of which social governance is an important component; its core is people, and its focus lies in balancing interests, coordinating relationships, and preventing and controlling contradictions and risks. The leap in the order of magnitude of the population and construction scale of megacities has not only created unlimited development opportunities but also brought many new social governance challenges. On the new journey of Chinese modernization, advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities is both a major theoretical topic and an urgent practical task.
The Internal Logic of Modernizing Social Governance in Megacities
The modernization of social governance in megacities is an important component of the modernization of national governance and an important part of Chinese modernization. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee has placed social governance in a more important position in governance and administration, and General Secretary Xi Jinping has made a series of important expositions that profoundly elucidate a series of major theoretical and practical issues in social governance in the new era, promoting major achievements in the modernization of social governance in our country.
General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on urban governance and social governance provide the fundamental guidance for advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities. In terms of concepts and principles, General Secretary Xi Jinping has clearly proposed "unswervingly following the path of socialist social governance with Chinese characteristics, and being adept at transforming the Party's leadership and the advantages of our country's socialist system into advantages in social governance"; emphasizing that "urban governance is an important part of advancing the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity," and calling for "improving the level of urban planning, construction, and governance, and accelerating the transformation of the development mode of megacities and very large cities." In terms of value positions, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "innovating social governance must take the fundamental interests of the broadest masses of the people as the fundamental coordinate," requiring "transforming urban development concepts and paying more attention to putting people first," "striving to build modern people's cities," and "making the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security fuller, more guaranteed, and more sustainable." In terms of implementation paths, General Secretary Xi Jinping required "building a social governance pattern of joint contribution, joint governance, and shared benefits. Strengthening the construction of social governance institutions, improving the social governance system with Party committee leadership, government responsibility, social coordination, public participation, and legal safeguards, and raising the level of socialization, rule of law, intellectualization, and specialization of social governance," and "adhering to systematic governance, law-based governance, comprehensive governance, and source governance." In terms of work orientation, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized "advocating the 'embroidery kung fu' approach in urban governance" and "resolving conflicts and disputes at the grassroots level and in the bud in a timely manner." General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions systematically answer major theoretical and practical questions such as "for whom to govern, how to govern, and by what to govern," pointing out the direction and providing scientific guidance for advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities on the new journey of the new era.
Our country's social governance has gone through three stages—social control, social management, and social governance—which constitute an important historical coordinate for understanding the modernization of social governance in megacities. The modernization of social governance is a major achievement of the Chinese Communist Party leading the people through long-term exploration and practice, having gone through the three stages of social control, social management, and social governance. After the founding of New China, in order to maintain social stability, comprehensive control was mainly carried out through the "work unit system" and "household registration system." With the deepening of reform and opening up, the pattern of social interests underwent profound adjustment and ideological concepts underwent profound changes; our Party increasingly attached importance to resolving social contradictions and equalizing public services, continuously improving the social management pattern with Party committee leadership, government responsibility, social coordination, and public participation. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core has attached great importance to social governance work. The Third Plenary Session of the 18th Central Committee proposed the concept of "social governance," emphasizing "improving the methods of social governance." The 19th National Congress of the Party proposed "building a social governance pattern of joint contribution, joint governance, and shared benefits." The 20th National Congress of the Party required "accelerating the modernization of municipal-level social governance." The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposed "advancing the modernization of governance of megacities and very large cities." After more than 70 years of exploration, the modernization of social governance in our country has continued to advance and develop. The one-character change from "management" to "governance" is a comprehensive elevation of the Party's governing philosophy in the social sphere, manifesting an all-round transformation in governance logic, governance thinking, and governance paradigms, and centrally reflecting the profound transformation from administrative control to pluralistic co-governance, from compartmentalized governance by department and region to systematic governance, and from end-stage response to source governance, constituting an important historical coordinate for understanding the modernization of social governance in megacities.
The modernization of social governance in megacities is an inherent requirement of Chinese modernization. The modernization of social governance is an important part of the modernization of the national governance system and governance capacity. Chinese modernization is a modernization in which material civilization and spiritual civilization are coordinated, and it is also a modernization of social civilization and governance capacity. Without high-level social governance, there cannot be high-level modernization. The modernization of social governance is an inevitable requirement for meeting the people's needs for a better life. Under the new circumstances, the people's demands for fairness and justice, democracy and the rule of law, security and stability, and environmental quality are growing day by day. Only by continuously raising the level of modernization of social governance can we better respond to the concerns of the masses and enhance people's well-being. The modernization of social governance is a practical need for preventing and defusing major risks. At present, changes unseen in a century are accelerating, and our country's development has entered a period in which strategic opportunities and risks and challenges coexist and uncertain and unpredictable factors increase. Only by consolidating the foundation of national governance through the modernization of social governance can we effectively respond to various risks and challenges and provide solid guarantees for the steady and long-term progress of Chinese modernization. This is the deepest source of strength for the modernization of social governance and the fundamental value orientation that social governance in megacities must always uphold.
Difficulties and Challenges Facing Social Governance in Megacities
Megacities are complex systems with a high concentration of population, factors, and functions, and the challenges their governance faces stem from their own unique urban characteristics. In 2024, our country's urbanization rate reached 67%, and the number of megacities with an urban population exceeding ten million reached 10. Accurately grasping the practical challenges derived from these urban characteristics is the prerequisite for advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities.
Challenges of governance load brought by new trends in population change. Population is the core element and key variable of social governance. At present, the urban population is characterized by huge scale, high-frequency mobility, and aging and declining birthrates. The most notable feature of megacities is the leap in the order of magnitude of population scale. The resident population exceeds ten million, and the actual managed and served population is often even larger; the population's origins cover the whole country, and there are significant differences in age structure, occupational structure, and cultural background. High mobility has made the separation of household registration and actual residence the norm, and the traditional territorial management model based on household registration is difficult to accurately cover the actual population distribution. At the same time, the population structure is undergoing a profound transformation, and megacities generally face the dual pressure of "the elderly and the young." Shanghai and Chongqing have formed the "9073" elderly care pattern (that is, 90% home-based care, 7% community-based care, and 3% institutional care), but high-quality medical resources and elderly care services are highly concentrated in central urban areas, while grassroots service capacity in suburban areas is weak; the gap in public service provision between urban and rural areas and between regions is obvious, and public service provision faces problems such as insufficient total supply and structural imbalance. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan requires "improving the population development strategy with a focus on responding to population aging and declining birthrates, improving the population service system covering the entire population and the entire life cycle, optimizing the population structure, improving population quality, and supporting Chinese modernization with high-quality population development." This raises new requirements for population management, public services, and resource allocation, meaning that social governance in megacities must shift from managing population quantity to placing equal emphasis on optimizing population structure and improving population quality, and from managing the registered population to serving the resident population.
Challenges of governance coordination brought by diverse demands. Megacities have huge economic volumes and bring together the country's richest economic activities and social groups, with diverse interest subjects, complex interest relationships, and varied interest demands. The allocation of resources in livelihood areas such as housing, education, medical care, and employment involves a wide scope and is highly sensitive, making it easy to become the focus of social contradictions. Major projects such as urban renewal and infrastructure construction involve adjustments to the interests of multiple parties, and any slight mishandling of issues such as compensation and resettlement, environmental assessment, and community renovation may trigger group incidents. Opinion expression in cyberspace has further amplified the aggregation effect and transmission speed of interest demands, and the risks of offline problems becoming online, individual problems becoming collective, and local problems becoming global always exist. From the perspective of governance laws, the more diverse the interest subjects, the more necessary it is to find the greatest common divisor; the more diverse the demands, the more necessary it is to build social consensus. How to build the greatest consensus among multiple subjects, achieve effective balance among diverse interests, and coordinate harmonious relationships among diverse demands poses a severe test for the interest integration capacity of megacities.
Challenges of governance boundaries brought by complex spatial forms. The jurisdictions of megacities often encompass multi-level spatial forms such as central urban areas, new urban areas, suburban areas, and counties. The rapid expansion of cities in the past has caused administrative divisions, functional zoning, and management boundaries to become disconnected from the actual distribution of the population. Separation of workplace and residence and cross-district commuting have become common phenomena, and the physical boundaries of grassroots governance units are inconsistent with social boundaries. Areas such as urban-rural fringe zones and urban villages have weak infrastructure, shortage of public services, and vague management subjects, becoming governance blind spots. In addition, in recent years, the regional differentiation of the population has intensified, with populations from townships and even some county towns and less developed regions continuously flowing to economically developed large cities, bringing about a mismatch of public service resources such as education, medical care, and elderly care between urban and rural areas and between regions. This complexity of spatial forms requires the governance system to possess cross-level, cross-regional, and cross-field coordination capabilities, while the existing compartmentalized management system is difficult to adapt to the governance needs of such composite spaces. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, transforming the urban development mode means that spatial governance of megacities and very large cities can no longer rely on outward expansion, but must achieve stock optimization through governance means within the existing spatial pattern, blazing a new path of connotative and intensive urban spatial governance.
Challenges of governance adaptation brought by digital transformation. Megacities are the most active regions for the development of the digital economy and the front line for the digital transformation of urban governance. The number of workers in new forms of employment nationwide has reached 84 million, and groups such as couriers, food delivery riders, and ride-hailing drivers are highly concentrated in megacities. The flexible employment, virtual scenarios, and loose organizations spawned by the platform economy have made traditional employment management, rights protection, and organizational coverage methods face adaptation difficulties, and traditional residents' committees, work units, and industry management find it difficult to effectively reach them. The digital transformation of urban governance is also accelerating, but there are problems among digital platforms such as data barriers, inconsistent standards, and insufficient interoperability. More deeply, new topics such as algorithmic governance, data ethics, and privacy protection have put entirely new demands on governance concepts, institutional rules, and execution capacity.
Challenges of governance resilience brought by high concentration of risks. The concentration and coupling of risks in megacities are the most prominent features distinguishing them from ordinary cities. Urban lifeline systems such as transportation, energy, water supply, drainage, communications, and gas are highly concentrated and interdependent, and a failure in any one link may trigger a chain reaction. Public safety risks such as rail transit, commercial districts and scenic spots, and large-scale events are ever-present; once natural disasters, public health incidents, and other emergencies occur, social governance pressures such as material support, order maintenance, and public opinion guidance surge sharply. More complexly, economic risks, social risks, security risks, and cyber risks are intertwined and transmit to each other in megacities, and a single risk may trigger a composite crisis. The limited strength of grassroots governance, the weak foundation for social mobilization, and the poor mechanism for switching between peacetime and emergency modes, combined with the structural contradiction between the compartmentalized management system and the reality of cross-boundary risk transmission, subject megacities to a practical test of their resistance and recovery capabilities when facing systemic risks.
Practical Paths for Modernizing Social Governance in Megacities
General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly pointed out that "the city is a living organism and an organic whole; we must revere the city, treat the city well, establish a 'full life cycle management' awareness, and strive to explore new paths for modern governance of megacities." Advancing the modernization of social governance in megacities is a complex systematic project. It is necessary to deeply implement General Secretary Xi Jinping's important expositions on urban governance and social governance, firmly establish the people's city concept, proactively recognize, respond to, and seek change, scientifically grasp the laws, dare to explore and innovate, act in light of local conditions, and take comprehensive measures, striving to blaze a new path of social governance that conforms to the characteristics and laws of megacities.
Adhere to Party building leadership and improve the governance system of overall coordination. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "strengthening the construction of grassroots Party organizations and consolidating the Party's governing foundation must be a red line running through social governance and grassroots construction," and "solidly advancing Party building leading grassroots governance." The Party's leadership is the greatest advantage and fundamental guarantee of social governance in megacities. It is necessary to improve the governance system with unified leadership of Party committees, multi-party coordination, and vertical and horizontal collaboration, improve the organizational system that is connected from top to bottom and strong in execution, and promote the extension of Party organizations to the grassroots and their expansion into emerging fields. It is necessary to summarize and promote the successful experience of "building Party branches in residential communities," integrate the forces of residents' committees, owners' committees, property service enterprises, and other parties, explore new forms of organization such as regionalized Party building, industry Party building, and functional Party organizations, cover office buildings, commercial districts, industrial parks, platform enterprises, and new employment groups, achieve the unity of organizational coverage and work coverage, and transform the Party's political and organizational advantages into governance effectiveness. In recent years, Chongqing has fully integrated social governance into the municipal Party committee's Party building leadership "885" working mechanism (that is, 8 report forms, 8 problem lists, and 5 mechanisms), achieving joint planning, joint deployment, and joint advancement with central work, providing a useful exploration for Party building leadership of social governance in megacities.
Adhere to putting the people first and improve the governance pattern of joint contribution, joint governance, and shared benefits. General Secretary Xi Jinping clearly proposed that "people's cities are built by the people and serve the people," emphasizing "being adept at summarizing the laws of the Party's mass work in the new era from advancing social governance." In response to the problems of diverse interest subjects, complex demands, and frequent contradictions in megacities, it is necessary to improve the basic public service system, enhance balance and accessibility, promote the balanced distribution of high-quality resources such as education, medical care, and elderly care, and focus on solving the urgent, difficult, and anxious problems of the masses. It is necessary to deepen the reform of the household registration system, promote the equalization of basic public services for the resident population, protect the legitimate rights and interests of the migrant population, and enable new citizens to settle stably, develop, and integrate in the city. It is necessary to broaden the channels for the masses to participate in governance, allowing the masses to have a voice in governance and benefit from participation. Chongqing has vigorously promoted the construction of 15-minute and 30-minute high-quality life service circles in urban and rural areas, innovatively built the "Chongqing Matters Discussed Well" consultation platform, promoted the sinking of the focus of consultation, vigorously promoted the "Old Ma Leading Little Ma" contradiction mediation experience, established more than 3,000 "Old Ma Studios" and "Little Ma Workstations," enabling the Fengqiao model of the new era to take firm root in the land of Bayu.
Adhere to strengthening the foundation and consolidating the basis, and build a solid governance foundation with the center of gravity moved downward. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "if the grassroots are strong, the country is strong; if the grassroots are secure, the world is secure," and emphasized "upholding and developing the 'Fengqiao model' of the new era." The grassroots are the "last kilometer" of social governance and the key to solving the boundary difficulties of spatial governance in megacities. In response to the problems of vast jurisdictions and complex spatial levels in megacities, it is necessary to promote the downward shift of the center of gravity of governance, the downward flow of resources, and the downward movement of forces, so that the grassroots have positions, authority, resources, and personnel, and to focus on solving difficulties such as the "inversion of authority and responsibility." In recent years, Chongqing has taken the "one center, four sectors, one grid" grassroots intelligent governance system as its starting point, strengthened the command centers of towns and streets, optimized the setting of functional sectors, improved the grid system, achieved the aggregation of forces in the grid, the resolution of problems in the grid, and the defusing of contradictions in the grid, effectively consolidated the grassroots foundation of social governance, and effectively solved the boundary difficulties of spatial governance in megacities.
Adhere to empowering through science and technology and improve governance capacity in the digital era. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized "following the trend of digitalization and intelligence, innovating governance concepts, models, and means, strengthening scientific and technological support, and continuously improving the level of intelligent and refined urban governance." From the perspective of technical governance theory, digital technology is not only a revolution in governance tools but also a profound transformation of governance paradigms. It is necessary to rely on the urban operation and management service platform, break down data barriers, accelerate the collection and sharing of basic data, and achieve the aggregation of governance data in one map and comprehensive overview on one screen. It is necessary to build a new "artificial intelligence +" social governance model and promote the transformation of governance models from passive response to active prevention and control. It is necessary to adhere to technology for good, strengthen the protection of personal information, pay attention to the needs of special groups such as the elderly, and make digital governance both fast and warm. However, the embedding of technology in governance also faces the risk of "technology suspension"; the disconnection between technical systems and institutional systems leads to "data looking good, but problems remaining." At the same time, technological empowerment must advance in tandem with institutional innovation. Chongqing has deepened the reform of the "large comprehensive integration" urban comprehensive governance institutional mechanism and the construction of a three-level digital urban operation and governance center of "municipal brain—district and county hub—town and street terminal," promoting the iterative upgrading of social governance from "experience-based judgment" to "data-based decision-making," accumulating practical experience for empowering social governance in megacities through science and technology.
Adhere to overall planning and balanced consideration, and enhance the governance resilience of eliminating dangers and consolidating security. General Secretary Xi Jinping has repeatedly emphasized "adhering to preventing and defusing major security risks from the source, truly solving problems before they sprout and before they become disasters." Risk governance in megacities cannot rely solely on "rigid prevention and control"; more attention must be paid to "resilience building" to enhance the ability to resist risks and recover quickly. This requires coordinating development and security, improving the two defense lines of "civil defense + technical defense," forming a vivid situation of universal participation and mass prevention and mass governance, improving the closed-loop management mechanism of the entire chain of risk identification, early warning, disposal, and recovery, establishing mechanisms for calling, circuit breaking, and pre-positioning in disaster response and disposal, and achieving early detection, early warning, and early disposal of risks. In accordance with laws and administrative regulations such as the Emergency Response Law of the People's Republic of China, the Regulations of Chongqing Municipality on the Transfer of Persons Avoiding Natural Disaster Risks have been issued, granting townships (subdistricts) the power of on-the-spot disposal, sinking the power of emergency decision-making to the front line of danger through institutional authorization, solving the practical problem of reporting level by level and delaying the opportunity for disposal, implementing active avoidance, preventive avoidance, and emergency avoidance, ensuring that those who should be transferred are transferred, all who should be transferred are transferred, and those who should be transferred are transferred early, and maximizing the protection of the safety of the people's lives.
Return to TopQuestion: Chai Feng
General Manager of the Artificial Intelligence (Engineering) Division, China Iron and Steel Research Institute
General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that the development and application of artificial intelligence should not erode or damage the diversity of world civilizations or the cultural uniqueness of various countries. The values of artificial intelligence should be shaped by the common values of all humanity, and AI technology should be used well to enhance understanding and tolerance among different civilizations, promote exchanges and mutual learning among different civilizations, and carefully cultivate a garden of civilizations that seeks harmony in diversity and shared beauty (各美其美、美美与共, ge mei qi mei, mei mei yu gong - "each, find, their, beauty; beauty, and, with, together"). The question is: how should we understand the proposition that the values of artificial intelligence should be shaped by the common values of all humanity?
