Study Times - October 5, 2026

Building an employment-friendly development model to promote high-quality and full employment

By: 莫荣

Employment is the most fundamental aspect of people's livelihoods, bearing on the immediate interests of the people, on the sound development of the economy and society, and on the long-term stability and peace (长治久安, chang zhi jiu an - "long, lasting; stability, long-term") of the country. To study in depth and truly grasp General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses on people's livelihoods, especially on employment work, to comprehensively grasp the new achievements in high-quality and full employment and the new situation and new challenges it faces, and to explore the building of an employment-friendly development model, are theoretical and practical questions that currently require in-depth research and serious answers.

Deeply study and carefully comprehend the rich connotations of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses on high-quality and full employment

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping, standing at the strategic height of governance, has emphasized the need to "strengthen the employment-first orientation in promoting high-quality development," to "elevate the stabilization of employment to a strategic height for overall consideration," to "implement the employment-first strategy," and that "employment is the most fundamental aspect of people's livelihoods. Strengthen employment-first policies, improve employment promotion mechanisms, and promote high-quality and full employment." These important discourses profoundly answer the major theoretical and practical questions of how to view and how to carry out employment work in the new era, and contain a distinct people's standpoint, scientific methods of thinking, and profound reasoning, theory, and philosophy. When presiding over the 14th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "promoting high-quality and full employment is the new positioning and new mission of employment work on the new journey of the new era." General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly explained the connotations of high-quality and full employment from both the macro and micro levels, namely, at the macro level "mainly including sufficient employment opportunities, fair employment environment, optimized employment structure, efficient person-post matching, and harmonious labor relations," and at the micro level "mainly manifested in workers not only having work to do, but also having stable jobs, reasonable income, reliable safeguards, and occupational safety." When participating in the deliberations of the Jiangsu delegation at the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping again emphasized the need to "actively and proactively answer topics such as how to achieve high-quality and full employment." By marking employment work with "new positioning and new mission," General Secretary Xi Jinping has reflected our Party's deepened understanding of the laws of employment and has established a brand-new theoretical coordinate for us to understand and comprehend employment.

The dialectical elevation of mutual shaping and common sublimation between the labor subject and the labor object. Marx held that labor is the objectifying activity of the essential power of the human being, and that in transforming the objective world, the human being also transforms the self. Employment, manifested as the combination of the worker and the post, is in essence the dialectical movement of two-way objectification between the labor subject and the labor object in labor practice. As the social form of realization of labor, employment is not only a means of making a living, but also a field of practice in which the subject and the object mutually shape and commonly sublimate each other. The starting point of employment is to satisfy survival needs, but it does not stop at the level of making a living; rather, it is gradually embodied in the conscious leap of the hierarchy of needs. When workers obtain stable income through employment, the internal driving force of career development impels them to pursue higher goals, including skill refinement, career advancement, and social recognition, and to realize self-worth in creative labor. The sublimation of the object in employment is the continuous functional expansion, value enhancement, and form evolution of posts, occupations, industries, and even employment forms — the carriers of labor objects and employment — driven by workers' practice. Traditional posts are essentially fixed units of job responsibilities; in the stage of high-quality development, posts are no longer static but become an ecological foundation supporting the continuous growth of workers. Workers not only complete work tasks but also obtain training opportunities, growth channels, and space for innovation. With industrial upgrading and the development of the digital economy and artificial intelligence, more and more posts contain creative, knowledge-based, and technical content, and the creativity of labor content has significantly increased, realizing a sublimation from repetition to creation, which both promotes the development of productive forces and creates conditions for the self-realization of the subject. The sublimation of the subject and the sublimation of the object are not isolated from each other; high-quality and full employment is a dialectical unity (辩证统一, bian zheng tong yi - "dialectical, unity") in which the subject and the object are interdependent and mutually reinforcing within the same employment practice. "High quality" points to the dimension of the subject, enabling workers to obtain decent income, a good environment, and space for development in employment. "Full" points to the dimension of the object, creating sufficient posts so that every person with the ability and willingness to work can obtain employment opportunities. The employment-first strategy provides institutional safeguards for the sublimation of the subject and the object, and placing employment first at the core of macro policy means consciously following the law of two-way sublimation of the subject and the object in top-level design.