Interpretation: Chen Jianqi
Deputy Dean of the Institute of International Strategic Studies, the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance)
At present, the new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is showing breakthrough progress, and artificial intelligence is accelerating its iterative upgrading. It is no longer confined to the purely technical sphere, but has become an important vehicle that carries value orientations and disseminates the concepts of civilization. General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized that the development and application of artificial intelligence should not erode or damage the diversity of world civilizations or the cultural uniqueness of various countries. The values of artificial intelligence should be shaped by the common values of all humanity. While artificial intelligence empowers high-quality development in the economy and society, massive data training, large-model design, and intelligent assisted decision-making all embed value judgments to a greater or lesser extent. Human biases and conflicts of interest can be projected onto artificial intelligence, and algorithmic bias, the intelligence divide, and the abuse of technology may induce value anomie, placing higher demands on value choice and governance capacity. To ensure that artificial intelligence is safe, reliable, and controllable, it is necessary to uphold the principles of putting people first and striving for goodness and progress, to make artificial intelligence an important source of power for promoting shared prosperity and safeguarding common security, and, under the guidance of the common values of all humanity, to enhance cross-cultural understanding among the peoples of all countries and promote the common progress of human civilization.
The values of artificial intelligence are showing a trend of accelerated gestation and development
When humanity uses data, algorithms, and models for training and iteration, it projects its own value system into the intelligent space, prompting artificial intelligence to present specific value positions in the process of content generation and assisted decision-making, influencing human cognition and judgment, and affecting the operation of society and exchanges among international civilizations. The values of artificial intelligence are not merely a simple replication of human values; they are also an important component of the world value system.
Breakthrough progress in artificial intelligence technology constitutes the historical logic behind the accelerated gestation and development of AI values. The world began to attach importance to artificial intelligence as early as the 1950s, but the influence of the values derived from artificial intelligence had not yet been released. The deep-seated reason is that artificial intelligence technology had not yet achieved a breakthrough at that time and lacked the capacity to influence value judgments or form value issues. In recent years, machines have learned to speak, and machines have learned to think, which together have given rise to a major transformation in AI values. Breakthroughs in language communication capability and logical thinking capability are important supports for the accelerated gestation and development of AI values. The emergence of chatbots has enabled machines to possess the capacity for communication and exchange, allowing them not only to describe specific matters but also to discuss abstract issues in value categories such as justice and freedom. At the same time, the logical thinking of artificial intelligence has achieved an iterative upgrade from simple reasoning to deep learning. The integration of reinforcement learning and symbolic reasoning enables the generation of clearly organized reasoning processes based on training data, giving artificial intelligence the capacity to intervene in the analysis of complex value issues and providing the possibility for artificial intelligence to achieve value discrimination and value integration. Artificial intelligence is advancing toward higher-level logical reasoning and problem-solving, and AI values have entered a stage of accelerated gestation and development.
The potential of artificial intelligence to surpass human cognition constitutes the theoretical logic behind the formation of the powerful influence of AI values. The finiteness of the human lifespan determines the boundaries of value cognition, and the metaphor of the "blind men and the elephant" vividly reveals the predicament of human value cognition. Human society has a long history, and the vast universe manifests the breadth of space, but constrained by physical conditions, living environments, and knowledge limitations, what each person sees of the world is basically partial and one-sided. In contrast, artificial intelligence possesses nearly unlimited storage space, a super-strong memory system, and processing capacity, enabling it to rapidly absorb the knowledge, culture, and value concepts accumulated over the long history of humanity. Relying on massive and diverse data for analysis, artificial intelligence uncovers hidden correlations in the data, proposes more objective and more scientific laws in both horizontal breadth and vertical depth, reveals truths that transcend human limitations, and forms value judgments different from traditional human cognition. The pluralistic value systems of different countries and different civilizations interweave and collide in the operational field of artificial intelligence, giving rise to new forms of value expression, and AI values thereby release powerful influence.
The embedded attributes of science and technology and values constitute the practical logic of the gestation of AI values. Society generally holds that technology is value-neutral and that science and technology are merely tools for solving practical problems. But real life shows that whether it is the data collection of artificial intelligence or the design, training, and decision-making application of large models, no link can avoid the injection of human values. In the process of AI data collection, how to collect data, which data to collect, and which data are good and healthy data — all of these involve value orientations and standpoints. In the process of training AI large models, what algorithms to choose and how to design architectural schemes — all of these may induce bias and discrimination problems in output results. In AI applications, the profit-seeking nature of commercial capital will make artificial intelligence exhibit strong profit-seeking behavior, generate suggestive content feedback, amplify specific social issues or events, and exert enormous influence on society. Artificial intelligence is in a stage of accelerated evolution and is gradually forming a powerful force that influences the human value system.
The shaping of AI values needs to be guided by the common values of all humanity
The accelerated gestation and development of AI values has broken the value-neutral character of technology. Artificial intelligence is no longer merely an auxiliary tool for humanity, but an important vehicle with logical reasoning and value judgment. AI values permeate political, economic, cultural, and social aspects, both strengthening the breadth and depth of scientific and technological innovation in empowering world development and facing challenges such as value disorder, lack of ethics and morality, and clashes of civilizations. The common values of all humanity, with peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom at their core, are the greatest common denominator of the value pursuits of the people of all countries in the world. Seeking value consensus on the basis of the diversity of world civilizations and guiding the construction of AI values with the common values of all humanity have become the demands of the times for advancing scientific and technological governance and safeguarding the common well-being of humanity.
The common values of all humanity provide fundamental guidance for addressing the challenge of AI value alignment. Value alignment is an important element in promoting the healthy and orderly development of artificial intelligence, and its core goal is to make AI values consistent with human value pursuits. Since the concept of artificial intelligence came into being, the international community has attached great importance to the issue of AI value alignment. But to this day, this issue remains unresolved. In recent years, with the rapid iterative development of artificial intelligence, the practical challenges of value alignment have become increasingly prominent. OpenAI announced the establishment of a "superalignment" team in July 2023, but the team was disbanded in less than a year, highlighting the arduousness and complexity of the practice of AI value alignment. AI value alignment must both answer the question of "how to achieve alignment" and resolve the question of the stance of "alignment to what values." The common values of all humanity respect the diversity of world civilizations, transcend differences in ideology, social systems, and stages of development, and provide a value reference for AI value alignment. Peace and development anchor the fundamental direction of artificial intelligence in serving the common cause of humanity, fairness and justice establish the common ideal of artificial intelligence and humanity, and democracy and freedom manifest the common pursuit of artificial intelligence and humanity.
The shaping of AI values is showing an imbalanced trend, and there is an urgent need for the common values of all humanity to consolidate consensus. From a theoretical perspective, in the process of shaping AI values, different countries use local data samples, adopt specific model algorithm architecture designs, and employ distinctive training methods, enabling the generation of AI values suited to their respective countries. But from a practical perspective, AI training data are not confined to the scope of any specific country; they include various types of information from both official and non-official sources, as well as diverse materials from around the world. Algorithm model research and development also have transnational characteristics. With multiple factors interwoven, the value output of artificial intelligence presents complex and pluralistic features, making it difficult to purely reflect the value concepts of any individual country, and it may even come into conflict with existing local value systems. At the same time, some countries, relying on advantages in technology and data, hold relatively high discourse power in shaping AI values, exporting their own ideologies through artificial intelligence and causing other countries, especially developing countries, to face enormous challenges. The common values of all humanity possess the characteristics of transcending national boundaries and resolving clashes of civilizations. Guiding the shaping of AI values with the common values of all humanity helps to consolidate value consensus in the international community and provides a feasible path for solving the problem of imbalance in the shaping of AI values.
The practical priorities for shaping AI values with the common values of all humanity
Shaping AI values with the common values of all humanity has become an urgent task commonly faced by all countries in the world. Artificial intelligence is developing with each passing day, and the shaping of AI values cannot remain merely at the conceptual level. It is necessary to persist in the coordinated efforts of technological innovation and institutional norms, persist in the two-way advancement of national exploration and international cooperation, actively address the issue of AI value alignment, and carry the common values of all humanity through the entire life cycle of AI research and development, training, deployment, and application.
Strengthen global multilateral cooperation and consolidate the international consensus on shaping global AI values with the common values of all humanity. The shaping of AI values cannot be done alone; it is necessary to uphold multilateralism, actively implement the Global AI Governance Initiative, and promote the shaping of AI values with the common values of all humanity as a general consensus of the international community. Relying on multilateral governance platforms such as the United Nations, carry out dialogue and cooperation on AI governance, advocate that all countries in the world take the common values of all humanity as their guide, and promote international cooperation in shaping AI values. Strengthen the capacity-building of developing countries in artificial intelligence, enhance the participation of Global South countries in shaping AI values, and strengthen the practical foundation for shaping AI values with the common values of all humanity. Cross-border AI services must fully respect the institutional systems and cultural traditions of host countries, and oppose the export of ideologies through artificial intelligence. Promote the sharing of AI value risk information among countries and explore the construction of a cross-border collaborative mechanism for handling AI risks.
Transform the six dimensions of the common values of all humanity into the value criteria of artificial intelligence, and promote substantive progress in AI value alignment. Scientifically grasp the core essence of the common values of all humanity, and transform peace, development, fairness, justice, democracy, and freedom into the value criteria of artificial intelligence. Based on the dimension of peace, build a solid security barrier for artificial intelligence. Resolutely resist value outputs by artificial intelligence that incite confrontation, spread racial hatred, and extremism, prevent technology from being used to create conflict and intensify confrontation, and safeguard the overall situation of world peace. Based on the dimension of development, promote artificial intelligence in empowering economic and social development. Strive to bridge the global intelligence divide and make the fruits of artificial intelligence universally shared. Based on the dimension of fairness, adhere to the principle of non-discrimination in artificial intelligence. Eliminate value bias in areas such as algorithm design and model training, and eliminate injustice caused by technology. Based on the dimension of justice, uphold the value orientation of artificial intelligence toward goodness. Strictly prevent the risk of technology abuse and prevent acts such as using artificial intelligence for counterfeiting and infringement. Based on the dimension of democracy, uphold the public attribute of artificial intelligence development. Artificial intelligence must fully reflect the demands of different countries and different groups, must not be monopolized and controlled by a few actors, and should promote technology serving the public will. Based on the dimension of freedom, safeguard the legitimate rights and freedoms of individuals in the AI environment. Artificial intelligence should not restrict individual behavior, still less infringe upon individual rights, and should promote the empowerment of artificial intelligence and the free and comprehensive development of the individual advancing in the same direction.
Persist in the coordinated efforts of technological innovation and institutional norms, and promote the deep embedding of the common values of all humanity in all fields and the entire process of artificial intelligence. Technological innovation is the core driving force of AI development, and institutional norms are the guarantee for the steady and long-term progress of artificial intelligence. Only when the two advance in coordination can artificial intelligence be prevented from crossing bottom lines and red lines. Promote the sustained development of scientific and technological innovation, providing a feasible and implementable vehicle for shaping AI values with the common values of all humanity. Strengthen a problem-oriented approach, comprehensively examine the operational mechanisms of the entire AI chain, resolve risks such as artificial intelligence generating extreme speech, creating group confrontation, and exacerbating the digital divide, help address the multiple challenges facing human development and the progress of civilization, and build a solid technological foundation for artificial intelligence to serve goodness. Institutional norms should be used to establish the boundaries of AI development, improve AI ethical guidelines, regulatory systems, and normative standards, and build a governance system for shaping AI values with the common values of all humanity. Promote institutional constraints covering the entire chain of technology research and development, scenario application, risk assessment, and accountability and handling. Optimize the competitive ecology in the AI field, dismantle technological monopolies and barriers, promote the agglomeration of innovation factors in artificial intelligence, and safeguard the core of AI values with institutional rigidity.
Return to TopBy: 徐本禹
General Secretary Xi Jinping delivered an important speech at the autumn 2021 semester training class for young and middle-aged cadres at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance), emphasizing that young cadres "must cultivate their inner strength and enhance their cultivation" and "become people who act solely for the public interest, possess integrity and righteousness, and are pure and untainted." For young cadres to strive to act solely for the public interest, possess integrity and righteousness, and be pure and untainted, the primary task is to cultivate well the "study of the mind" of us Communists, and to cultivate inner strength and enhance cultivation through persistent rectification of the mind, nourishment of the mind, and purification of the mind.
Rectify the mind with ideals and convictions, and act solely for the public interest. Young cadres must deeply recognize that only with lofty ideals and unwavering convictions can they achieve long-term success through steady progress; only through constant cultivation and tempering, and constant reflection and advancement, can they build a solid foundation of ideals and convictions. Strengthen ideals and convictions through deep study and careful understanding of the Party's innovative theories. The Party's innovative theories embody the Party's original aspiration and founding mission and its vision of struggle; they are the "food, weapon, and steering wheel." Persist in using Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era to forge the soul and unite the heart, make the study of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era a required course and a regular course, deeply comprehend its scientific connotation, core essence, and practical requirements, deeply understand "who I am, for whom I act, and on whom I rely," and, in persistent study, savor the sweet taste of truth, build a solid foundation of faith, replenish the calcium of spirit, and keep a firm grip on the rudder of thought. Strengthen ideals and convictions by tracing the footsteps of revolutionary martyrs. Revolutionary ideals are higher than the sky. Countless revolutionary martyrs deeply integrated revolutionary ideals into their blood, set life and death aside, and forged immortal monuments with their lives. As we trace the footsteps of revolutionary martyrs, we should let our souls converse with them and ask ourselves more often: "Faced with the test of life and death, if it were me, what choice would I make?" The dust in our thoughts will then be swept away, and the foundation of our ideals and convictions will be planted deeper. Strengthen ideals and convictions by benchmarking against and learning from role models. Learn from role models such as Jiao Yulu, Kong Fansen, and Gu Wenchang, learn from their boundless loyalty to the Party, learn from their boundless love for the people, and learn from their extreme sense of responsibility in work. At the same time, reflect in study: what is the core driving force of their "selfless" struggle? This core driving force is the faith in their hearts, the conviction in their hearts.
Nourish the mind with moral cultivation, and possess integrity and righteousness. Young cadres must firmly establish the awareness that "without virtue, one cannot stand," draw spiritual nourishment from traditional Chinese virtues, elevate the realm of life by emulating the virtues of good people, and lead social trends with every bit of action. Have love in the heart. Love is the seed of virtue and the source of strength. Those who have love in their hearts will have light in their eyes and strength in their actions. Keep in mind that "the highest realm of a Communist's love is love for the people," take the happiness of the people as our happiness, and take the joy of the people as our joy. Actively participate in civilized practice, take the lead in volunteer service, enthusiastically help those around us who need help, and warm others with love while also warming ourselves. Willingly be an old ox, plowing and dedicating like an old ox, and our lives will be more beautiful and more brilliant. Without needing the whip, we spur ourselves forward, carry forward the spirit of the screw, and do our own work deeply, thoroughly, and meticulously. Do not complain or grumble when things happen, maintain a sunny attitude, and face difficulties and setbacks optimistically. At the same time, resolutely discard selfish thoughts and distracting ideas. With selfishness, one cannot handle public affairs. With selfishness, the heart will move recklessly, and actions will be chaotic. Without selfishness, the heart is like still water, and actions are open, honest, and magnanimous. Correctly handle the relationship between public and private, pull out the weed of "selfishness" growing in the heart, consciously smash the little abacus in the heart, and remember that what is not yours, "do not reach out for it." When one takes material interests lightly and raises the baseline of spiritual pursuit, the sprout of "selfishness" will have no soil in which to grow.
Purify the mind with Party discipline as a clear mirror, and be pure and untainted. Young cadres must strengthen their awareness of discipline and clearly recognize that the Party's discipline is both the "protective talisman" that ensures we can undertake our work and achieve long-term success through steady progress, and the "high-voltage line" that we must not touch. Make the study of the Party Constitution a lifelong required course. The Party Constitution is the general charter and general rules of our Party. The most important aspect of observing Party discipline is to observe the Party Constitution. And the prerequisite for observance is to internalize it in the heart through study. Devote more time and energy to studying it in its original text and reflecting on it repeatedly, learning loyalty, integrity, and responsibility, and learning clarity and purity. Internalize Party discipline as norms of words and deeds that are used daily without conscious awareness. To act within the bounds of propriety and law, the prerequisite is to know the "rules." To use daily without conscious awareness, the prerequisite is to know discipline and understand discipline. Carry out regular education on Party discipline, proactively identify blind spots in one's own knowledge and understanding of discipline, and "loose points" in observing discipline, and enhance the initiative and consciousness of study. Treat negative examples as a mirror. A mirror can rectify one's clothing and hat and reflect beauty and ugliness. The mirror of negative examples can show whether there is dust on our souls. While each negative example case brings us warnings, it also constantly sounds the alarm and pulls the siren for us. Whether in times of success or in times of adversity, we must not commit the "error of confusion" or blind our eyes; otherwise, we ourselves will become negative examples, regretting it for life and being too late for remorse.
(The author is Deputy Secretary of the Communist Youth League Hubei Provincial Committee)
Return to TopBy: 袁红英
At the Sixth Meeting of the 20th Central Committee for Financial and Economic Affairs, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that "to advance the construction of the unified national market in depth, the basic requirement is 'five unifications and one opening,'" and explicitly stressed that "the scale of government conduct must be unified; when localities promote economic development, especially in investment attraction, there must be clear rules on what can be done and what cannot be done, and they must not act according to their own whims." These important statements directly target the key crux of the current construction of the unified national market, providing fundamental guidance for regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct and promoting a better combination of an effective market and a well-functioning government. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposes: "Regulate local governments' economic promotion conduct, formulate lists of encouraged and prohibited matters for local government investment attraction, and strengthen information disclosure in investment attraction." Local governments' economic promotion work is connected on one end to the functioning of a well-functioning government, and on the other end to the order of fair market competition. Only by calibrating the boundaries of conduct with a unified standard, breaking down segmentation barriers through strengthened positive guidance and rigid constraints, and shifting the focus of investment attraction work more toward optimizing the business environment, cultivating the industrial ecosystem, and providing high-level government services, can the vitality of local development be pooled into the overall effectiveness of high-quality development.
Regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct is the intrinsic essence of unifying the scale of government conduct
The key to building a high-level socialist market economy system lies in scientifically straightening out the relationship between the government and the market. As the strategic foundation for building the new development pattern, accelerating the construction of the unified national market, smoothing the domestic major cycle, and building a strong domestic market are particularly crucial. Regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct does not weaken localities' initiative in promoting development, but rather places local conduct on the track of the rule of law, pushing local governments to abandon policy competition that pursues policies that benefit oneself at the expense of others and shift toward a higher-quality, more sustainable development model.
An inevitable requirement for clarifying the boundary between government and market. Under the conditions of the socialist market economy, the market plays a decisive role in resource allocation, and the government mainly undertakes the functions of remedying market failures and maintaining competition order. In reality, a small number of localities simply equate economic promotion with policy concessions and administrative intervention, relying excessively on fiscal subsidies and targeted preferential treatment to intervene in enterprise operations, which both squeezes the space for fair competition and distorts factor allocation signals. Unifying the scale of conduct means drawing a clear reasonable boundary for administrative intervention, pushing localities to focus on improving public services, perfecting infrastructure, and building public technology platforms, returning the right to choose operations to business entities, and forming a sound situation in which business entities operate autonomously and the government performs its duties according to law.
A development requirement for overcoming local departmentalism. Administrative divisions objectively give rise to territorial interest considerations, but in the absence of institutional constraints, local demands can easily evolve into local protectionism and involutionary competition. Some regions rely on policy depressions to compete for projects, set up hidden thresholds to block factor circulation, and indirectly exclude external business entities through customized catalog databases and differentiated subsidies. In the short term, this boosts a locality's economic growth, but in the long term it brings duplicate construction and resource dissipation, harming the efficiency of national market allocation. Adhering to a unified scale of government conduct means guiding localities to step out of local thinking, plan regional positioning within the overall national development landscape, abandon the competition model of pursuing policies that benefit oneself at the expense of others, and promote a shift in regions from homogeneous competition to functional complementarity and coordinated progress.
An important pathway for advancing the modernization of government governance. The key to the modernization of government governance is to realize the institutionalization, standardization, and legalization of government performance of duties. Economic regulation, industrial support, and investment attraction are core areas of local government performance of duties and the most direct manifestation of governance capacity. For some time, due to the lack of unified standards, local governments have had relatively large discretionary power in economic policy-making, which has not only triggered involutionary competition within regions but also exposed shortcomings in the legalization and standardization of grassroots governance. Unifying the scale of local governments' economic promotion conduct is essentially about constraining administrative power with institutional rigidity, standardizing the performance of duties with unified standards, forcing local governments to transform governance concepts and optimize governance methods, and comprehensively enhancing governance capacity for targeted policy-making and service empowerment.
The superposition of multiple governance tensions is the deep-seated inducement of anomie in local governments' economic promotion conduct
Deviations in local governments' economic promotion conduct are not simply a subjective cognitive problem, but a realistic result bred by the interweaving and superposition of multiple tensions such as growth pressure, assessment mechanisms, and central-local rights and responsibilities.
The structural tension between growth competition and the unified market. Localities bear the territorial responsibility of stabilizing growth and ensuring employment. In homogeneous development competition among regions, when incentive and constraint mechanisms are not sufficiently complete, some localities tend to use policy tools to amplify local short-term advantages. Especially when facing competition for industrial projects, individual localities fall into "involutionary" competition, trading projects for landing through illegal fiscal awards and subsidies and land concessions. Once territorial development demands break away from institutional constraints, they will create friction with the goal of building the unified national market, indirectly raising entry thresholds, blocking the cross-regional flow of goods and factors, and causing conflicts between local interests and overall efficiency.
The institutional tension between performance assessment and conduct norms. Assessment is the baton for local government performance of duties. In the past period, the weight of economic growth indicators has been relatively high, which easily leads localities to prioritize short-term output and project quantity, with insufficient consideration of whether policies conform to fair competition and fit national unified rules. The root of some anomic local government economic promotion conduct lies not in the subjective willingness of local governments to develop, but to a considerable extent in the fact that assessment orientation has not fully balanced local development with overall order, thereby inducing performance deviations that emphasize the short term and neglect the long term.
The coordination tension between local autonomy and national unity. In China's central-local coordinated governance pattern, localities have the autonomy to promote the economic development of their own regions and need to explore distinctive development paths in light of their resource endowments. But local autonomy does not mean acting according to one's own whims. In reality, some localities do not fully understand and grasp unified institutional rules; in the process of formulating industrial support and investment attraction policies, they base themselves more on local realities, with insufficient consideration of institutional unity at the national level, and policy design does not connect smoothly with higher-level rules, forming a coordination problem of "rules above, adaptations below," making it difficult for unified market rules to be implemented and take root.
Moving from establishing rules to building institutions is the practical path for regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct
Regulating local governments' economic promotion conduct cannot stop at campaign-style correction; it should adhere to simultaneously breaking and establishing, building a closed-loop institutional system across the entire chain of rule standards, list guidance, assessment supervision, and implementation, leaping from "establishing rules" to "building institutions."
Delineate the boundaries of conduct with a unified rule system and establish the institutional framework. Institutional unity is the premise of behavioral unity. Benchmarking against the requirements of building the unified national market, consolidate foundational institutions such as property rights protection and fair competition review, and embed fair competition requirements into the entire process of local industrial support and investment attraction. Strengthen the foundational status of competition policy; any economic promotion policy involving business entities must undergo fair competition review, preventing at the source the issuance of policy documents containing tendencies toward local protectionism and market segmentation. Advance the construction of institutions for property rights protection, market access, information disclosure, social credit, merger and reorganization, and market exit, and improve the statistical, fiscal and tax, and assessment systems conducive to building the unified national market. On the basis of upholding the bottom line of national institutional unity, preserve policy space for localities to act in light of local conditions, achieving organic compatibility between national rule consistency and local practical innovation.
Clarify behavioral orientation with the "two lists" and refine institutional norms. Make good use of the institutional achievements of the national unified list of encouraged and prohibited matters for local government investment attraction, and simultaneously connect with the national unified negative list management mechanism for local fiscal subsidies. The list of encouraged matters clarifies the direction of a well-functioning government's efforts, focusing on areas where action can be taken such as optimizing the business environment, improving public services, and building common technology platforms, and strengthening positive guidance. The list of prohibited matters and the negative list for fiscal subsidies together delineate the red lines of conduct, explicitly prohibiting behaviors that artificially restrict factor mobility such as illegal fiscal rebates, discriminatory access, and making local investment a precondition for business operations, and strengthening rigid constraints. Rely on list-based management to clarify what can and cannot be done, compress the space for policy discretion, and enhance the transparency and predictability of local governments' economic promotion conduct. Strictly implement the "one national list" for market access, eliminate various forms of local protectionism and market segmentation, and rectify typical problems such as hindering fair enterprise access and autonomous operation, restricting the free flow of goods and factors, differentiated qualification recognition between inside and outside, and improperly implementing credit evaluations to set up hidden barriers in bidding.
Guarantee institutional operation with assessment evaluation and supervision accountability, and perfect the institutional closed loop. Make good use of the assessment "baton," optimize the performance assessment system for high-quality development, incorporate the implementation of fair competition review, the elimination of local protectionism, and service to the construction of the unified national market into assessment content, correct local performance orientation, and guide the establishment and practice of a correct view of political achievements. Improve the routine supervision mechanism, comprehensively carry out spot checks of policy documents and verification of typical cases, and promptly correct behaviors of issuing economic promotion policies in violation of regulations. Perfect the accountability chain, distinguish unintentional deviations from subjective intent, and seriously pursue accountability for those who repeatedly correct and repeat violations and cause adverse consequences of market segmentation, forming a complete closed loop of "policy formulation — supervision and inspection — correction and accountability."
Test the actual effectiveness of operation by breaking down barriers and unifying the scale, and promote the deep rooting of institutions. The vitality of institutions lies in implementation. Take the elimination of local protectionism and administrative monopoly as the yardstick for testing, continuously clean up various "local policies" and "hidden rules" that hinder market unity, properly handle existing illegal investment attraction policies and projects, strengthen information disclosure in investment attraction, and compress the space for black-box operations. Promote the unification of regulatory rules, standards, and law enforcement scales, achieving one ruler measured to the end, and avoiding imbalances in the strictness or leniency of law enforcement among regions. Encourage localities to carry out reform pilots within the institutional framework, promptly summarize replicable grassroots experience and elevate it into institutional achievements, and ensure that all types of business entities enjoy equal development opportunities nationwide.
(The author is Secretary of the Party Committee of the Shandong Academy of Social Sciences)
Return to TopState-owned enterprises are an important material and political foundation of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and an important pillar and supporting force for our Party in governing and rejuvenating the country. Upholding the Party's leadership and strengthening Party building are a glorious tradition of China's state-owned enterprises, the "root" and "soul" of state-owned enterprises, and a unique advantage of China's state-owned enterprises. The Party Committee of Dong-E E-Jiao Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as Dong-E E-Jiao), based on its endowment as a national intangible cultural heritage inheritance enterprise, has created a distinctive Party building brand of "Original Aspiration, Huangdi and Qibo, Tempering the Fragrance of E-Jiao," continuously promoting the deep integration of Party building and business operations, and leading high-quality development with high-quality Party building.
Leading the Enterprise to Steady and Long-Term Development with High-Quality Party Building
Upholding and strengthening the Party's overall leadership bears on the future and destiny of the Party and the country. All our undertakings are built on this foundation and are rooted in this most essential characteristic and greatest strength. Dong-E E-Jiao adheres to the political underpinning of "central enterprises belonging to the Party," runs the Party's overall leadership through the entire governance process, actively serves the Healthy China strategy, helps promote the high-quality development of the traditional Chinese medicine industry, and effectively transforms Party building advantages into development advantages and governance effectiveness.
First, forging firm political loyalty and keeping the development course steady. Only by taking a clear-cut political stance and placing political building first can we ensure that the development of state-owned enterprises always serves and submits to the major strategic needs of the Party and the country and advances in the correct direction. We strictly implement the "first agenda item" system and the theoretical learning center group study system, conduct in-depth study and discussion through forms such as the Party branch's "three meetings and one lesson" and themed Party days, build an integrated learning matrix online through the "Runxuetang" and offline by visiting red education bases. We consciously integrate enterprise development into the overall national development situation, focus on promoting the revitalization and development of traditional Chinese medicine, implement the "1238" strategy, coordinate the layout of three growth curves, and ensure that all enterprise work steadily advances along the correct political direction.
Second, strengthening the systems concept and coordinating the overall development situation. The systems concept is a foundational way of thinking and working method. The strategic layout, project investment, supply chain support, and production operations of state-owned enterprises are interlinked and closely connected (环环相扣, huan huan xiang kou - "ring, ring, connect, link"), so it is necessary to abandon fragmented thinking and coordinate the current and the long-term, scale and efficiency, and development and security. Dong-E E-Jiao implements the "four major reshapings" of value reshaping, business reshaping, organizational reshaping, and spiritual reshaping with a systems concept, promoting production and operation and Party building work to achieve new results and reach new levels. It further coordinates the layout of integration of three industries: in the primary industry, it consolidates the authentic raw material base to ensure supply security; in the secondary industry, it strengthens the manufacturing of pharmaceuticals and health consumer products; in the tertiary industry, it builds an ecosystem of "traditional Chinese medicine + cultural tourism + health and wellness," establishing an industrial tourism system of "three parks and two museums" including the China E-Jiao Museum, the E-Jiao World Experience Factory, and Dong-E E-Jiao City, and actively creating a national 5A-level tourist attraction. At the same time, it builds an "integrated system of compliance, risk, and internal control," implements full-cycle control over major investments, and makes precise efforts in stabilizing operations, promoting transformation, strengthening the chain, and preventing risks.
Third, cultivating deep feelings for the people and establishing a correct view of political achievements. Putting the people first is the fundamental stance of Marxism. State-owned enterprises should fully fulfill economic, political, and social responsibilities, calculate more long-term accounts, industrial accounts, and livelihood accounts, and strive to create achievements that stand the test of practice, the people, and history. Dong-E E-Jiao upholds the original aspiration of "prolonging life and benefiting the world," practices the "Five Declarations," does not judge success solely by short-term profits, and takes safeguarding people's health, inheriting traditional Chinese medicine culture, and driving the development of the entire industrial chain as its core value pursuit. It practices the responsibility and commitment of state-owned enterprises with concrete actions, cooperates with Xifeng County in Liaoning Province and Dongfeng County in Jilin Province to develop the sika deer industry, lays out jujube cultivation, donkey breeding, and other industries in Hotan and Ili in Xinjiang, cooperates with Alxa League in Inner Mongolia to develop the Cistanche deserticola industry, and strives to create the "Dong-E E-Jiao National Modern Ecological Sand Industry Demonstration Base." Looking toward the 15th Five-Year Plan, Dong-E E-Jiao will systematically implement the full industrial chain upgrading project, solidly implement major projects such as the ten-billion-yuan health consumer products industrial park, help drive local economic development, and promote employment and income growth for the people.
Using Party Building Leadership to Solve Enterprise Development Difficulties
As a state-owned enterprise, it must uphold and strengthen the Party's overall leadership, strengthen the building of the enterprise leadership team, consolidate the responsibility for strict Party governance, promote the integration of Party leadership into all aspects of corporate governance, and promote the deep integration of Party building work with production and operation. Dong-E E-Jiao has always adhered to the "two persistences," upheld the Party's overall leadership, systematically advanced Party building work, deeply grasped the dialectical unity of upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, and of development and security, and transformed Party building advantages into governance effectiveness and development momentum.
First, grasping the unity of "leading" and "planning." We give full play to the leadership role of the Party committee in setting the direction, managing the overall situation, and ensuring implementation, standardize the prior study of major operational matters, clarify the boundaries of authority and responsibility between the Party committee and the manager level, and integrate Party leadership into corporate governance. We revise the Party committee meeting rules of procedure, the "three major and one large" decision-making system, and the "Authority and Responsibility Operation Manual," and improve the assessment and evaluation methods for the Party building work responsibility system. Anchoring on the strategic goals of pharmaceuticals and health consumer products, the Party committee takes the lead in planning the research and development layout for the 15th Five-Year Plan period, and around the three growth curves, advances category upgrading, scientific research breakthroughs, and industrial mergers and acquisitions, ensuring that the strategic direction does not deviate and that operational execution is effective.
Second, grasping the unity of "stability" and "progress." We adhere to bottom-line thinking, dialectically handle the relationship between development and security, and achieve a positive interaction between high-quality development and high-level security. Dong-E E-Jiao uses the Party building chain to lead the industrial chain. On the one hand, it cultivates and develops new quality productive forces, relies on Party member scientific research backbone to form specialized breakthrough teams, builds an innovation platform of "one center, three highlands, and N alliances," and implements "dual academician" workstations. On the other hand, it builds a solid security bottom line, establishes supply chain risk prevention and control and investment full-cycle supervision mechanisms, promotes base co-construction in key links such as raw material procurement, and enhances the resilience of the industrial chain.
Third, grasping the unity of "strictness" and "practicality." The integrity risks and operational risks of state-owned enterprises are intertwined, so it is necessary to adhere unwaveringly to the strict tone, effectively promote the interconnection and coordination of various supervision methods, strictly implement the "one post, dual responsibilities," and achieve the preservation and appreciation of state-owned assets. Dong-E E-Jiao builds a "1+1+N" characteristic grand supervision system, advances the "integrated construction of compliance, risk, and internal control," regularly carries out integrity education activities such as "Clean Season," and creates the "Fragrance of E-Jiao, Rhyme of Integrity" integrity publicity and education platform. It keeps a close eye on key positions such as investment, procurement, and marketing, addressing problems at an early stage and in their infancy (抓早抓小, zhua zao zhua xiao - "grasp, early, grasp, small"), promotes the simultaneous deployment and assessment of Party conduct and clean government building work with business work, and continuously creates a working environment that advocates integrity and values practicality.
Transforming Party Building Advantages into Governance Effectiveness and Development Momentum
On the new journey, central enterprises must fully understand the responsibilities and missions they bear, better serve the overall work of the Party and the country, serve high-quality economic and social development, serve to safeguard and improve people's livelihoods, bravely shoulder social responsibilities, and contribute greater strength to the construction of Chinese modernization. Dong-E E-Jiao strives to build and improve the Party building work system, continuously enhance the appeal and influence of Party organizations, make Party organizations a strong fighting fortress that promotes the development of new quality productive forces and safeguards high-quality development, and effectively transform Party building advantages into development advantages and Party building vitality into development vitality.
First, consolidating the foundation for long-term development. We give full play to the fighting fortress role of grassroots Party organizations and the vanguard and exemplary role of Party members, decompose the top-level strategy into key tasks, consolidate responsibilities layer by layer, ensure the effective implementation of the strategy, and consolidate the foundation for the enterprise's long-term development. We continue to deepen the construction of the "Original Aspiration, Huangdi and Qibo, Tempering the Fragrance of E-Jiao" Party building brand, establish the 2026 annual theme of "Growth and Innovation," deploy ten key tasks, and around key tasks such as scientific research innovation breakthroughs and the creation of a 5A-level tourist attraction, set up Party member commando teams and Party member demonstration posts, give play to the role of Party member backbone in tackling difficulties, remove coordination bottlenecks, and drive overall improvement through key breakthroughs. We strengthen strategic thinking, deepen industrial thinking, highlight technological thinking, and build a solid bottom-line thinking, opening the path of value leap from cultural narrative and brand narrative to technological narrative.
Second, activating new momentum for development. We adhere to Party building leading scientific and technological innovation, build Party organizations on the front line of scientific research, improve the talent "introduction, cultivation, retention, and utilization" incentive mechanism, and accelerate the cultivation of new quality productive forces. Dong-E E-Jiao establishes Party branches on the research and development front line, forms Party member scientific research breakthrough teams, tackles basic research such as the mechanism of action of authentic E-Jiao, and multiple research results have been published in internationally authoritative journals. It implements a tiered talent cultivation plan, launches the "Spring String Plan," the "Chain Star Plan," and the "Enlightenment Road Plan," improves the mechanism for cadres to be able to go up and down, and reserves reserve talents in research and development, marketing, and management.