The mutual integration of macro policy goals with the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security. General Secretary Xi Jinping has expounded the profound connotations of high-quality and full employment from the macro, overall, holistic, and strategic heights. The five aspects — sufficient employment opportunities, fair employment environment, optimized employment structure, efficient person-post matching, and harmonious labor relations — are interconnected, organically unified, and constitute a complete system. Sufficient employment opportunities are determined by the basic national conditions of our country as a large population and a large labor force, and by its socialist nature, and are also an inevitable requirement of the people-centered development thought. Development is for the people; first of all, workers must have work to do and jobs to hold. A fair employment environment means that all workers can compete on ability and shine through hard work in a fair and just environment, jointly enjoying the opportunity to shine in life, jointly enjoying the opportunity to realize their dreams, and jointly enjoying the opportunity to grow and progress together with the motherland and the era. Optimized employment structure means the orderly transfer of workers from low-productivity sectors to high-productivity sectors, which is a universal law of economic development and also something that naturally follows (应有之义, ying you zhi yi - "should, have, of, meaning") from high-quality and full employment. Efficient person-post matching requires continuously improving the efficiency of human resource allocation, making it easier for enterprises to meet recruitment needs, and shortening the time workers spend on job seeking. Harmonious labor relations mean that workers' rights and interests such as labor contracts, wage income, rest and leave, and social insurance can all be effectively safeguarded. General Secretary Xi Jinping always keeps the well-being of the people at heart, and has particularly emphasized that high-quality and full employment is mainly manifested in workers not only having work to do, but also having stable jobs, reasonable income, reliable safeguards, and occupational safety. This embodies a profound feeling for the people and profoundly reveals the people's nature of employment. The ultimate evaluation standard for employment is the immediate personal experience of every worker.

The organic unity of employment quality, employment quantity, and employment efficiency. General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses on high-quality and full employment constitute a holistic goal integrating "full employment," "high-quality employment," and "efficient employment," reflecting the integrated unity of "quantity," "quality," and "efficiency." "Full employment" does not mean zero unemployment, but rather that the unemployment rate is at the natural rate of unemployment. Under our country's current macro policy goals, the macro-control target of keeping the surveyed urban unemployment rate at around 5.5 percent can be regarded as the natural rate of unemployment. "High-quality employment" transcends the traditional single indicator of the "employment rate," emphasizing that employment encompasses multiple conditions such as labor remuneration, social security, labor relations, and career development. "Efficient employment" emphasizes synergy between employment and industry, efficient person-post matching, and efficient employment services, with the goal of achieving optimal allocation of labor resources. The goal of high-quality and full employment is a new goal adapted to the people's aspiration for a better life in the new era, and is also a new height in our Party's understanding of the laws of employment work in the new era.

Grasp the new achievements in high-quality and full employment and the new situation and new challenges it faces

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, our country's employment work has achieved historic accomplishments and undergone historic changes. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, a cumulative total of 62.42 million urban jobs were created, the average surveyed urban unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, and the overall employment situation remained stable throughout. Total employment continued to grow, with urban employment expanding from 370 million people in 2012 to 475 million people in 2025. Three hundred million migrant workers increased their income through employment, the scale of out-of-town employment among workers lifted out of poverty remained stable at over 30 million people, and employment played the role of a "ballast stone" in safeguarding and improving people's livelihoods and in consolidating and expanding the achievements of the battle against poverty. Employment quality steadily improved, a wage income distribution system adapted to the market economy was basically established, workers' wage income continued to grow, the protection of labor rights and interests entered the track of rule of law, and the system for protecting the rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment became increasingly sound. The employment structure continued to optimize, with the service industry becoming the largest source of employment absorption, the average years of education of the working-age population reaching 11.3 years, and skilled workers exceeding 220 million. We must also clearly recognize that achieving high-quality and full employment is a systematic project. At present and for some time to come, our country's employment field faces a complex situation in which multiple challenges are intertwined and superimposed, with demographic structural changes, flexible employment forms, and industrial and technological transformation constituting three major challenges.

Demographic structural changes reshape a new pattern of labor supply. Population is the foundation of employment. Our country's population development has entered a new normal, and the trends of fewer children, an aging population, and regional differentiation in population increase and decrease have had a fundamental impact on the labor market. Although the total working-age population remains large, the total labor force has begun to enter a stage of declining development. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the scale of the working-age population will further shrink. Although the total working-age population is decreasing, because young people, especially college graduates and other employment groups, are entering a peak period, the number of newly grown laborers employed in urban areas each year remains at a high level. Together with nearly ten million registered urban unemployed persons, the pressure of total employment always exists. At the same time, the structural contradiction in labor supply continues to deepen. This is manifested in the coexistence of an "aging" structure and a "youth peak plateau," with the pressure of total youth employment existing over the long term. As the aging process accelerates, the number of older workers increases, and they face problems such as single skills, weak adaptability, and difficulty in re-employment, creating an urgent need for the "elderly-appropriate transformation" of employment policies. The structural mismatch between labor supply and demand will become more prominent. Market demand for young, high-skilled labor remains strong, but the rate at which young labor replenishes the workforce is slowing down. In particular, the upgrading of skill requirements will further intensify the structural contradiction of the coexistence of "people with no work to do" and "work with no one to do it." The change in China's population structure is consistent with global development trends, manifested in accelerated aging and a reduction in the working-age population. But our country's particularity also lies in the fact that it is simultaneously superimposed with the challenge of "getting old before getting rich," the pressure of human capital transformation toward "reduced total quantity, optimized structure," and the structural labor contradiction of the coexistence of "aging" and "high pressure on youth," which together constitute the fundamental, long-term background of labor supply affecting future economic and social development.

Digital development continuously increases flexible employment and new forms of employment. Data has been formally incorporated into the sequence of factors of production. Through their advanced information systems and intelligent algorithms, digital platforms greatly compress the four types of transaction costs — search, negotiation, supervision, and enforcement — that are high in traditional employment relationships, restructuring the division of labor and new forms of employment. Enterprises deconstruct complete "job positions" into "micro-tasks" that can be traded independently, promoting the evolution of the employment market from a traditional "labor market" to a highly efficient "work task market," allowing workers to access the global division of labor network with nearly "zero threshold." This is the fundamental economic driver of the large-scale rise of flexible employment. The market-based allocation of data factors marks the upgrading of the core of the division of labor from "matching labor with posts" to "matching skills with data-based tasks," promoting the transformation of the employment market from a relatively stable "post structure" to a dynamically flowing "skill ecosystem." With the rapid development of the digital economy, especially the platform economy, our country's overall employment has also taken on a flexible, diversified, and non-standardized character. Employment organization methods, labor-use relationships, and income settlement have all undergone significant changes. Digital flexible employment centered on new forms of employment has evolved from a "supplementary role" in the labor market to an "important pillar," with over 200 million flexible employment workers, constituting a huge basic employment base.