Third, building a solid foundation for industrial development. We promote the deep integration of Party building work with the industrial chain, build Party organizations on the industrial chain, and construct a modern industrial system that is safe and controllable and creates value together. Dong-E E-Jiao continues to deepen the "Party building + industrial chain" model, coordinates with local Party organizations upstream to co-build standardized raw material bases to ensure the stable quality of authentic raw materials; sets up Party member responsibility zones on the production front line, focusing on key tasks such as ensuring supply and improving quality, and reducing costs and increasing efficiency, and giving play to the vanguard and exemplary role of Party members; deepens Party building co-construction of the industrial chain downstream, and cooperates with channel partners to maintain the terminal market. It promotes the international dissemination of traditional Chinese medicine, continuously expands overseas markets, and builds a resilient full industrial chain of traditional Chinese medicine.
Fourth, gathering the joint force of hard work and striving. The Party Committee of Dong-E E-Jiao promotes the simultaneous deployment, advancement, and assessment of Party building and business work, rectifies formalism, and gathers the joint force of all staff in hard work. It regularly advances work style building and capacity building, organizes Party branch secretaries to carry out special training on "Sharpening the Sword Vanguard," and systematically improves the comprehensive capabilities of cadres. It does solid work in lean management and risk prevention and control, relies on the "Jiaoxin Workshop" employee position and the youth "Jiao Xiaoxing" volunteer service team to solve the urgent, difficult, and anxious problems of employees, gathers the joint force of all staff in hard work and striving to be first, and ensures the effective implementation of annual key tasks.
The Party Committee of Dong-E E-Jiao will continue to deepen the construction of the "Original Aspiration, Huangdi and Qibo, Tempering the Fragrance of E-Jiao" Party building brand, do solid work in all aspects of production and operation with firm political responsibility and pragmatic work measures, inherit and develop traditional Chinese medicine culture, strengthen and optimize the time-honored brand enterprise, and strive to write a new chapter of high-quality development.
(Feng Dong)
Return to TopStrategic emerging industries are an important pillar of building a modern industrial system. At present, a new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is developing in depth, and a new generation of intelligent manufacturing is spreading and penetrating into more and more industries. It is necessary to follow the trend of the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation, take the new generation of intelligent manufacturing as the main direction of attack, pay more attention to digital-intelligence empowerment in development strategy, pay more attention to high-end self-reliance in technology routes, pay more attention to green and low-carbon production methods, pay more attention to cross-border integration in scenario formats, and strive to promote the intelligent, green, and integrated development of manufacturing. Bao'an District of Shenzhen, as one of the country's top 100 industrial districts, one of CCID's top 100 innovation districts, and a major industrial district of Shenzhen, possesses a complete industrial system covering 31 manufacturing categories, and shoulders an important mission in building a strategic emerging industry cluster area empowered by intelligent manufacturing.
Seize the opportunities of the times and anchor the direction of intelligent manufacturing empowerment
Against the backdrop of accelerated restructuring of global industrial chains, Bao'an is seizing opportunities for industrial transformation, promoting two-way penetration and mutual promotion between intelligent technology and emerging industries, activating growth momentum, and striving to break through bottlenecks and difficulties constraining high-quality development.
Shenzhen has proposed the "20+8" industrial cluster strategy, making intelligent manufacturing the main direction for the transformation and upgrading of manufacturing, promoting deep integration of artificial intelligence with manufacturing, and empowering the quality improvement and upgrading of all "20+8" industrial clusters. In 2025, Shenzhen's R&D investment intensity across society reached 6.67%, and a number of high-end manufacturing carriers and innovative application scenarios are being rapidly implemented. At present, Bao'an has key layouts in "17+5" of Shenzhen's "20+8" industrial clusters, making it an important carrier of Shenzhen's strategic emerging industries.
Bao'an takes intelligent manufacturing empowerment as its main direction, promoting the transformation of industry from scale expansion to quality and efficiency improvement: on the one hand, accelerating the intelligent transformation of traditional advantageous industries such as molds, metals, printing, and injection molding; on the other hand, making forward-looking layouts in new tracks of future industries such as embodied intelligence, low-altitude economy, and aerospace technology, promoting the integrated and clustered development of strategic emerging industries.
Based on the industrial foundation, explore practical paths
In building a strategic emerging industry cluster area empowered by intelligent manufacturing, Bao'an possesses unique and exceptional advantages (得天独厚, de tian du hou - "obtain, heaven, unique, thick") in terms of foundational conditions. Bao'an has a solid manufacturing foundation, with more than 560,000 business entities in the entire district, of which approximately 5,600 are industrial enterprises above designated size, covering 31 major manufacturing categories. It has formed five hundred-billion-yuan-level industrial clusters including intelligent terminals and ultra-high-definition video display, and has added three hundred-billion-yuan-level industrial clusters in software and information services, semiconductors and integrated circuits, and networks and communications over the past five years, with the high-end equipment and instrumentation industrial cluster ranking first in the city in scale. Innovative entities are concentrated, with more than 7,400 high-tech enterprises in the district and 600 artificial intelligence and robotics enterprises, covering four core areas: foundational support, AI terminals, humanoid robots, and solution provision. The intelligent manufacturing ecosystem has been optimized. In 2025, Shenzhen Valeo was recognized as a "Lighthouse Factory," achieving a zero breakthrough for Bao'an in "Lighthouse Factories."
Take technological innovation as the core engine and build an independent and controllable industrial technology system. Focusing on fields such as high-end chips, industrial software, advanced materials, and intelligent sensors, implement major science and technology special projects to break through "bottleneck" technologies. Fully leverage the role of enterprises as the main body of innovation, support leading enterprises in taking the lead in forming innovation consortia, and jointly carry out collaborative industry-university-research tackling of key problems with universities and research institutes. Make forward-looking layouts in future industries, aim at frontier fields such as embodied intelligence, low-altitude economy, and aerospace technology, and establish mechanisms for investment growth and risk sharing in future industries.
Take scenario application as an important driver and promote the digital and intelligent transformation of manufacturing. Scenarios are the "catalyst" for technology implementation and also the "touchstone" for industrial development. Relying on the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area Application Scenario Innovation Center (Intelligent Manufacturing), create new track scenarios for fields such as artificial intelligence and industrial internet. Summarize and promote the experience of Valeo's "Lighthouse Factory," implement intelligent manufacturing demonstration projects, strive to cultivate a number of benchmark enterprises, and drive small and medium-sized enterprises to carry out digital and intelligent transformation. Vigorously develop the industrial internet, promote equipment networking, data cloudification, and algorithm empowerment. For traditional industries such as molds, metals, printing, and injection molding, promote intelligent equipment and digital solutions to achieve "old trees sprouting new shoots."
Take enterprise cultivation as the key lever and build an enterprise echelon with international competitiveness. Construct a rainforest-style enterprise echelon cultivation system of "towering trees + shrubs and seedlings." Support leading enterprises in becoming bigger and stronger, encourage enterprises to integrate resources through mergers and reorganizations, strategic cooperation, and other means, and cultivate "chain leader" enterprises in the industrial chain. Vigorously cultivate specialized, refined, distinctive, and innovative enterprises, creating "singles champions" and "supporting experts" who possess unique skills. Improve the service system for small and medium-sized enterprises, providing all-round services such as digital transformation, technological innovation, market development, and financing matchmaking. In early 2026, 42 enterprises in Bao'an were selected as provincial-level manufacturing single-item champions.
Strengthen factor guarantees and paint a new picture of development
Take spatial integration as the basic carrier and optimize the layout of industrial cluster areas. Innovate the supply model of industrial space, release more industrial space through urban renewal and land consolidation, and ensure the implementation of major projects. Centering on key industries such as intelligent terminals, semiconductors and integrated circuits, and artificial intelligence and robotics, plan and build distinctive specialized parks to promote clustered industrial development. Coordinate industrial space with urban functional layout, promote integrated development of industry and city, improve supporting facilities such as education, medical care, housing, and transportation, and create an industrial ecological environment suitable for living and working.
Take institutional innovation as the fundamental guarantee and actively create a first-class business environment. Reduce institutional transaction costs for enterprises, improve the technology finance system, leverage the guiding role of government investment funds, and attract social capital to invest in strategic emerging industries and intelligent manufacturing fields. Optimize the talent development environment, improve mechanisms for talent introduction, cultivation, evaluation, and incentives, increase efforts to introduce and cultivate high-end talent and skilled talent in the intelligent manufacturing field, and resolve concerns such as talent housing and children's education. Strengthen intellectual property protection and create a good environment for enterprise innovation.
The wave of intelligent manufacturing empowerment is surging forward, and the future of strategic emerging industries is infinitely broad. Building a strategic emerging industry cluster area empowered by intelligent manufacturing is a systematic project and also a long-term task. Bao'an will adhere to the real economy as the foundation and manufacturing as the mainstay, take intelligent manufacturing as the main direction of attack, promote the leap of industry from "scale and volume advantages" to "systemic competitive advantages," accelerate the construction of a strategically empowered intelligent manufacturing strategic emerging industry cluster area with global influence, and contribute greater strength to Shenzhen's construction of a pilot demonstration area of socialism with Chinese characteristics and to the building of a manufacturing powerhouse.
(Xie Ning)
Return to TopBy: 冯广林
In recent years, Mianyang Cigarette Factory of China Tobacco Sichuan Industrial Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as the Factory), focusing on implementing the requirements of full and rigorous self-governance of the Party, has, based on its production and operation realities, innovatively built a comprehensive regulatory and supervision operation system, striven to construct a systematic, complete, and efficiently operating integrated standardized supervision new pattern, effectively solved structural problems such as scattered supervision subjects, poor coordination, weak effectiveness, and fragmented governance, and achieved a transformation of supervision and governance from "short-term symptom treatment" to "long-term root-cause governance," laying a solid supervision and risk-control defense line for the Factory's compliant and stable operation and high-quality sustainable development.
Building a Systematically Integrated Supervision Architecture
The Factory adheres to running the Party's leadership through all aspects and the entire process of supervision work, promotes the integration and restructuring of the supervision architecture, and forms a supervision work pattern that is connected from top to bottom and coordinated from left to right.
Strengthen the supervision matrix and tighten the chain of responsibility. Build a "cross-shaped" supervision matrix with horizontal coordination and vertical penetration. Horizontally, adhere to the parallel advancement of the five lines of "standardization, finance and audit, internal management, personnel, and discipline inspection"; vertically, improve the four-level supervision system of "comprehensive supervision by the Party committee, specialized supervision by the discipline inspection commission, professional supervision by functional departments, and daily supervision at grassroots positions." Construct a clear, hierarchical, full-chain responsibility system, classify and refine supervision responsibility lists, and promote supervision subjects at all levels to know and clarify their responsibilities and to perform and fulfill their duties.
Adhere to systematic governance and standardize the operation system. The Factory integrates existing supervision systems and process norms, sorts out and improves dozens of supporting management systems for the comprehensive standardization framework, and establishes ten standardized working mechanisms covering joint meetings, joint inspections, information sharing, problem rectification, force coordination, interpretation and guidance, public disclosure, special training, case warnings, and closed-loop accountability, transforming abstract supervision responsibilities into list-based, concrete, and implementable work measures.
Focus on full-chain control and build a supervision closed loop. The Factory adheres to the unity of problem orientation, goal orientation, and result orientation, and promotes the deep integration and effective implementation of various tasks. Closely following the entire chain of production and operation, all fields of management and operation, and the entire process of post duty performance, it forms a full-lifecycle supervision model of pre-prevention, in-process control, and post-rectification, improves the full-chain governance system of "problem discovery — rectification and implementation — root-cause tracing and governance — system improvement — governance enhancement," and builds a closed-loop supervision pattern with clear responsibilities, efficient coordination, full coverage, and integrated prevention and control.
Improving the Coordinated and Linked Supervision Mechanism
The Factory comprehensively integrates supervision resources, promotes the iterative upgrading of supervision work from "single-point efforts" to "full-domain linkage," and realizes the resonance and coordinated efforts of all types of supervision.
Improve the consultation mechanism and precisely prevent and control major risks. Establish a joint consultation mechanism for major matters, focus on key areas such as institutional construction, operational decision-making, clue handling, and special inspections, and through regular consultation and research, joint supervision and inspection, special review and analysis, and other means, precisely identify risk hazards, scientifically deploy control measures, form supervision synergy, continuously enhance the scientific nature of major decision-making and the precision of risk handling, and firmly hold the bottom line of risk prevention and control.
Deepen the linkage mechanism and amplify the comprehensive effectiveness of supervision. Coordinate and integrate various supervision functions such as daily supervision and special supervision, and establish and improve the "five-dimensional" linkage working model of information exchange, clue transfer, problem consultation, achievement sharing, and rectification mutual promotion. Further optimize the full-chain linkage mechanism of supervision, and promote the coordinated connection and simultaneous implementation of special inspections and routine inspections. All supervision subjects may share core supervision results such as inspection reports, rectification lists, and problem ledgers in accordance with regulations, avoiding duplicate inspections and multi-department inspections from the source, effectively reducing supervision operation costs, accurately identifying and preemptively preventing and controlling various risk hazards, and ultimately achieving the supervision effectiveness of "one inspection, multi-dimensional empowerment, and overall quality improvement."
Optimize the education mechanism and gather the joint supervision force of all employees. Closely focus on key areas and critical positions, and carry out hierarchical and classified education and training. Focus on the capacity building of the cadre team, cultivate composite talents through job rotation, cross-business training, and other means, and precisely fill the capacity shortcomings of cadres. Relying on diverse carriers such as "Three Meetings and One Lesson" and themed Party Day activities, regularly carry out training on Party discipline and rules and laws and regulations, guide all employees to firmly establish bottom-line thinking and normative awareness, actively participate in supervision and consciously accept supervision, strive to create a strong atmosphere of "everyone understands norms, everyone advocates norms, and everyone abides by norms," and gather the strong joint force of all employees jointly carrying out supervision and jointly ensuring compliance.
Creating a Precise and Efficient Supervision Model
The Factory adheres to the work philosophy of grasping the regular, the detailed, the long-term, and the strict, coordinates normalized supervision, targeted rectification, and digital supervision, and promotes the comprehensive improvement of enterprise management effectiveness through high-quality supervision.
Do a solid job of normalized inspections and build a solid basic defense line for risk control. Closely follow the entire process and all links of production and operation, focus on key positions, key personnel, and the supply chain ecosystem, carry out normalized risk inspections, and dynamically update risk control ledgers. Do a good job of warning education, promptly remind and correct budding and tendency problems, and adhere to grasping the early and the small, preventing small problems from growing into major ones (防微杜渐, fang wei du jian - "prevent, tiny, block, gradual"). Promote the deep integration of daily risk inspections with annual internal control self-assessment and post integrity risk inspections, classify and grade risk levels at different levels, compact prevention and control responsibilities, refine prevention and control measures, and integrate supervision work into daily routines and regular practice.
Focus on special rectification and solve key and difficult problems. Closely focus on key areas such as procurement management, engineering construction, and production safety, carry out targeted special supervision and rectification, precisely plug management loopholes and resolve operational risks. Strictly implement the deployment of special rectification work, coordinate and allocate cross-line supervision forces, carry out full-chain verification and rectification, build a work pattern of "normal supervision consolidating the foundation, special supervision making up for shortcomings," and comprehensively improve the overall quality and effectiveness of supervision and inspection.
Rely on digital empowerment and build a smart supervision carrier. Closely follow the overall trend of enterprise digital transformation, and use digital means to improve the quality and efficiency of supervision work. Relying on the industry's unified electronic procurement platform to carry out full-data analysis of bidding and tendering, accurately identify abnormal transaction behaviors, warn of potential risks in real time, and continuously improve the precision of supervision; build a digital platform for compliance risk management, construct a smart supervision and governance model that is traceable, warnable, analyzable, and controllable, and effectively eliminate supervision blind spots.
In the next step, the Factory will continue to optimize the comprehensive regulatory and supervision operation system, effectively transform the achievements of supervision and governance into development momentum, and create a clean and wholesome atmosphere (风清气正, feng qing qi zheng - "wind, clear; air, upright") for the enterprise's high-quality development.
(The author is the Party Committee Secretary of Mianyang Factory of China Tobacco Sichuan Industrial Co., Ltd.)
Return to TopThe 15th Five-Year Plan outline proposes adapting to changes in population structure and migration trends, improving the layout of infrastructure and public service facilities, and refining the mechanism for allocating public resources in line with the resident population. Population change trends, especially population migration trends, have led to a coexistence of insufficient public service resource supply in areas of population inflow and idle public service resources in areas of outflow. Focusing on the optimization of public service resource layout and structural adjustment under population change trends, the Study Times high-end think tank edition conducts an in-depth discussion.
Return to TopBy: 牛犁 于凤霞
Population is the most fundamental and dynamic variable in economic and social development. At present, China's population has generally entered a stage of declining growth, exhibiting such trend-based characteristics as fewer children, an aging society, and divergent regional population growth and decline. Within the overall population change trend, population mobility is the most active factor. A region's population change is usually determined jointly by natural growth and mechanical growth, and in some regions, mechanical growth has even surpassed natural growth to become the dominant factor in population change.
In recent years, China's population mobility pattern has continued to evolve, showing such characteristics as a stabilizing scale of population mobility, two-way mobility, intra-provincial mobility as the main form, and shrinking inter-provincial mobility. The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan proposes improving the mechanism for allocating public resources in line with the resident population. In May 2026, the State Council issued the "Implementation Opinions on Providing Basic Public Services Based on Place of Residence," marking the transition of "public services following the people" from a conceptual advocacy to an institutional implementation stage. How to adapt to the new trends in population mobility, resolve the deep-seated contradiction of mismatch between supply and demand of public service resources, and enable public services to truly "follow the people" is a major proposition that must be properly answered in advancing people-centered new urbanization, and is also an important practical topic for enhancing national governance effectiveness and supporting Chinese modernization with high-quality development under the new circumstances.
Population mobility is showing new characteristics and new trends. In recent years, with the continued advancement of new urbanization, the comprehensive penetration of the digital economy, and the gradient transfer of industrial layout, the scale, direction, structure, and driving logic of China's population mobility have all undergone significant changes. The pattern of "population follows industry, talent gathers in superior regions" has been further reinforced, while also acquiring new characteristics.