The development of artificial intelligence technology profoundly affects the labor market. A new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation centered on artificial intelligence is reshaping the pattern of the labor market with unprecedented depth and breadth, and its impact on employment is manifested in the superimposition of three effects: the substitution effect, the creation effect, and the transformation effect. The substitution effect and the creation effect make the structural contradiction in the employment market more prominent. The employment substitution effect is mainly manifested in artificial intelligence directly taking over human work, especially repetitive, procedural, and standardized work, such as data entry, basic customer service, and some mental labor, leading to situations such as task substitution, skill depreciation, and process restructuring that impact existing jobs. This process is inevitably accompanied by unemployment, and the phased impact is concentrated in the more prominent skill mismatch among groups such as youth, white-collar workers, and older low-skilled workers. At the same time, there is skill mismatch and lagging matching between the jobs created by AI and the workers displaced, and because the speed of technological iteration far exceeds the update speed of traditional education and training systems, there is a severe shortage of high-level R&D personnel and compound innovative talents, while low-skilled workers face the risk of being squeezed out of the market, further highlighting the structural employment contradiction. The employment risks caused by the two effects are manifested in the prices or levels rising along with something else (水涨船高, shui zhang chuan gao - "water, rises; boat, high") of high-skilled talent remuneration and the substitution of entry-level skill posts. The transformation effect makes employment forms more diversified. In the future, the work model will shift to "human-machine collaboration" (人机协同, ren ji xi tong - "man, machine, synergy, coordination"), and the work value chain will migrate from the basic execution layer to the human-machine collaboration layer, the higher-order cognitive layer, and the emotional interaction layer. This places very high demands on workers' digital literacy, human-machine collaboration ability, and lifelong learning ability. With the support of the new generation of artificial intelligence technology, workers can no longer be constrained by a particular department or fixed post, and can, with AI support, accept "cloud tasks" anytime and anywhere, completing work for different employers. At the same time, some workers of the new generation, under the influence of the uncertainty brought by technological change, increasingly pursue stable, decent jobs with clear development prospects, have a low willingness to take traditional high-intensity, low-skill posts, and develop a "seeking stability" and "slow employment" mentality in job seeking, forming a serious mismatch with the supply of market posts. Therefore, how to effectively incorporate workers in new forms of employment into the scope of "high-quality and full employment" is a governance challenge that urgently needs to be addressed.

Accelerate the building of an employment-friendly development model, making the process of high-quality development a process of improving employment quality and expanding employment capacity

The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan points out the need to build an employment-friendly development model. Employment occupies a pivotal position in the macroeconomic cycle and is a key link connecting production, exchange, distribution, and consumption. Building an employment-friendly development model means deeply integrating the goal of promoting high-quality and full employment into the entire process of macro policy formulation, industrial planning, and human capital development, making the process of high-quality development a process of improving employment quality and expanding employment capacity.

Adhere to employment first and make high-quality and full employment a priority goal of economic and social development. Incorporate high-quality and full employment into the national economic and social development plan, achieving priority of development goals, priority of macro-control, and priority of policy coordination, and promoting the coordinated linkage and concerted action of fiscal, monetary, investment, consumption, industrial, and regional policies with employment policies. When formulating industrial policies, give priority consideration to the employment-driving effect, give priority support to fields with strong employment absorption capacity such as advanced manufacturing, consumption hotspots, major projects, and livelihood security, and cultivate new employment drivers such as the digital economy, green economy, and silver economy. In particular, it is necessary to establish a broad concept of employment that "those who manage industry must manage employment, those who promote consumption must promote employment, and those who launch projects must expand employment," strengthen employment impact assessment, and simultaneously carry out job creation and unemployment risk assessment when formulating major policies, determining major projects, and laying out major productive forces. In the face of technological changes such as artificial intelligence, enterprises should be encouraged to develop and use human-machine collaboration technologies that enhance human capabilities and complement workers, making technology a tool that empowers workers rather than a simple substitute. At the same time, improve the unemployment early warning mechanism and the emergency response mechanism for large-scale unemployment risks, and firmly hold the bottom line of preventing large-scale unemployment.

Adhere to investing in people and focus on resolving the structural employment contradiction. The structural employment contradiction is the principal contradiction in the current employment field. To resolve this contradiction, the fundamental solution lies in improving the quality of workers and accelerating the shaping of modern human resources. Firmly grasp the "ox nose" of skilled talent cultivation, and start from resolving the problem of "work with no one to do it" to solve the problem of "people with no work to do." Coordinate education, training, and employment, accelerate the establishment of a human resource demand forecasting mechanism, promptly compile and publish catalogs of urgently needed and scarce occupations, dynamically optimize and adjust the specialty structures of various types of colleges and institutions, and promote the coordination of specialty settings with industrial development and their adaptation to job demand. Improve the lifelong vocational skills training system, focus on key fields such as health care and childcare, advanced manufacturing, modern services, and new occupations to carry out large-scale vocational skills upgrading training, and implement a linked model of "job demand + skills training + skills assessment + employment services." At the same time, strengthen skills-oriented salary incentives, promote the principle that those who work more earn more, those with higher skills earn more, and those who innovate earn more, enhance the value and attractiveness of skills-based employment, and encourage more workers, especially young people, to take the path of growing through skills and serving the country through skills.

Adhere to putting the people first, strengthen the protection of workers' rights and interests, and improve employment quality. High-quality and full employment must ultimately be reflected in workers' sense of gain, happiness, and security. It is necessary to improve the mechanisms for determining wages, reasonable wage growth, and wage payment guarantees, increase the proportion of labor remuneration in primary distribution, and let the fruits of development benefit all workers more and more fairly. In response to the prominent shortcoming of protecting the rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment, accelerate the promotion of relevant legislation, improve systems for fair employment, labor remuneration, rest and leave, occupational safety, and social insurance, expand the coverage of occupational injury protection, increase the participation rate in social insurance of flexible employment workers, migrant workers, and workers in new forms of employment, and comprehensively abolish the household registration restrictions on participating in social insurance at the place of employment. Improve the public employment service system, promote full coverage of services for the resident population and broad benefit for employing entities, build "at the doorstep" employment service stations and a "15-minute" employment service circle, implement "AI + employment," and improve the efficiency of person-post matching. Enhance the capacity for labor relations governance, making labor relations more harmonious, rights and interests protection more adequate, and the employment environment fairer.

(The author is a member of the CPPCC National Committee, president of the China Association of Employment Promotion, and chief expert of the think tank of the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security Sciences)

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Promote effective synergy between investment in things and investment in people

By: 韩喜平

Faced with the prominent contradiction of insufficient effective demand and strong supply with weak demand, promoting the close integration of investment in things and investment in people is an important direction and strategic task for expanding domestic demand and building a strong domestic market during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "We must adhere to the close integration of investment in things and investment in people. We must not only expand effective investment in the real economy and scientific and technological innovation, but also strengthen human resources development, promote the coordinated accumulation of material capital and human capital, and achieve two-way empowerment and mutual promotion between investment in things and investment in people." The 15th Five-Year Plan outline proposes adhering to the strategic basis of expanding domestic demand, adhering to the close integration of benefiting people's livelihoods and promoting consumption, and investment in things and investment in people, leading new supply with new demand, creating new demand with new supply, promoting positive interaction between consumption and investment, and between supply and demand, achieving a higher level of dynamic balance between supply and demand, and enhancing the endogenous driving force and reliability of the domestic economic cycle. These major assertions and important arrangements, focusing on the overall strategic situation of Chinese modernization, scientifically grasp the laws of economic and social development, and promote the transformation of development concepts and investment directions from "material-first priority" to "material-human coordination," which has far-reaching significance for enhancing the endogenous driving force of economic development, achieving high-quality development, and meeting the people's needs for a better life.

The internal logic of effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people

The relationship between investment in things and investment in people is a dialectical unity of opposites. The opposition is reflected in the competitiveness of resource allocation and the difference in return cycles; the unity is reflected in their mutual dependence and mutual promotion, with two-way empowerment jointly promoting economic and social development. "Things" are the means, "people" are the end, and the value purpose of their coordination lies in making economic operations truly serve the comprehensive development of people.