In terms of scale, the breadth and depth of population mobility are unprecedented. Data from the seventh national population census show that in 2020, China's floating population reached 376 million people, an increase of about 70 percent over ten years. Data from the population sample survey show that the floating population in 2025 was 358 million people. This indicates that although the scale of China's population mobility remains very large, the intensity of population mobility is declining. At the same time, against the backdrop of declining population growth, the characteristic of "separation between residence registration and actual residence" is pronounced, and the floating population has become an important factor affecting the pattern of regional population divergence. The continuous spatial mobility of such a large population poses a major challenge to the traditional model of allocating public resources according to household registration.
In terms of direction, population mobility is shifting from one-way agglomeration to diversified diversion. In the past, China's population mainly flowed one-way from the central and western regions to the eastern coastal regions and from rural areas to cities. In recent years, this has gradually transformed into a pattern of two-way mobility coexisting between rural-to-urban and city-to-city flows. First, the agglomeration effect of the eastern region remains significant. The Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, and other eastern city clusters remain the main destinations for population inflow. In 2025, the top five provinces with net population inflow nationwide were, in order, Guangdong, Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Chongqing, and Shanghai, with net inflows of 500,000, 389,000, 227,000, 115,000, and 108,500 people, respectively. Second, the trend of population return to central and western provinces continues to strengthen. In recent years, the group of people returning to their hometowns to start businesses has continued to grow. As of the end of 2025, the cumulative number of people returning to their hometowns nationwide to start businesses exceeded 15.1 million. The population attractiveness of provincial capitals and industrial cities in the central and western regions has increased, and localized employment and entrepreneurship have further consolidated the foundation for retaining population in the central and western regions. Third, nearby intra-provincial mobility is gradually replacing long-distance inter-provincial mobility. In 2025, the proportion of intra-provincial mobility among migrant workers working away from home rose to 62.4 percent, an increase of about 4 percentage points over 2020, with nearby employment and nearby urbanization accelerating. This new pattern of diversified diversion requires that the allocation of public service resources possess stronger dynamic response capability.
In terms of logic, population mobility is shifting from being driven solely by employment to being driven by both employment and life quality. First, industry and employment opportunities remain the core pull, and the characteristic of talent concentrating in high-capacity industrial cities is more pronounced. Advanced manufacturing has become the main field for population absorption. According to the 2025 ranking of China's city competitiveness released by relevant institutions, benefiting from the rapid development of their emerging industries, Hefei in Anhui and Chengdu in Sichuan entered the top three for the first time on the list of growth potential. Second, digital empowerment has given rise to a new trend of "life quality first" mobility, with the influence of life quality and cost on mobility decisions increasing. The development of remote work and digital platforms enables workers to relocate to regions with lower living costs and more livable environments while maintaining income levels comparable to those in first-tier cities. When the logic of voting with one's feet (用脚投票, yong jiao tou biao - "use, feet, vote") expands from "where one can earn money" to "where one can live well," public services are no longer a passive result of population mobility but are increasingly becoming an active variable influencing population mobility.
In terms of mobile groups, flexible workers and digital nomads are rapidly emerging. First, the group engaged in new forms of employment continues to expand and has become a new force within the floating population. New forms of employment mainly fall into two major categories: location-based employment and cloud-based employment. The location-based employment group exhibits a regional distribution characteristic of "nationwide coverage, dense in the east and sparse in the west, flowing from rural areas to cities." Cloud-based employment methods such as knowledge services and livestream e-commerce have completely broken down geographical restrictions, greatly increasing the freedom of mobility. Second, digital nomads are accelerating reverse mobility, driving the downward flow of talent and consumption to small and medium-sized cities and rural areas. The digital nomad group, which relies on digital technology to achieve remote work, has formed a brand-new migration model of "life quality first, mobility on demand," becoming a new growth pole of the floating population.
Optimizing the allocation of public service resources faces three major difficulties. From the actual situation, the pattern of population mobility has undergone profound changes, but the allocation mechanism for public service resources has not yet fully kept pace. The "Implementation Opinions on Providing Basic Public Services Based on Place of Residence" is the first special document issued at the national level concerning the provision of basic public services based on place of residence, clearly stating the need to "gradually eliminate factors linking basic public services to household registration and promote the equal enjoyment of basic public services by unregistered resident population and registered population." However, under the new pattern of population mobility, the implementation of the policy faces three major structural difficulties.
Inflow areas "cannot accommodate" while outflow areas "are left empty," resulting in spatial mismatch in the allocation of public service resources. The deep-seated reason for the coexistence of insufficient supply of public service resources in population inflow areas and idle public service resources in outflow areas lies in the fact that the traditional mechanism for allocating public service resources based on the household registration system is difficult to adapt to the needs of the new pattern of population mobility. In 2025, China's urbanization rate of the resident population was 67.89 percent, a gap of about 18 percentage points from the urbanization rate of the registered population, with more than 250 million people living in urban areas for a long time without registering their household registration there. Taking education as an example, the number of school-age children accompanying migrant workers enrolled in compulsory education nationwide is enormous, but the current allocation of education funds is mainly based on static base figures and fixed distribution according to administrative divisions, and a dynamic adjustment mechanism linked to the mobility of the school-age population has not yet been established, making it difficult to meet the actual needs of population inflow areas. Schools, hospitals, and other facilities in population inflow areas are severely insufficient, while a large number of school buildings and medical facilities in population outflow areas lie idle. This spatial mismatch is the most direct difficulty facing the allocation of public service resources.
In fiscal transfer payments, "people move but money does not follow," and the fund allocation system lags to a certain extent. Central government transfer payments to local governments are still mainly allocated on the basis of registered population and historical base figures, failing to fully reflect the dynamic situation of population mobility, resulting in the mismatch dilemma of "people move but money does not follow." In 2025, central government transfer payments to local governments again exceeded 10 trillion yuan, reaching 10.18 trillion yuan. The two provinces receiving the largest transfer payments were Sichuan (682 billion yuan) and Henan (594.4 billion yuan), but the resident populations of these two provinces decreased by 460,000 and 410,000 people, respectively, compared with the previous year. In contrast, in 2025, the resident populations of Guangdong and Zhejiang increased by 790,000 and 310,000 people, respectively, while the transfer payments they received were approximately 266.1 billion yuan and 145.1 billion yuan, respectively. This reverse mismatch of "population flowing to high-growth regions while funds tilt toward population-declining regions" results in a mismatch between the public service responsibilities of inflow areas and their financial capacity. This is the most core bottleneck in the implementation of public service resource allocation policies.
Under the "separation between residence registration and actual residence," information silos create governance blind spots in service delivery. A large number of unregistered resident population are in a state of "separation between residence registration and actual residence," leading to fragmented information and weak service accessibility. On the one hand, unclear population baseline data coexists with system silos, making precise identification more difficult. Public security, human resources and social security, education, and other systems lack interconnection and interoperability, making it difficult to precisely identify a large number of unregistered population, and service delivery faces the dual dilemma of "cannot find the people" and "people cannot find the services." On the other hand, the cross-regional continuation of social security and residence rights is not smooth, and the pain point of "mobility means reset" is relatively prominent. A large number of workers in new forms of employment are not effectively covered by the current social security system, and cross-regional accumulation rules for residence permit duration and social security payment records have not yet been unified, making it difficult to transfer original rights and interests after moving, resulting in de facto "loss of rights and interests." In addition, there is a mismatch between the supply cost of public service resources and fiscal authority, limiting the supply motivation of inflow areas; regional coordination exploration is still at the stage of local pilot projects, and a replicable and promotable national institutional framework has not yet been formed.
Technological development empowers the shift from "people seeking services" to "services seeking people." Resolving the above three difficulties requires both deepening institutional reform at the system level and strong support from technological means. The rapid development of new technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain is providing unprecedented opportunities for optimizing the allocation of public service resources from multiple dimensions, including population monitoring and prediction, service supply, and cross-regional coordination.
Big data and artificial intelligence empower the monitoring and prediction of population mobility. With the widespread penetration of new-generation information technology, massive amounts of high-frequency, high-precision, and wide-coverage population activity data are continuously being generated. These data have four major advantages. First, strong timeliness. Mobile phone signaling data can achieve update frequencies at the hourly or even minute level, enabling near-real-time capture of changes in the spatial distribution of population. Second, high spatial precision. Population location information can be pinpointed to the level of one hundred meters or even ten meters, meeting the needs of refined analysis at the district, county, subdistrict, and even community levels. Third, wide coverage. As of the end of 2025, the total number of mobile phone users nationwide reached 1.827 billion, and mobile internet users exceeded 1.6 billion, with high-frequency location data able to cover the vast majority of the resident population. Fourth, multi-dimensional correlation. High-frequency data can correlate multiple dimensions such as location, communication behavior, consumption and payment, transportation and travel, and social networks, providing rich cross-validation information for the analysis of the causes of population mobility and trend prediction. Building a population mobility monitoring system based on multi-source high-frequency data, accurately calculating resource gaps in education, medical care, affordable housing, elderly care facilities, and other areas, and achieving forward-looking layout and precise replenishment of public service resources are key paths to resolving the problem of mismatch between population mobility and resources at the source.
Digital and intelligent transformation is reshaping the public service supply process. The application of digital and intelligent technologies shifts the service initiation end from the user side to the governance side, achieving precise positioning and proactive outreach. As of the end of 2025, the national integrated government service platform has connected government service platforms of 31 provinces (autonomous regions and municipalities directly under the central government), the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, and 46 State Council departments, integrating 1,391 State Council department items and more than 5.2 million local government service items. Nationwide, 140 high-frequency government service items have achieved "inter-provincial handling." As artificial intelligence large models are deployed in more government service scenarios, an increasing number of government services can achieve intelligent demand perception and precise push. This paradigm shift is precisely the key path to resolving the dilemma of "people cannot find the services."
Blockchain and digitalization open up cross-regional service coordination. Blockchain and cross-domain data collaboration, centered on "data follows the people, rights and interests are carried with the person," gradually eliminate institutional and spatiotemporal barriers to the transfer of public rights and interests such as social security and medical insurance, precisely resolving such difficulties as "people move but money does not follow" and "rights and interests cannot be continued." In the field of medical insurance, as of the end of 2025, the number of designated medical institutions connected to the national inter-provincial network reached 655,800; nationwide, 15.823 million person-times of hospitalization expenses were directly settled across provinces, and 292 million person-times of outpatient expenses were directly settled across provinces. The electronic social security card has achieved full coverage nationwide, and electronic residence permits have been piloted for mutual recognition and interoperability in some cities in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. Relying on the data sharing system, the Yangtze River Delta has achieved full online processing of more than 300 government service items. These practices provide a feasible path for fiscal transfer payments and public service supply to precisely match population mobility.
Unleashing the technological dividend through institutional innovation. Technology provides tools and possibilities, but converting the technological dividend into institutional effectiveness also requires systematic institutional innovation.
Build a population mobility monitoring system based on multi-source high-frequency data to resolve the problem of mismatch in the allocation of public service resources. Based on the requirements of national digital governance and dynamic population monitoring reform, and relying on the existing government data sharing system, build a national multi-dimensional population mobility monitoring system. First, establish a high-frequency data aggregation mechanism. Led by statistics, public security, human resources and social security, health, and other departments, compliantly integrate desensitized telecommunications signaling, transportation and travel, residence permit registration, social security participation changes, and other dynamic data to build a nationally unified, real-time updated, multi-dimensionally correlated population mobility database. Second, build an intelligent population mobility monitoring and early warning platform. The platform embeds population trend analysis and spatial matching analysis functions to precisely calculate resource gaps in education, medical care, affordable housing, elderly care facilities, and other areas. Third, deepen the application of monitoring data results. Connect dynamic resident population data to the central fiscal transfer payment calculation system, routinely calibrate fund allocation amounts in livelihood areas, and achieve forward-looking layout and precise replenishment of public service resources.
Build a dynamic fund adjustment mechanism of "money follows the people" to resolve the problem of mismatch between funds and population allocation. Closely following the reform orientation of public service supply based on place of residence, optimize the allocation rules for fiscal livelihood funds and establish a fund guarantee system adapted to dynamic population mobility. First, optimize the calculation weights of transfer payments. In livelihood areas highly correlated with population such as education and medical care, pilot raising the calculation weight of the resident population and lowering the weight of the registered population and historical base figures. Second, establish a routine dynamic calibration mechanism. Relying on the national population mobility monitoring platform, dynamically adjust special transfer payment amounts on a quarterly and semi-annual basis, open up channels for mid-term budget adjustments, and achieve precise flow of fiscal funds with population mobility. Third, improve the mechanism for cross-regional revitalization of existing resources. Comprehensively survey the baseline of idle public assets such as school buildings and medical facilities in population outflow areas, revitalize existing resources through transfer, exchange, market-based operation, and other means, and coordinate their use for the incremental construction of public service facilities in population inflow areas, forming an allocation pattern of "incremental funds follow the people, existing resources follow the people." Drawing on the experience of ecological compensation and horizontal compensation for major grain-producing areas, pilot first in major population inflow regions such as the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
Build a digital and intelligent service continuation system to resolve the problem of the break in the continuation of rights and interests under "separation between residence registration and actual residence." Relying on the national integrated government service platform, build an intelligent, continuable, and barrier-free service guarantee system based on place of residence. First, comprehensively deepen the digital empowerment of electronic residence permits. Open up data sharing channels for employment, social security, education, medical care, and housing, and expand the service scenarios of "certificate-based access." Promote mutual recognition and accumulation of residence duration and social security records within metropolitan areas and provinces, and use blockchain technology to achieve automatic verification and seamless continuation of cross-regional rights and interests. Second, establish a mechanism for flexible employment groups to participate in social security without "affiliation with an employer." Use the residence permit plus platform income records as valid basis for social security participation, and open up the "last mile" of cross-regional medical insurance settlement and public rental housing applications. Continue to expand the scope of "inter-provincial handling" of high-frequency items such as education, medical care, social security, housing, and assistance, and remove bottlenecks in handling services across regions.
Build a mechanism for precise policy implementation by region and category to consolidate the guarantee of adaptation of public service resources to population mobility. Based on the characteristics of China's gradient population mobility and differentiated regional carrying capacity, establish a guarantee implementation mechanism of regional and categorical classification, gradient advancement, and precise adaptation. First, optimize the gradient supply model for megacities and super-large cities. Implement the national policy requirements for providing basic public services based on place of residence, strictly prohibit setting hidden access thresholds such as educational qualifications, professional titles, and tax payments, gradually invest public service resources, and scientifically prevent the risk of short-term resource crowding. Second, consolidate the primary responsibility of central cities for agglomeration guarantees. Promote second-tier provincial capitals and key central cities to achieve full coverage of public services based on place of residence, with priority given to ensuring the education of accompanying children at all school stages, social security for flexible workers, and housing provident fund participation needs. Third, differentially consolidate the guarantee capacity of county areas and industrial node cities. County areas should focus on revitalizing idle public service resources, providing a safety net for services for left-behind groups, and safeguarding the basic rights and interests of people returning to their hometowns to start businesses; key industrial node cities should make forward-looking arrangements for education, medical care, and affordable housing support, strictly implement the mechanism linking construction land indicators to the increase in the resident population, and achieve the simultaneous advancement of industrial landing, population agglomeration, and service quality improvement.
(The authors are respectively the Deputy Director of the Economic Forecasting Department and the Director of the Population Monitoring, Forecasting and Development Policy Research Office of the National Information Center)
Return to TopBy: 龙茂乾
As the population shifts toward declining development and urban development transitions to a stage focused on improving quality and efficiency from the existing stock, the traditional mindset that "the more public service facilities built, the better" has become outdated or inappropriate for the current situation (不合时宜, bu he shi yi - "not, fit, time, appropriate"), and the habitual practices of crude expansion and scaling up and spreading out need to be reversed. The allocation of public service resources must adapt to the new realities of population change, break the inertia of expansionist thinking, drive supply-side transformation through conceptual change, and shift the focus toward improving efficiency and benefiting people's livelihoods.
The inertia of expansionist thinking stems from path dependence formed during the period of sustained population growth and rapid urbanization. Over the past several decades, localities used large-scale construction and heavy investment to fill gaps in public service facilities, building education, medical care, elderly care, and cultural and sports service systems covering both urban and rural areas, thereby cementing the livelihood foundation for economic and social development. During the stage of aggregate shortage, expansionist allocation was highly necessary. Faced with gaps in livelihood needs, the most direct solution was to launch projects, build venues, and expand scale—this could both fill regional supporting gaps and drive land development and district revitalization, becoming the customary practice for localities in allocating public service resources.
However, the inertia of expansionist thinking has not receded with the shift in stages, and its drawbacks are increasingly evident under new development conditions, with typical manifestations concentrated at two levels: the population baseline and the allocation orientation. At the population baseline level, public service resources are not allocated on the basis of actual resident population: some regions with sustained population outflows often calculate school places, bed quotas, and staffing needs based on overly optimistic growth projections, which later easily fall into inefficient idle states that are difficult and time-consuming to revitalize and utilize; some large cities with sustained population inflows, facing both rising incoming populations and limited fiscal capacity, habitually allocate by registered household population rather than resident population, leaving the supply and demand of public service resources in a long-term tight balance, with new citizens and flexible employees often excluded from service coverage. At the allocation orientation level, many localities are trapped in scale expansion, keen on expanding frameworks and spreading out, pursuing facilities that are large and comprehensive, new and beautiful. As a result, newly built projects have their hardware in place, but software lags behind, and insufficient effort is devoted to improving the efficiency of existing facilities and service investment, making it difficult to translate into tangible gains that the public can genuinely feel. Taking medical service resource investment as an example, strengthening and equipping community hospitals with general practitioners often does more to solve most people's daily medical needs than building another new hospital. This inertia of valuing scale over efficiency and hardware over software causes many public service facilities to be built but not well used, and difficult to sustain, further aggravating the fiscal burden.
The reason inertia is hard to break is that it was effective for a long time. Incremental population growth and the possibility of unlimited outward expansion of urban boundaries were the long-standing default premises of expansionist allocation. Today, these premises are undergoing profound change. Looking at population trends, after the national population peaked in 2021, it has seen negative growth for four consecutive years, and the pace of urbanization has slowed; aging, declining birth rates, and widening divergence in population growth and decline across regions have intensified, with population continuing to concentrate in urban agglomerations and metropolitan areas, while some small and medium-sized cities and county areas face sustained outflow pressure. Looking at urban spatial governance, control over urban development boundaries has tightened, development of new urban districts and new areas has slowed, the orientation toward intensive and efficient development has been further strengthened, and incremental layout of public service facilities is constrained. The combination of these two changes means that the allocation of public service resources can no longer take "there will be this many people in the future" as its starting point, but must instead be based on the current scale, structure, and real needs of the resident population, improving facility layout and enhancing utilization efficiency.