Material capital and human capital are two inseparable aspects of the process of socialized production. They support and empower each other, producing a value multiplication effect. When Marx analyzed the capitalist mode of production, he revealed the alienation phenomenon that "the appreciation of the world of things is directly proportional to the depreciation of the world of people," the root of which lies in the fact that under the dominance of capital logic, the accumulation of things and the development of people are separated or even opposed. Under socialist conditions, the people-centered development philosophy requires us to overcome this opposition at the institutional level, so that the accumulation of material capital truly serves the comprehensive development of people. In addition, human capital has significant positive externalities. Its accumulation not only improves individual productivity, but also enhances the use efficiency and innovation conversion rate of material capital through knowledge spillovers, skill diffusion, and optimization of collaboration networks. Investment in things is the material foundation for investment in people, and investment in people is the efficiency guarantee for investment in things. The two are unified in the historical process of economic and social development and the comprehensive development of people.

The governance wisdom of "enriching the people and educating the people" and "utilizing resources to benefit life" in China's excellent traditional culture has long contained the simple understanding of the unity of the material foundation and the degree of human development. "When the granary is full, people know etiquette; when clothing and food are sufficient, people know honor and disgrace" reveals precisely the internal connection between material abundance and moral education and human development. The Confucian governance concept of "first enrich, then educate" also embodies the governing logic of first solving material livelihood and then improving people's quality. These traditional governance wisdoms, combined with the Marxist theory of comprehensive human development, provide unique cultural resources and ideological nourishment for promoting effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people in the new era.

Promoting two-way empowerment and mutual promotion between investment in things and investment in people is an inherent requirement and inevitable choice for high-quality economic development. Since the reform and opening up, China has achieved rapid economic growth through large-scale material capital investment, making remarkable achievements in areas such as infrastructure construction and industrial system building. However, with the transformation of the development stage, the marginal benefits of traditional growth methods have gradually diminished, the rate of return on capital has tended to decline, and overcapacity and cost pressures have emerged. At the same time, the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating, and innovation-driven development is increasingly becoming the main engine of productive forces. High-quality development requires achieving effective improvement in quality and reasonable growth in quantity through enhancing total factor productivity, which fundamentally depends on the accumulation and leap of human capital. As the most dynamic and creative factor, people are the source of scientific and technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and management optimization. Only by closely combining the "hard investment" of material capital with the "soft construction" of human capital can we promote the transformation of economic development from scale-speed type to quality-efficiency type.

The foundation for realizing effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period and even longer, promoting effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people not only has solid basic conditions, but also has necessity and urgency. Emphasizing investment in people by no means weakens or abandons investment in things, but rather, on the basis of continuing to give play to the important role of investment in things, achieves a higher level of coordination between the two.

Investment in things has supported China's sustained and rapid economic development. After decades of sustained investment, China has built the world's most complete industrial system, with infrastructure such as transportation, energy, and communications ranking among the world's forefront, laying a solid material foundation for economic takeoff. At the same time, it should also be noted that China's investment in things still has great space and potential. In areas such as new infrastructure, scientific and technological innovation platforms, industrial transformation and upgrading, green and low-carbon development, urban renewal, and rural construction, it is still necessary to continue to increase effective investment to provide broad practical carriers for the cultivation and release of human capital efficiency. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, fiscal investment in people's livelihood areas accounted for more than 70% of the national general public budget expenditure, and fiscal investment in education, social security and employment, health, and other areas continued to grow, and the development orientation of investment that "sees both things and people" has become increasingly distinct.

The importance and urgency of investment in people are increasingly prominent. Investment in people does not refer to general livelihood expenditure, but rather points to the process of formation and appreciation of human capital, covering areas with productive returns such as improvement of education quality, development of vocational skills, accumulation of health capital, and cultivation of innovation literacy. The knowledge, skills, and health status formed by investment are attached to people themselves. In use, they not only do not depreciate, but rather continue to appreciate through practical accumulation, with significant cumulative effects and cross-period positive externalities. At present, China is in a critical period of transformation of the economic growth driving mechanism. To achieve innovation-driven and demand-pulled growth, it is urgent to increase investment in people and form a human capital dividend. For a long time, China's gross capital formation has remained above 40% of GDP, the capital investment required per unit of output has increased significantly, the marginal return on material capital investment has shown a declining trend, and the comprehensive benefits of investment in things have declined to some extent. In contrast, the marginal return on human capital investment is still on the rise. At present, the complementary demand for high-skilled labor in frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence, high-end manufacturing, and integrated circuits is rising sharply, and material investment lacking human capital support is more difficult to transform into real productive forces. In particular, the proportion of fiscal expenditure on investment in people in China still lags behind that of high-income countries, the participation of social capital in education and health is relatively low, the precision of matching supply and demand in vocational skills training is insufficient, the social security coverage of flexible employment groups still has gaps, and the basic conditions for human capital accumulation in less developed regions remain weak. Investment in people has broad development space and sufficient development potential.

The deep accumulation of material capital provides solid support for investment in people. China's economic aggregate is firmly ranked second in the world, with a large volume and solid foundation, and it already possesses the material conditions to invest more resources in livelihood areas such as education, medical care, and elderly care while continuing to advance material capital investment. At the same time, the scale advantage of human capital provides abundant resources for the coordination of the two. China's total population exceeds 1.4 billion, the working-age population exceeds 850 million, and the population with higher education reaches 270 million. Although the population structure is changing and the number of working-age people has begun to decline slowly, the characteristic of "quantity decreasing while quality improving" provides important development conditions for the coordinated linkage of investment in things and investment in people. The continuous improvement of workers' quality makes the use efficiency of material capital continuously improve, and the complementary effect between the two is particularly evident in the era of the knowledge economy.

The practical path for promoting effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people

Promoting the transformation of effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people from concept to practice is a systematic project involving multiple fields and multiple levels. It is necessary to adhere to systematic thinking, strengthen forward-looking thinking, overall planning, and holistic advancement, and achieve two-way empowerment and mutual promotion between the two in overall planning and coordination.

Optimize the fiscal expenditure structure and coordinate "hard investment" and "soft construction." Fiscal policy must not only play a foundational and guiding role, but also play a leverage effect, promoting a better combination of an effective market and a proactive government. On the one hand, while maintaining a reasonable investment scale in infrastructure and industrial upgrading areas, continuously increase the proportion of investment in livelihood areas such as education, medical care, elderly care, and childcare, and redefine livelihood expenditure from traditional welfare consumption to productive investment with higher returns. Comprehensively implement zero-based budget reform, improve the budget performance management system, shift the assessment dimension from the amount of capital investment to output indicators such as improvement of education quality, improvement of health levels, and improvement of employment quality, and use performance orientation to tilt fiscal resources toward investment in people. In the direction of investment in things, pay more attention to areas such as new infrastructure, scientific and technological innovation platforms, and industrial transformation and upgrading, so that material capital investment and human capital investment match each other in direction and enhance each other in efficiency. On the other hand, use tools such as tax incentives, special subsidies, and industrial funds to leverage social capital into key areas of investment in people such as education, medical care, and elderly care, expand new investment areas such as intellectual property, platform economy, and computing-power-electricity coordination, actively use tools such as government and social capital cooperation, and form a diversified investment pattern of government guidance, social participation, and market operation. Improve the central government's fiscal incentive and transfer payment mechanism for local governments, and enhance the enthusiasm of local governments to continue long-term investment in education and other areas. In the process of investment in things, pay more attention to "soft construction," comprehensively consider intangible inputs such as talent cultivation, technology accumulation, and management improvement together with tangible inputs such as factories, equipment, and infrastructure, so that "hard investment" and "soft construction" support each other and complement each other to enhance each other's excellence (相得益彰, xiang de yi zhang - "mutually, benefit, shine").