Breaking the inertia of expansionist thinking is a transformation that urgently needs to be completed in the public service field, and efforts can be made from two directions. On the one hand, public service resource allocation should follow the resident population and adjust with changes in demand. In May this year, the State Council issued the Implementation Opinions on Providing Basic Public Services Based on the Place of Residence, clarifying that basic public services should be dynamically allocated in accordance with the distribution and flow of the resident population. For regions with stable or declining populations, the focus is on integrating and operating existing public service resources well, so that the existing stock plays its due role; for cities and county towns with population inflows, the focus is on precisely filling gaps according to the actual needs of the resident population, extending public service coverage to new citizen groups. Institutional arrangements such as fiscal transfer payments, land guarantees, and staffing should be dynamically aligned with the scale, structure, and flow trends of the resident population, supporting the optimized layout of education, medical care, elderly care, and childcare resources in accordance with population changes—educational resources should be coordinated and allocated in response to changes in the school-age population, medical and health resources should be rationally allocated in light of population characteristics and health needs, and elderly care and childcare facilities should respond to the care needs of "the elderly and the young."
On the other hand, public service facilities should be pushed from a focus on construction toward full life-cycle management, making up for shortcomings in governance and operation. The entire process of planning, construction, management, and operation should be coordinated, with governance investment, operational guarantees, and professional team building given more prominent positions. Revitalizing the existing stock is often more urgent than approving another plot of land or building another building. For example, existing facilities can be used more fully through integration and merger, shared and mixed-use arrangements, staggered use, and introducing social forces for cooperative operation; idle primary schools and kindergartens can be converted into elderly care service stations, senior canteens, and the like, and medical facilities such as hospitals can be redirected to rehabilitation and elderly care uses, connecting with public needs through functional conversion; through staffing coordination, personnel rotation, and mechanism optimization, the service capacity of inefficient outlets can be improved; urban "golden corners and silver edges" such as under-bridge, roadside, and abandoned warehouse spaces can be used to expand sports venues. Categorized mechanisms for evaluating facility operational efficiency and dynamic adjustment should be established, with resource utilization rates and public satisfaction as important bases for subsequent investment and layout. For supply that genuinely needs to be added, the fundamental population situation, long-term trends, and real rigid demand should first be assessed, with delivery based on need and precise layout.
In Chinese modernization, people's livelihoods come first. The key to safeguarding and improving people's livelihoods lies in shifting the allocation of public service resources toward a people-centered approach. Only by breaking the expansionist thinking inertia of valuing construction over governance, valuing increments over existing stock, and valuing scale over actual results, and shifting the focus of work toward adapting to population changes and deepening fine-grained governance, can the spatial layout, structural quality, and supply efficiency of public service resources be continuously optimized, their inclusiveness, balance, and accessibility enhanced, and made to serve the people and benefit the people.
(The author is a senior engineer at the Policy Research Department of the China Center for Urban Development, a think tank affiliated with the National Development and Reform Commission.)
Return to TopBy: 唐健 陈麒
Wars throughout history, both ancient and modern, at home and abroad, have been fought on land, in the air, and at sea; there are examples of "using the large to strike the small, using the strong to attack the weak," and also examples of winning more with fewer resources (以少胜多, yi shao sheng duo - "take, few, win, many") and defeating the strong with the weak. Although the external forms of warfare and the paths to victory change with the times, the mechanisms of victory hidden beneath the surface do not change because of the size of a country or its military, or changes in organizational form, nor do they change because of rapid technological advances or the upgrading and iteration of weapons and equipment.
Examining the Way to Victory Through the Evolution of Warfare Forms
War has accompanied humanity since its inception. The purpose of the attacking side is nothing more than to use violent means to annihilate or conquer the opponent, achieving political goals such as regime change or territorial annexation. Exploring the mechanisms of victory in war should begin with understanding war itself. Different wars break out at different times and in different forms, and their objectives and natures vary, but all achieve victory by defeating the opponent quickly or gradually through different paths.
In ancient times, tribes and ethnic groups were the main actors on the battlefield, using cold weapons such as stones and clubs as their primary armaments, engaging in hand-to-hand combat and slaughter. Due to the slow mobility of manpower, horses, and boats, and the cognitive limitations of the participants, the tempo and progress of operations were relatively slow. After the emergence of states, armies came into being as instruments of violence, and military affairs and politics gradually became integrated and increasingly close. Works on military strategy and military classics appeared one after another, and there were rules to follow in building, governing, and employing armies. "Man + cold weapons" became the main actors on the battlefield, with attackers and defenders engaging in close-quarters combat with bows, arrows, spears, and other weapons. After the invention of gunpowder, "man + firearms" became the main actors on the battlefield, and weapons and equipment became one of the elements of combat effectiveness. The battlefield continued to expand, and the intensity of war, the degree of destruction and damage, and the number of casualties multiplied.
With the invention of tanks, warships, and aircraft and their deployment in actual combat, the battlefield expanded from two-dimensional to three-dimensional, and the form of warfare underwent revolutionary changes. In the modern era, technologies such as big data, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence have been widely applied to the military domain. Long-range weapons, airborne and shipborne weapons, precision-guided munitions, and unmanned combat equipment have entered the battlefield. "Intelligence +" weapons have become the main actors on the battlefield. "Detect and destroy" and "instant kill" have become reality. Combat personnel have gradually "retreated behind the scenes" to remotely control unmanned equipment in combat. War has once again overturned people's understanding, and the form of warfare has changed once more. In the future, great-power competition will extend to contention for dominance or control in domains such as the oceans, cyberspace, outer space, nuclear, and the polar regions. The concept of victory in war has shifted from securing the right to survival to securing the right to development, and from controlling people to controlling intelligence and controlling minds.
Grasping the Essential Connotation of the Mechanisms of Victory
The mechanisms of victory refer to the core principles, key factors, and internal laws that influence and determine victory in war; they are the rational understanding hidden at the foundational level. Taken together, they include: the large defeating the small, the many defeating the few, the strong defeating the weak, the high defeating the low, the fast defeating the slow, the wise defeating the foolish, and the skillful defeating the clumsy. The mechanisms relate to both soft and hard aspects, such as materiel and intelligence. In a general sense, an army that is large in numbers and scale, has a complete system, strong comprehensive combat capability, is well-trained, has a high level of technology, a high degree of combat readiness, is fast in reaction and maneuver, and is adept at using wisdom, stratagems, and operational methods can defeat its opponent. These mechanisms reflect the laws of victory from different aspects or dimensions and act simultaneously on combat operations. Only one mechanism plays a dominant role at a time, but under specific conditions, different mechanisms can shift in their primary and secondary relationships. Being adept at grasping and applying the mechanisms, seizing the key to victory, flexibly controlling the battlefield situation, and effectively managing the battlefield posture can lead to winning the war.
On the surface, war is a comprehensive contest between hostile sides employing military forces across all domains and all dimensions. The battlefield situation and its course are the result of the combined action of all mechanisms. Victory is achieved through specific paths, and the choice of path is closely related to one's own military strength, the strength of the opponent, and the battlefield environment. War requires the mobilization of material foundations such as manpower and resources, and it also requires all levels to exercise wisdom and flexibly organize the forces involved to carry out combat operations. Generally speaking, major powers and strong countries have a high level of military construction, specifically manifested in three aspects: applying the latest scientific and technological achievements to weapons development, combat operations, and other fields; proposing new operational theories, such as "AirLand Battle," "AirSea Battle," "Distributed Operations," "Mosaic Warfare," and "All-Domain Control Operations"; and having launched or participated in multiple local wars, accumulating rich combat experience, making their advantages even more pronounced.
There is no doubt that no matter how the times develop, the military will always be the main force in war. If one one-sidedly or dogmatically believes that possessing certain hard conditions and following certain mechanisms means having a certain victory in hand (稳操胜券, wen cao sheng quan - "steady, grasp, win, ticket"), while violating or ignoring other mechanisms and being blindly overconfident, one may be preempted by the opponent, and no matter how strong one's military strength, one may not necessarily win the war. Of course, a side with relatively weak military strength has little chance of winning a direct confrontation with a powerful opponent and needs to find a different path and devise superior strategies, such as seeking a strategy similar to using clever strategies to overcome stronger opponents (田忌赛马, tian ji sai ma - "Tian Ji, race, horse"). First, plan for survival, finding ways to block the strong opponent's offensive; then, plan for victory, avoiding the opponent's areas of advantage and superior forces, carefully planning and employing stratagems, concentrating superior forces to strike at one point, one area, or one part, and then expanding from point to surface, from few to many, continuously accumulating momentum for victory, expanding from the local to the overall.
Grasping the Way to Decide Victory in Future Wars
In future wars, intelligentization will coexist and co-evolve with mechanization and informatization over the long term. Under the influence and drive of factors such as network, information, and electromagnetic technologies, traditional forms such as amphibious operations, air strike operations, urban operations, and special operations will be superimposed and derived with network warfare, space warfare, economic warfare, financial warfare, science and technology warfare, public opinion warfare, and legal warfare, giving rise to new forms of warfare such as "hybrid warfare," "future warfare," "ambiguous warfare," and "high-end warfare." A participating side leverages its advantages, through the continuous accumulation of quantity, until it overwhelms the opponent's resistance and the "last straw" of its struggle for survival, thereby winning victory. War is no longer confined to confrontation in the purely military domain, but rather involves mobilizing the entire strength of a nation (举一国之力, ju yi guo zhi li - "lift, one, country, strength"), and may even involve multiple countries conducting coalition or allied operations against one country, leveraging advantages in firepower, systems, speed, and hybrid approaches across multiple domains against one domain, and multiple dimensions against one dimension, to defeat the enemy.
Victory through firepower. The purpose of war is to use firepower and other means through several engagements to annihilate the enemy and destroy the places where the enemy survives, thereby achieving victory. Annihilating the enemy is people's traditional understanding of war. Throughout the long river of human history, during the periods of cold weapons, firearms, and mechanized warfare, the goal was mostly achieved by using various weapons to annihilate the enemy. This method has occupied almost the entire history of human warfare. Hostile sides engage in prolonged, multi-round combat, and there may even be reversals and seesawing, with extreme consumption of resources, until the enemy is annihilated and final victory is achieved. This traditional path to victory was applicable in the past, and it can still achieve the goal now and in the future.
Victory through quick decision. Quick decision means taking rapid and efficient action, supported by powerful means and systems, and achieving victory. From the perspective of constructing the "OODA" kill chain, when the generational gap in weapons between hostile sides is not large, the side that leverages its speed advantage to detect first, decide first, and act first can achieve the fast overcoming the slow, throwing the opponent into chaos and a state of constant reaction. In modern warfare, the basic law of "the big eat the small, the fast eat the slow, the strong eat the weak" still holds. The advantaged side leverages its system and weapons performance advantages to overpower the opponent and dominate the battlefield, greatly weakening and exhausting the other side, thereby achieving the goal of victory.
Victory through systems. Based on systems and engineering thinking, a system is formed by reconnaissance, intelligence, communications, command, firepower, and support, building a closed-loop kill chain with integrated linkage, forming advantages, and achieving joint victory. Operations of different scales and types have different requirements for the size and scale of the support systems they need. Beyond-visual-range, stand-off strikes rely heavily on elements such as "detect, control, strike, assess, and protect." Without system support, no matter how strong the firepower, it is difficult to efficiently achieve the goal. For example, a missile without prior reconnaissance, target guidance, and flight control is like grasping parts of a whole without understanding the entirety (盲人摸象, mang ren mo xiang - "blind, person, touch, elephant") and searching for something extremely difficult to find (大海捞针, da hai lao zhen - "big, sea, scoop, needle"); not only is it difficult to hit the target, but it may also be intercepted. Close-quarters combat is likewise inseparable from system support; the difference lies in the amount, scale, and complexity of the external support required.
Victory through hybrid means. Winning a war no longer relies solely on military force and hot war; one can also use all non-military means such as politics, economics, diplomacy, science and technology, finance, and networks to contain, suppress, counter, and weaken the opponent, until the enemy is unable to fight back and thus concedes and surrenders. The "hybrid warfare," "hybrid competition," and "gray zone operations" proposed by some countries are based on this idea: careful planning, systematic design, and long-term positioning, and when the time is ripe, creating "black swan" or "gray rhino" events to achieve political goals without expending a single soldier.
Return to TopBy: 时俊杰
The takeoff and landing phases of fixed-wing aircraft are the most demanding segments of the entire mission profile in terms of site conditions and support system requirements, directly determining the sortie generation rate and sustained combat capability of the aviation force. The drag parachute and the arresting net are the core components of the aviation ground support system and are also the two categories of takeoff and landing deceleration and protection equipment with the widest current application scope and the highest technical maturity. The two each perform their own function or duty (各司其职, ge si qi zhi - "each, fulfill, its, duty") and support each other: the former undertakes the routine landing deceleration function, while the latter is responsible for the safety fallback under extreme contingencies. Relying on different braking dynamics principles, they form complementary effectiveness, jointly building a layered defense line for takeoff and landing safety, and are indispensable foundational support elements for ensuring flight safety and supporting combat capability generation.
Layered Protection System
The drag parachute, formally known as the aerodynamic deceleration parachute system, is an airborne deceleration device that relies on air resistance to offset the landing kinetic energy of a fighter aircraft. The entire system consists of a pilot chute, connecting straps, a canopy sleeve, a main canopy, and a release lock mechanism, and is normally stowed in the parachute compartment at the rear of the fuselage. After the fighter's main wheels touch down and enter the stable rollout phase, the pilot triggers the release mechanism, the compartment door lock is released, and the pilot chute with its built-in spring frame deploys first, pulling out the canopy sleeve and main canopy under the action of the oncoming airflow; the main canopy fully opens after a staged inflation process, continuously generating aerodynamic drag to rapidly dissipate the fighter's kinetic energy during rollout. Moreover, the drag parachute has the characteristic that the higher the rollout speed, the stronger the braking effect, and therefore it coordinates well with wheel brakes and speed brake panels to jointly achieve aircraft braking and deceleration.
From an engineering design perspective, the core advantages of the drag parachute lie in its strong adaptability and low maintenance cost. The canopy is woven from high-strength synthetic fiber fabric, with good resistance to high and low temperatures and good erosion resistance, and can be reused dozens of times after recovery, folding, and repacking. Ground crew personnel can complete the full recovery and repacking process quickly between takeoffs and landings, combining support efficiency with economy, making it the most mainstream deceleration solution for current tactical aircraft.
The arresting net, formally known as the net-type aircraft arresting system, is an emergency arresting device deployed on the ground. The entire system consists of net components, support posts, energy absorption devices, and fixed base foundations, and is typically installed in the overrun area at the end of the runway. When a fighter experiences contingencies such as brake failure, drag parachute malfunction, or hydraulic system damage that prevent normal deceleration, the high-speed rolling aircraft enters the net, and the net drives the energy absorption devices on both sides through tow straps, converting the aircraft's kinetic energy into heat through friction damping or water turbine work for smooth dissipation, achieving aircraft braking within a controllable overload range.
Compared with the drag parachute, the core value of the arresting net lies in its complete independence from onboard systems; it is unaffected by onboard equipment failure conditions and serves as the last line of defense for takeoff and landing safety. Modern arresting systems generally adopt adjustable damping designs, and by adjusting the energy absorption device parameters, they can accommodate aircraft of different tonnages without replacing the entire set of equipment. From the logic of the system-level protection architecture, the drag parachute covers the vast majority of normal landing scenarios and is the primary equipment for improving runway turnaround efficiency and reducing routine support costs; the arresting net targets low-probability extreme contingencies and undertakes the safety fallback function. The combination of the two builds a layered protection system of "routine deceleration—emergency fallback," which both maintains daily operational efficiency and upholds the bottom line of flight safety.
Outstanding Combat Value
Relying on differentiated technical performance, the drag parachute and the arresting net cover multiple scenarios including aviation training, combat, and emergency response, running through the takeoff and landing safety requirements of the entire fighter mission cycle.
In flight training, the drag parachute is a key support for improving runway operational efficiency. During high-density takeoff and landing training, excessively long single-sortie rollout distances directly compress runway turnaround capacity. The stable deceleration effect of the drag parachute can significantly shorten the time each aircraft occupies the runway, ensuring that multiple waves of aircraft can take off and land continuously. The arresting net, as a fixed safety facility, is permanently installed at the end of each runway and remains on standby during routine operations, responding to sudden situations that may occur during training such as brake failure, parachute compartment malfunction, or operational deviation, preventing accidents such as aircraft overrunning the runway or colliding with obstacles outside the airfield, and providing a safety boundary for routine training.
In wartime forward airfields and takeoff and landing points, the mobility and adaptability advantages of the two types of equipment are particularly prominent. Forward areas in wartime typically lack standardized long runways, and the available rollout length of temporarily leveled sites and highway-converted takeoff and landing points is very limited. The drag parachute can be transported forward simultaneously with the support detachment and can be quickly issued to combat aircraft without requiring ground-based supporting facilities, achieving effective deceleration on short-field sites and meeting the sustained takeoff and landing requirements of the front line.
The mobile arresting net can be rapidly deployed using transport vehicles without the need for pre-embedded permanent foundations, and a single crew can complete erection in a short time, rapidly building emergency arresting capability at highway takeoff and landing segments and makeshift mountain airfields to respond to extreme frontline conditions such as battle-damaged aircraft making forced landings or damaged braking systems.
In flight contingency emergency response scenarios, the arresting net plays an irreplaceable fallback role. Failures such as hydraulic pipeline rupture, braking system damage, or landing gear jamming during flight can cause a fighter to completely lose its normal deceleration capability. In such cases, the drag parachute carries the risk of deployment failure, whereas the ground arresting system, being independent of onboard equipment, can provide a reliable secondary braking channel.
Technology Evolution Direction
As aviation equipment performance iterates and operational scenarios continue to expand, takeoff and landing support equipment is evolving toward lightweight, intelligent, universal, and systematic directions, from single deceleration functions to full-chain system protection, continuously adapting to more complex future aviation operational requirements.
First, new material processes drive equipment performance upgrades. Materials technology is the core foundation for performance improvement of both types of equipment. In the drag parachute field, high-strength, high-modulus polyethylene fiber and aramid fiber are gradually replacing traditional nylon fabric, further reducing canopy weight for the same drag area, significantly improving wear resistance and anti-aging performance, and effectively extending service life; at the same time, functional coating improvements strengthen anti-icing, anti-salt-spray, and anti-sand-and-dust capabilities, further expanding applicability to extreme regions such as plateaus, deserts, cold zones, and maritime areas. In the arresting net field, ultra-high-strength composite fiber woven netting improves impact load resistance while reducing overall weight; buffer devices are developing toward integration and miniaturization, damping medium formulations are continuously optimized, achieving higher energy absorption efficiency and smaller equipment volume, making them more convenient for mobile transport and rapid deployment. The improvement in material durability also simultaneously reduces the full-lifecycle operation and maintenance costs of the equipment, adapting to high-frequency takeoff and landing support requirements.
Second, intelligent sensing empowers full-lifecycle operation and maintenance. Under traditional support models, equipment status relies on manual inspection, and fault detection suffers from lag. Currently, the transition toward intelligent status sensing and health management is maturing. By installing miniature sensor units on the drag parachute release mechanism, data such as lock status, strap wear, and canopy stowage integrity are collected in real time and simultaneously transmitted to the ground support command terminal, allowing prediction of deployment failure risks and enabling proactive fault handling. The arresting net system is equipped with intelligent monitoring base stations that collect parameters such as damping pressure, net tension, and foundation stability in real time, automatically identifying hidden hazards such as component damage and medium leakage and pushing maintenance alerts.
Third, deep system integration builds a full-chain safety protection network. In the future, takeoff and landing safety assurance will no longer be the independent operation of the two types of equipment, but rather integration into the all-domain takeoff and landing support system, achieving multi-system data interoperability and coordinated linkage. During the fighter landing phase, the onboard flight control system can automatically optimize the drag parachute deployment timing based on runway conditions and aircraft weight, controlling the canopy inflation sequence to achieve an optimal smooth deceleration profile; once the onboard braking system issues a fault warning, the ground arresting system can receive the signal simultaneously, completing parameter pre-adjustment and standby preparation in advance, shortening emergency response time. At the same time, equipment data is interconnected with firefighting, rescue, and aircraft maintenance dispatch platforms. After a fighter triggers the arresting net braking, information such as position, aircraft type, and payload can be automatically pushed, allowing dispatch of response forces to arrive quickly, forming a seamless linkage process of "deceleration braking—emergency arresting—rescue response" and comprehensively building a systematic defense line for takeoff and landing safety.
Return to TopBy: 黄军红
In the Jinggangshan Revolutionary Museum, a crude earthen cannon rests quietly in the exhibition hall. It consists of a barrel 132 centimeters long with a bore of 6.8 centimeters and a mounting pole; the barrel bears 11 iron hoops, and above the eleventh hoop there is a firing hole. This earthen cannon, designated a national first-class cultural relic, is the "steel last testament" of the three-year guerrilla war on the Hunan-Jiangxi border. On the isolated island of heavy enemy encirclement, in the desperate straits of living in extreme poverty with inadequate clothing (衣不蔽体, yi bu bei ti - "clothes, not, cover, body") and living in extreme hunger or poverty (食不果腹, shi bu guo fu - "eat, not, reach, belly"), every roar it let out was the most sonorous declaration of unwavering faith in revolutionary victory. Its cold iron body condensed the warmth of hot blood and engraved the immortal will of revolutionaries to survive in desperate straits and defend their dignity in darkness.
In August 1934, after the Sixth Red Army Corps marched west, the five independent Red Army regiments totaling more than 5,000 men left behind in the Hunan-Jiangxi revolutionary base area waged guerrilla warfare in the Anyuan, Lianhua, Yongxin, Pingxiang, Yichun, Fenyi, Chaling, and Liling areas along the border of Jiangxi and Hunan provinces. Facing the grave situation, the Hunan-Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee decided to establish the Wugong Mountain base area and set up the Lian'anping Central County Party Committee to strengthen leadership. That autumn, the provincial committee organs and units such as the Independent Third and Fifth Regiments successfully transferred to Taishan in Anfu to join forces, opening the three-year guerrilla war on the Hunan-Jiangxi border.
In November 1934, the Fourth Regiment of the Jiangxi Security Forces launched a surprise attack on Yuanjia Village; the Hunan-Jiangxi Independent Third and Fifth Regiments counterattacked, killing or wounding more than 80 enemy troops, but this exposed the provincial committee organs, which then transferred to Changyuantou and Lutai Village in Anfu. In December, the Kuomintang Fifty-third Division, together with local security forces, invaded; the independent regiments, heavily outnumbered, crossed the main peak of Wugong Mountain with the provincial committee and transferred to the Guanyinxing and Sangyuanping area.
In early 1935, the Kuomintang Seventy-seventh Division carried out a "mopping-up" campaign against the Hunan-Jiangxi border region, appointing Hu Liangyu as commander and setting a deadline for wiping out the Red Army guerrilla forces. Facing the grave situation, the Hunan-Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee nevertheless mistakenly adopted a policy of concentrating large forces for joint action, ordering the Independent Third and Fifth Regiments to strike out at Lianhua, which plunged the troops into difficulty. In early February, they were ambushed by the enemy at Hutouling in Lianhua; although they repelled the enemy through counterattack and captured some firearms, the Red Army's strength was exposed and casualties were severe. Peng Huiming, commander of the Hunan-Jiangxi Provincial Military District, died tragically, and the guerrilla forces suffered major losses.
After the Battle of Hutouling, the Hunan-Jiangxi Independent Third and Fifth Regiments operated in the Wugong Mountain area. On February 9, while the provincial committee organs were resting and reorganizing at Guanyinxing, they were attacked by the enemy after a traitor informed against them; their only radio was destroyed, and from then on they lost contact with the Central Committee and the Sixth Red Army Corps. Subsequently, the enemy intensified military "encirclement and suppression" and economic blockade, attempting to starve out the Red Army. The grave situation made the Hunan-Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee realize the harm of concentrating forces for head-on confrontation. In April, the provincial committee standing committee decided to streamline the organs and disperse forces for action; after completing the deployment, the provincial committee and provincial soviet organs transferred to Taiping Mountain. During the Hunan-Jiangxi Provincial Party Committee's operations around Wugong Mountain, the various units of the Hunan-Jiangxi Red Army suffered extremely heavy losses under the "mopping-up" campaigns of heavy Kuomintang forces, and their troop strength sharply declined.
When the struggle in the Hunan-Jiangxi border region faced a severe test, Provincial Party Committee Secretary Chen Hongshi and others betrayed the revolution, causing serious damage to Party organizations and the killing of large numbers of comrades. After Chen Hongshi's betrayal, Tan Yubao, chairman of the Hunan-Jiangxi Provincial Soviet Government, convened an emergency meeting at Qipan Mountain in Lianhua. The meeting unified thinking, formulated the new strategy of "preserving strength, developing steadily," and achieved a fundamental shift in struggle tactics, becoming the key turning point at which the three-year guerrilla war in the Hunan-Jiangxi border region turned from decline to resurgence.
After the Qipan Mountain meeting, the Kuomintang misjudged the situation and withdrew its regular troops. Facing the new "mopping-up" forces composed of local armed units that followed, the Hunan-Jiangxi Provisional Provincial Party Committee, under Tan Yubao's leadership, flexibly applied guerrilla tactics and successfully reversed the situation. Through a series of measures—establishing the Pingyian Central County Party Committee, transferring troops to open up the Qidushan base area, destroying blockhouses, and developing Party organizations—it not only restored the Jiulong Mountain guerrilla zone but also opened up the new Mingyue Mountain guerrilla zone, turning guerrilla warfare in the Hunan-Jiangxi border region from passive to active.
This earthen cannon is the very one Tan Yubao used when leading guerrilla warfare on the Hunan-Jiangxi border back then. In 1937, guerrilla fighter Zeng Zhaofu hid it at Xiao Shengxian's home to keep it from being seized by the enemy; Zeng Zhaofu later died tragically. After the founding of New China, Xiao Shengxian took it out and handed it over to the cultural relics department for collection in 1962.
Return to TopBy: 真大成
In the context of medieval Chinese history, the "Tang-Song transition" mostly focuses on changes in institutions, thought, and social structure, yet the transformation of the Chinese writing system is likewise a dimension of this historical process that cannot be overlooked. As the culmination of official Tang-dynasty Confucian classics carved in stone, the Kaicheng Stone Classics are significant not only for preserving the texts of the Confucian classics, but also for implementing the orthographic standards of the official character manuals onto the texts; later, through the widespread dissemination of the woodblock-printing system of the Five Dynasties and the Northern and Southern Song imperial academies, they facilitated the transformation of classical usage into everyday social usage.
Carving stone to correct the texts of the classics
From the beginning of the Tang dynasty, the state attached great importance to the textual accuracy and orthographic standardization of the Confucian classics. Because "the classics are far removed from the sages, and the characters contain errors and corruptions," Emperor Taizong ordered Yan Shigu to collate and verify the Five Classics, compile them into a definitive edition, and "promulgate the definitive books to the empire, ordering scholars to study them." While collating the Five Classics, Yan Shigu also wrote the Ziyang (Character Models) as a standard for character usage. Since the classics circulated in manuscript form at the time, even with a definitive edition and character models, textual distortion and orthographic irregularity still occurred from time to time in the course of repeated transcription. Feng Yan recorded in his Fengshi Wenjian Ji that during the Tianbao era he "discussed with the erudite scholars the loss of correctness in the classics." Faced with this situation, the solution Feng Yan proposed was to "request the establishment of the Great Tang Stone Classics"; slightly earlier, Li Yangbing also expressed that "carving stone to make seal-script transcriptions, fully writing out the Six Classics, and erecting them in the Bright Hall, to serve as an authoritative and unalterable classic, to be called the Great Tang Stone Classics." From this it can be seen that only by placing the classical texts on stone and carving them into stone classics, making them an authoritative and unalterable classic (不刊之典, bu kan zhi dian - "not, carve, particle, book"), could standards be effectively established and errors avoided — this was already a consensus among Tang-dynasty literati.
Because the situation in which "the classics were not correct" led to "difficulty in making choices" grew increasingly serious, in the tenth year of the Dali era (775), Emperor Daizong ordered Zhang Can, Director of the Imperial Academy, together with various Confucian officials, to carefully verify the classical texts. Zhang Can collated and examined the editions of the classics, discovered numerous variant characters, and used red ink to write these "confusing forms" beside the text; subsequently he ordered Yan Chuanjing to collect these "doubtful characters and variant forms," ultimately compiling the Wujing Wenzi (Characters of the Five Classics). Zhang Can wrote the collated classical texts together with the Wujing Wenzi on the walls of the eastern and western wings of the Lecture Hall of the Imperial University, and for a time "those who came to copy them were as numerous as a market crowd, and they spread to the corners of the sea" and "scholars would come to seek correction." However, plastered walls easily crumble, and after a long time they peeled and decayed; people recopied them onto wooden boards, but even hard wood rots, and likewise could not last long. Later, Emperor Wenzong of Tang accepted the suggestion of Zheng Tan and ordered various Confucian scholars to correct the errors in the classics. On the basis of the Wujing Wenzi, Tang Xuandu supplemented it with the Xinjia Jiujing Ziyang (Newly Added Character Models for the Nine Classics), re-establishing the character forms ("character forms" meaning character-form standards and usage norms), and ultimately in the second year of the Kaicheng era (837) the "Stone-wall Nine Classics" were carved — namely, the Kaicheng Stone Classics.
Establishing the standard for classical character usage and the imperial academy edition system
The Kaicheng Stone Classics placed great emphasis on the orthographic standardization of the classics, assigning dedicated personnel to the task, including both "officials for re-establishing character forms" and "officials for re-establishing the character forms of the stone classics." Even so, after the Kaicheng Stone Classics were completed, they were still ridiculed as "deviating from the teachers' methods," to the extent that "for decades after their erection, famous Confucian scholars did not look at them." But Zhang Can's texts written on the walls of the lecture hall (the "wall edition") and the later recopyings onto wooden boards (the "wood edition") had long since been lost; what truly applied and implemented the character forms recognized by Zhang Can to the texts and exerted a lasting influence was still the Kaicheng Stone Classics. The Wujing Wenzi and the Kaicheng Stone Classics were produced by imperial decree, embodying the will of the state, "serving as a model for all generations"; even if famous Confucian scholars did not look at them, in the eyes of ordinary Confucian students and scholars they still held an exalted position. Their character usage belonged to the national standard and naturally possessed authority, and was followed and used as scholars throughout the empire studied the classics.
After the Kaicheng Stone Classics were completed, they were initially placed in the Imperial Academy in Chang'an; given the conditions of the time, not many people could have seen and used them. It was not until the third year of the Changxing era of Emperor Mingzong of the Later Tang of the Five Dynasties (932), when the Nine Classics were carved using the Kaicheng Stone Classics as the standard, that they multiplied into thousands of copies in a special way and spread widely. The Jiu Wudai Shi (Old History of the Five Dynasties), "Biography of Feng Dao," records: "At the time, because the various classics contained errors, [Feng Dao] together with his colleague Li Yu commissioned the academic officials Tian Min and others to take the stone classics carved by Zheng Tan in the Western Capital, carve them into printing blocks, and circulate them throughout the empire; later students relied on them." The Wudai Huiyao, chapter 8, "Classics" section, records: "In the second month of the third year of the Changxing era of the Later Tang, the Secretariat-Chancellery memorialized: 'We request that the Nine Classics be carved into printing blocks in accordance with the characters of the stone classics.' The edict said: 'Order the Imperial Academy to assemble the erudites and Confucian students, take the stone classic editions from the Western Capital, each according to their own field of study, copy out and annotate the texts by sentence and phrase, read them carefully, and then hire skilled character-carving craftsmen, each carving printing blocks according to the fascicle divisions, and promulgate them widely throughout the empire. If people of any kind wish to copy the classics, they must all follow the printed editions as decreed, and may not intermix other miscellaneous editions.'" From this it can be seen that the Five Dynasties imperial academy editions (the classical texts) were the incarnation of the Kaicheng Stone Classics transformed from "stone" to "wood." The Northern Song Imperial Academy inherited the printing blocks of the Five Dynasties imperial academy editions, and in the early Song they were still being printed and promulgated. From the Jingde era to the Tianxi era, the Imperial Academy, following the Five Dynasties imperial academy editions, successively re-carved the Twelve Classics; these were the Northern Song imperial academy editions. Later, the Southern Song Imperial Academy re-carved them again, and there were also printings by prefectural and county governments and official schools — all of these belong to the stone-classics–imperial-academy-edition system.
Realizing a transformation in character-usage practices
The stability, circulation, and permanence of printed editions were all far superior to those of manuscripts, and with the added endorsement of their status as "decreed editions" and "imperial academy editions," together with the fact that the classics were core reading material for the imperial examinations, it is easy to imagine that the character usage of the imperial academy editions of the classics, which inherited from the stone classics, was fixed as a standard and rule, spread throughout society, and became widely accepted, thereby becoming everyday usage. In this sense, the Kaicheng Stone Classics projected the character forms recognized by the Wujing Wenzi from the character dictionary onto the texts, connecting the characters prescribed by the dictionary with the characters actually used in the texts, and played a bridging role between the character manuals and everyday social usage.
Let us take "son-in-law" and "wish" as examples to illustrate this point.The Shuowen Jiezi, "Shi" section, states: "壻 means husband. From 士, with 胥 as phonetic." The character "壻," meaning husband or son-in-law, although already attested in the Shuowen Jiezi, had no attested usage in documents before the Tang dynasty, which also means that before the Tang, "壻" was stored only in the character dictionary and had not entered the texts (before the Tang, the character "婿" was used). After the Tang, "son-in-law" began to appear in documentary usage, but in very small numbers, and mostly in epitaphs.Whether in frequency or distribution, "壻" was at a disadvantage compared to "婿." However, by the Song dynasty, the situation reversed — the attested usages of "壻" increased dramatically, entering all kinds of documents comprehensively and becoming an everyday character of the time, while the frequency of "婿" plummeted, showing that it had been eliminated. From today's perspective, the character usage of the Confucian classics standardized by the Kaicheng Stone Classics may have been one of the important driving forces.
Although the everyday character used in Tang society was "婿," the Wujing Wenzi judged it as an "erroneous" character and took "壻" as the correct form: "壻; writing 婿 is erroneous." Accordingly, the Kaicheng Stone Classics, following the character forms prescribed by the Wujing Wenzi, used "壻" throughout — among the 40 instances of "壻" in the Twelve Classics, checked one by one against the rubbings (based on the complete rubbing held by the Institute for Research in Humanities, Kyoto University, without any cut-and-pasted supplementary characters), all use "壻," with not a single instance of "婿." Since no Five Dynasties or Northern Song imperial academy editions survive today, spot checks of the Erya in the facsimile edition of the Tianlu Linlang Congshu (this edition is a Southern Song reprint of a Five Dynasties or Northern Song imperial academy edition), the Liji in the Chunxi fourth-year Fuzhou Military Prefecture official printing, and the Chunqiu Jingzhuan Jijie in the Xingguo Military School printing show conditions completely identical to the Kaicheng Stone Classics. By virtue of the authoritative status of the Confucian classics and their widespread study, "壻" was quickly accepted and used by the general public, thereby spreading and achieving the replacement of "婿." At this point, "壻" completely completed its transformation from a state of being stored in the character dictionary to a state of being used in documents (society), and the Kaicheng Stone Classics can be said to have been the medium that prompted this transformation.
In addition, the character "願," meaning hope or wish, had no original character of its own; according to the explanation in the Shuowen Jiezi, "願" originally meant "big head." People of the Han dynasty borrowed a character whose original meaning was "top of the head" to express this meaning. The use of "wish" began very late.The earliest known documentary usage currently available appears in the 730s, but it remained rare throughout the entire eighth century, indicating that it had not yet been widely recognized and accepted. But after the Wujing Wenzi prescribed "願" as the correct character and the Kaicheng Stone Classics used "願" throughout, the number of attested usages of "願" increased substantially. Taking the stone inscriptions of the late Tang reigns of Emperor Yizong, Emperor Xizong, and Emperor Zhaozong as a statistical sample, of 54 instances of "願," 37 use "願," accounting for about 69%, far outnumbering other character forms. The above-mentioned Song printed editions of the Erya, the Liji, and the Chunqiu Jingzhuan Jijie likewise all use "願." The prescription of the character form by the Wujing Wenzi, the actual use in the Kaicheng Stone Classics, and the continued influence exerted by the stone-classics–imperial-academy-edition system through its authority were important driving forces for "願" becoming the standard character, among which the Kaicheng Stone Classics, by establishing "願" as the correct character and applying it to the texts, played the most critical role. It can thus be seen that in the course of Chinese character usage moving from the errors and mixed forms of the manuscript era to the standardization of the printed era, the Kaicheng Stone Classics played the role of an intermediary linking the Tang and the Song.
(The author is Deputy Dean of the School of Humanities, Zhejiang University)
Return to TopBy: 严贝妮
The Library of Congress is located on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C. It came into being out of the need of the U.S. government to move the capital in 1800, and it holds more than 180 million items of collection materials. Among its immense quantity of information and books (浩如烟海, hao ru yan hai - "vast, like, misty, sea"), a batch of Chinese classics that crossed the vast ocean (远渡重洋, yuan du zhong yang - "far, cross, heavy, ocean") is particularly noteworthy. In the mid-19th century, these classics began their long journey of traveling across the ocean (漂洋过海, piao yang guo hai - "float, ocean, cross, sea") into the Library of Congress.
The Origins and Early Accumulation of the Chinese Collection
The historical roots of the Library of Congress's Chinese collection can be traced back to the books collected by Caleb Cushing, the first U.S. minister to China, during his mission to China in 1844-1845. In 1845, Cushing brought back to the United States 237 titles of Chinese ancient books in 2,547 volumes. This batch of books was stored in various places, including Massachusetts, until it was formally transferred to the Library of Congress in 1879.
The gift of books from Emperor Tongzhi was the first time the Library of Congress obtained Chinese classics through official diplomatic channels, marking a landmark moment in the history of its Chinese collection development. In 1867, the United States authorized the Smithsonian Institution to conduct international publication exchanges, with the materials obtained through exchange to be deposited in the Library of Congress. The following year, the United States presented a batch of official publications to the Qing government, initiating formal publication exchanges between the two governments. In 1869, Emperor Tongzhi reciprocated with 933 volumes of Chinese ancient books (some sources say 905 volumes) stamped with the English-language seal reading "Presented by the Emperor of China to the Government of the United States," including such traditional Chinese classics as the Compendium of Materia Medica (Bencao Gangmu), the Peiwen Rhyme Treasury (Peiwen Yunfu), and the Complete Treatise on Agriculture (Nongzheng Quanshu).
From the late 19th century to the early 20th century, as Sino-American cultural exchange gradually deepened, the channels through which Chinese-language documents entered the Library of Congress became increasingly diverse. American diplomats, missionaries, and sinologists who had served in China, such as William W. Rockhill, Samuel Wells Williams, and W.A.P. Martin, continuously enriched the Library of Congress's Chinese collection through donations, exchanges, and commissioned purchases. By around 1900, the Library of Congress's Chinese-language holdings had exceeded 10,000 volumes.
The Formation of a Systematic Collection and Professional Transformation
In 1904, the Qing government participated in the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. In addition to silk, porcelain, and tea, it also brought more than 190 titles of Chinese books, covering publications of the Hubei Official Book Bureau and the Chongwen Book Bureau, translations by the Hubei Translation Academy, and a batch of precious maps. After the exposition concluded, the Qing government presented the exhibited books to the United States as an official gift. Four years later, the Qing government sent Special Envoy Tang Shaoyi to visit the United States and presented a copy of the Complete Collection of Ancient and Modern Books (Gujin Tushu Jicheng). President Roosevelt subsequently deposited it in the Library of Congress. The acquisition of this large encyclopedia-class work greatly enhanced the academic weight of the library's Chinese collection and became an important testament to Sino-American cultural exchange in the early 20th century.
During the same period, Walter T. Swingle, an American botanist who had long studied citrus and other economic plants, vigorously promoted Chinese culture and strongly advocated the collection of Chinese books. Between 1915 and 1926, with the assistance of Zhang Yuanji and others at the Commercial Press, Swingle procured for the Library of Congress more than 68,000 volumes of encyclopedias, collectanea, and local gazetteers, including 1,500 local gazetteers, many editions of which have become rare editions difficult to find in mainland China today.
As the Chinese-language holdings in the library grew, the Library of Congress formally established a Chinese Division in 1928, marking the entry of Chinese collection development into a new stage of professionalization. Its first head was the renowned sinologist Arthur W. Hummel, who had long engaged in missionary work and education in Fenzhou, Shanxi, and was deeply versed in Chinese documents and traditional culture. During Hummel's tenure, the Chinese-language holdings of the Library of Congress's Chinese Division grew from approximately 100,000 volumes to more than 290,000 volumes.
The Relocation of Classics and the Continuation of Cultural Lineage Amidst the Turmoil of War
With the full-scale outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the Commercial Press was reduced to ruins in Japanese bombing raids, the library buildings south of the Yangtze River were all in dire straits, and the rare books of the Jia Collection originally stored in the Shanghai International Settlement were also in a very precarious or dangerous situation (岌岌可危, ji ji ke wei - "precarious, can, be, danger"). To preserve these important classics, Yuan Tongli, director of the National Library of Peiping, with the assistance of Qian Cunxun and others as well as the American ambassador to China, carried out a covert cultural rescue operation. Before the outbreak of the Pacific War, more than one hundred crates of carefully selected rare ancient books were shipped in batches aboard merchant vessels and deposited for safekeeping at the Library of Congress and other locations.
From 1939 to 1947, the renowned bibliographer Wang Chongmin, at the invitation of Hummel, made a special trip to the Library of Congress to appraise and organize the Chinese ancient books in its collection. Using the traditional four-part classification system, he wrote descriptive annotations for every Chinese classic that had drifted to the Library of Congress. From layout and line format to authors, collection seals, prefaces, colophons, and inscriptions, and even the provenance of editions, he left nothing out, no matter how large or small (巨细无遗, ju xi wu yi - "huge, small, none, omit"). More than 1,700 annotations, each one the product of painstaking effort. Later compiled by Yuan Tongli, they were published in facsimile by the Library of Congress in Washington in 1957 under the title A Descriptive Catalog of Rare Chinese Books in the Library of Congress. The two thick volumes became an important resource for American sinological research and also laid a solid foundation for the compilation of descriptive catalogs of other overseas Chinese ancient books. After the Second World War, the United States confiscated a large quantity of documents and publications belonging to the Japanese government and its related institutions, and the U.S. government subsequently transferred some of the Chinese-language documents among them to the Library of Congress for preservation. This batch of overseas Chinese-language documents constituted yet another large-scale expansion of the Library of Congress's Chinese collection.
Inheritance and Openness in the Digital Age
In the latter half of the 20th century, with Nixon's visit to China, Sino-American relations began to move toward normalization. In 1972, Wang Chi, then deputy head of the Chinese Division of the Library of Congress, visited mainland China. During this trip, he made contact with the Beijing Library (now the National Library of China) and began promoting the resumption of publication exchanges between the two national libraries. In 2000, the Library of Congress launched a three-year Chinese collection development and enhancement project aimed at significantly improving the library's holdings of contemporary Chinese documents. In 2004, the Chinese collection leapt from 300,000 volumes to more than one million volumes, making the Library of Congress deserving of its reputation (当之无愧, dang zhi wu kui - "should, that, no, shame") as a giant in the field of overseas Chinese-language document collection.
In 2005, then-Librarian of Congress James H. Billington proposed the concept of building a World Digital Library. Led by the Library of Congress and built through multi-party cooperation, the World Digital Library was officially launched in 2009, with the National Library of China providing a large quantity of ancient books, maps, rubbings of steles and inscriptions, and oracle bone materials as a partner institution. At the same time, the Library of Congress has progressively advanced the digitization of its own Chinese rare book collection since 2005. By 2019, the digital collection of Chinese rare books was officially launched on the Library of Congress's website, with nearly 2,000 of its more than 5,300 rare book titles made freely available to readers worldwide, enabling Chinese rare books to transcend the limitations of physical buildings and geographic boundaries. In 2023, the Library of Congress announced the completion of the digitization of its holdings of 41 volumes of the Yongle Encyclopedia (Yongle Dadian) and their opening to the public. The scattered volumes of this Ming dynasty masterpiece have since been transformed from rare artifacts in the stacks into cultural treasures available for cloud-based use around the globe.
In recent years, the Library of Congress has increasingly emphasized the in-depth development and organization of its Chinese collection. In 2025, the Library of Congress revised the old bibliographic records for 13 volumes of Hainan local gazetteers in its collection through its Junior Fellows Program, supplementing them in full with information on edition provenance, physical appearance, and the like. In 2026, 2 of the 24 newly opened Junior Fellows projects relate to the Chinese collection, involving the cataloging and indexing of 20th-century Chinese periodicals and Shandong local gazetteers in the Library of Congress's holdings. From the 19th century to the 21st century, the Chinese collection has taken up residence across the sea, gathered from scattered origins, and passed from storage to transmission. These works are not merely silent documents on foreign bookshelves; they are important testimony to Chinese civilization's journey to the world.
Return to TopBy: 贾猛
Cai Xi (1536–1615), courtesy name Shibei, sobriquet Xiaoqian, was a native of Luzhou Hefei (present-day Hefei, Anhui), a Ming-dynasty statesman and Neo-Confucian scholar. Cai Xi passed the metropolitan examination in the 38th year of the Jiajing reign (1559) and served through the three reigns of Emperor Shizong, Emperor Muzong, and Emperor Shenzong, holding office for more than 50 years, ultimately reaching the post of Director of the Court of the Imperial Stud in Nanjing and acting superintendent of the Nanjing Imperial Academy. Deeply influenced by the Cheng-Zhu school of Neo-Confucianism and by Wang Yangming's School of the Mind, Cai Xi studied as a disciple of Hu Zhi, a representative figure of the Wang Yangming school and a second-generation transmitter of Wang Yangming's teachings, accompanied Hu Zhi to Wuchang to give lectures, and also exchanged ideas on learning with Luo Rufang, a representative of the Taizhou school. His Neo-Confucian thought integrated self-cultivation, family governance, scholarly inquiry, and political administration, displaying the distinctive feature of "revering Confucianism without being bound by it."
Cai Xi's study of the Great Learning was extremely profound. He authored works such as An Explanation of the Ancient Text of the Great Learning and Master Cheng's Definitive Edition of the Great Learning. The core content of his Neo-Confucian thought is concentrated in the three characters "wu zi qi" (do not deceive oneself) from the Great Learning. "What is meant by 'making the intention sincere' is allowing no self-deception" is the opening thesis of the chapter on sincerity of intention in the Great Learning. From the pre-Qin Confucians to the Song-Ming Neo-Confucians, "sincerity of intention" was always the crucial link in the transition from the investigation of things and extension of knowledge to the rectification of the mind and cultivation of the person, and "wu zi qi" reveals the most intrinsic and fundamental requirement of the work of sincerity: a person's true moral cultivation is manifested not only in outward behavior conforming to norms, but also in whether the inner mind is genuine and free of falsehood, and whether one can still maintain a genuine love of good and hatred of evil in places where no one knows. Throughout his life Cai Xi held "wu zi qi" in the highest esteem, holding that "the single thought of 'wu zi qi' is the mind of Heaven and Earth, the destiny of the people, the learning of the former sages, and the basis of peace for ten thousand generations; it cannot be sought elsewhere." He distilled "wu zi qi" into the master key of the entire Great Learning; "wu zi qi" was no longer merely a concept explaining human nature, but became a path of cultivation connecting inner self-cultivation with outer practice.
"Not deceiving the mind"
"Wu zi qi" first of all points to the human inner mind. Cai Xi held that the foundation of self-cultivation lies in sincerity of intention, and the essence of sincerity of intention lies in being careful when alone to avoid temptation (慎独, shen du - "cautious, alone"), taking this as the fundamental starting point of personal cultivation. It is easy to observe rules in front of others, but difficult to restrain selfish desires when alone with no one present. "The petty man, when idle and at leisure, is not cautious and gives rein to evil; when he sees a gentleman, he is displeased and hides it—but is it not too late, and does he still cover up his evil and display his good?" This is precisely the typical case of self-deception; when the gentleman is alone, "as if watched by ten eyes and pointed at by ten hands," the good and evil in his mind cannot be concealed in the slightest. Facing his own original mind directly within, and not indulging a single selfish thought, is the work of being careful when alone. Being careful when alone in places where no one is present, holding firm in times of hardship, and being open and upright in matters of right and wrong—this is the most genuine realization of the Way and the purest self-cultivation. This concept of self-cultivation "grounded in sincerity" discarded the abstruseness of the School of the Mind, returned to the plain original meaning of Confucian self-cultivation, and provided a clear model for later scholars to cultivate virtue. Throughout his life Cai Xi was frugal and self-disciplined, indifferent to fame and profit: "In his personal conduct he was frugal and simple, eating no more than one dish at a meal; though he held a two-thousand-stone rank, he never decorated his hall with colored hangings or set up music when ascending it"; "his household walls were bare, comparable to a poor scholar"; and when he died, "his clothes merely covered his body, and his coffin merely contained his burial shroud." Throughout his life his words and deeds were consistent between words and deeds (言行表里如一, yan xing biao li ru yi - "speech, action, surface, inside, like, one"). The sincerity of intention spoken of here is ultimately embodied in how a person treats power, rank, emolument, and his own desires. Only by not altering one's inner standard because of external evaluation, and not accommodating one's selfish desires because of temporary gain or loss, can one be said to be truly "sincere."
"Not deceiving in affairs"
Cai Xi implemented "wu zi qi" as the most basic bottom line, carrying sincerity of intention into concrete affairs, so that "the sincerity of the mind" was ultimately manifested as "the genuineness of action." He held that "the three characters 'wu zi qi' must begin with the three characters 'bu che huang' (do not tell lies)" and "fearing the words of the sages advances virtue; observing the laws of the court brings safety to the person." To profess in one's heart a commitment to the people yet turn a blind eye to their suffering is self-deception; to advocate righteousness and principle in words yet change one's principles in the face of practical interests is equally self-deception. Cai Xi's official career embodied the practical character of the "wu zi qi" concept at every turn, putting into practice the Confucian essence of "benevolent governance and love of the people." In Changde, he observed the conditions of the people, promoted benefits and eliminated evils (兴利除弊, xing li chu bi - "prosper, benefit, remove, evil"), stored grain against famine, dredged canals, and built dikes, so that "upright officials and honest ways (清风直道, qing feng zhi dao - "clear, wind, straight, way") prevailed, officials feared him and the people cherished him"; in Ruzhou, he braved danger to patrol alone on horseback, punishing the bandits who destroyed farmland, mined without authorization, and harassed and harmed the people, so that "the four quarters were at peace"; in Quanzhou, he abolished corrupt official practices and rescinded exorbitant taxes and levies, and the people vied to praise him. At court, he cherished the state and family in his heart and was upright and outspoken. When the mining supervisors and tax envoys encroached upon the people of Luzhou and Fengyang, he did not fear the powerful and influential, submitting memorials to forcefully stop the harsh governance; when the dispute over the succession to the throne concerned the safety of the state, and the assembled officials feared disaster and remained silent, Cai Xi submitted memorials repeatedly, earnestly requesting that the heir apparent be established early and the foundation of the state be secured, setting aside his own official career and personal safety. All of this originated from the inner conscience not deceiving, not altering his original mind because of power and influence, not concealing his position because of fortune or misfortune; what he thought in his mind, wrote with his brush, and did with his feet was always consistent—this made him a model of "wu zi qi" for those in government, and his contemporaries praised him as "returning to public office after retirement (包老复出, bao lao fu chu - "envelop, old, return, emerge")."
"Not deceiving in conduct"
The most distinctive feature of Cai Xi's Neo-Confucian thought lies in his strenuous rejection of empty theorizing, developing "wu zi qi" into operable, upholdable daily norms. Cai Xi established precepts separately for personal conduct and family life, composing the Ten Precepts for Personal Conduct and the Ten Precepts for Family Life, appended to his Commentary on the Great Learning. In these family precepts, Cai Xi admonished his sons and younger brothers to be sincere and observe propriety, to be indifferent to fame and profit, to be strict with themselves, and to value righteousness over wealth, such as: "If in every matter one sees only one's own faults, then one will make some progress every day"; "How much of the great man's vast, flood-like qi has been weakened by the single character 'profit'!"; "In establishing oneself and regulating one's conduct, a scholar-gentleman must not allow himself the slightest evasion, and must not allow others the slightest evasion"; "Why must a father leave gold? He must leave precepts; why must a son obey commands? He must follow goodness." These norms may seem trivial, but they precisely reflect the practical orientation of his thought, making "wu zi qi" no longer a principle of the study but a standard of conduct for clothing, food, daily life, and dealings with others. In the 29th year of the Wanli reign (or, according to one account, the 21st year), Cai Xi retired and returned to his hometown, and from then on "devoted himself to writing and lecturing, establishing a 'Great Learning Hall,' proclaiming the three characters 'wu zi qi' as the purpose of the Great Learning, and those who came from throughout the realm to study with him were very numerous." A single Great Learning Hall, a single place of lecturing, became an important base for the transmission of Neo-Confucianism between the Yangtze and Huai rivers in the late Ming. Lecturing there, Cai Xi did not esteem empty talk but valued only practical cultivation, establishing the teaching on the three characters "wu zi qi," which caused the local literary style to esteem substance and discard emptiness, sweeping away the malpractices of superficial and empty talk. It is precisely at this level that "wu zi qi" reveals its most practical-learning aspect: the great Way does not depart from daily life, and self-cultivation does not await extraordinary times.
Cai Xi did not merely repeatedly expound a concept from the Great Learning; he sought to use it to connect the inner mind-and-nature with outer practice. The great Way is supremely simple; what matters is putting it into practice. Cai Xi established his teaching on the three characters "wu zi qi," transforming the thousand-year Way of sincerity of intention of the Great Learning into a practice of self-cultivation that everyone can carry out. What he left behind was not merely a set of Neo-Confucian theory, but a posture of life that examines itself within and acts with sincerity without.
(The author is Vice President of the Hefei Academy of Social Sciences)
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