Improve the overall coordination mechanism and strengthen planning linkage and assessment orientation. At present, the overall coordination mechanism for investment in things and investment in people is not yet sound, and the linkage among development and reform, education, science and technology, and other departments in planning, projects, funds, and policies is insufficient, resulting in weak coordination between physical investment and human investment in scale, policy, and region. It is necessary to establish and improve cross-departmental and cross-field overall coordination mechanisms, incorporate the project layout of investment in things and the resource allocation of investment in people into a unified planning framework, simultaneously plan talent introduction and cultivation and research team construction in the construction of major scientific and technological infrastructure, industrial innovation platforms, and other projects, and promote the organic connection of the education chain and talent chain with the industrial chain and innovation chain. When compiling national economic and social development plans, special plans, and regional plans, simultaneously demonstrate and deploy human capital accumulation goals and material capital investment goals, incorporate the human capital formation cycle into the pre-consideration of feasibility assessment in the approval of major projects, ensure that project layout and talent supply, skills training, research team construction, and other aspects advance simultaneously, and make the improvement of service efficiency of things and the development needs of people deeply fit together. At the same time, reform the assessment and evaluation system, establish a cross-term evaluation system that takes into account both economic and social benefits and connects current investment with long-term returns, and incorporate long-term indicators such as the supply of inclusive childcare and elderly care, the stock of high-skilled talent, and the per capita human capital accumulation of residents into the performance assessment and evaluation of local governments, ensuring that investment in people achieves practical results.

Deeply embed the awareness of "seeing people even more than things" throughout the entire process of policy formulation and implementation, and stimulate the vitality of participation of multiple actors. The effectiveness of investment in people must ultimately be reflected in the improvement of the people's income levels, development opportunities, and quality of life. It is necessary to establish and practice a correct view of political achievements, adhere to benefiting the people as the greatest political achievement, be willing to do the unglamorous work of laying foundations and benefiting the long term, change the preference for short-term returns, and incorporate long-term return items such as the comprehensive human development index and the effectiveness of livelihood improvement into the assessment and evaluation system for high-quality development. Improve the income distribution system, promote that those who work more get more, those with higher skills get more, and those who innovate get more, so that the value of human capital is fully manifested in the distribution system. Promote the equalization of basic public services, expand effective investment covering the entire population and the entire life cycle, strengthen investment in human resources development and comprehensive human development, and establish and improve long-term mechanisms for investment in people. Deepen reforms of the household registration, social security, professional title, and other systems, break down institutional barriers restricting the flow of human resources, improve mechanisms such as intellectual property incentives and equity dividends, and form a positive cycle of continuously improving the benefits of investment in people. By investing in people to improve residents' income levels and consumption capacity, release the potential of development-oriented consumption, use consumption upgrading to guide investment direction, and use human capital improvement to enhance innovation momentum, forming a virtuous cycle of demand leading supply and supply creating demand.

(The author is the Dean of the Northeast and Northeast Asia Research Institute of Jilin University)

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Open Up New Prospects in Work Through a New Leap in Ideological Understanding

By: 孙海洋

Thought is the precursor of action, and the height of ideological understanding often determines the depth of practical innovation. To make new progress in practice, one must first achieve new improvement in understanding. General Secretary Xi Jinping has pointed out that "it is necessary to maintain ideological acuity and openness, break traditional mindset stereotypes, and strive to open up a new situation in work through a new leap in ideological understanding." This important exposition enlightens us that to promote a new leap in ideological understanding, in the final analysis, one must answer well the new subjects raised by the new era, and lead the transformation of the work situation with the newness of ideological understanding.

At present, the century-old transformation of the world is accelerating, modern information technology is developing rapidly, and the environment, tasks, and working methods faced by various undertakings are all undergoing profound changes. New situations, new problems, and new challenges are emerging endlessly (层出不穷, ceng chu bu qiong - "layer, emerge, not, exhausted"), while old concepts, old methods, and old routines are struggling to make ends meet (捉襟见肘, zhuo jin jian zhou - "pull, collar; elbow, exposed"). In reality, many places find their work situations unable to open up; on the surface this appears to be a problem of methods and capabilities, but at a deeper level it is a problem of thought and understanding. Some are accustomed to path dependence, flipping through old almanacs and searching for old templates for everything, and when encountering new problems they first copy existing experience; some are content to stay in their comfort zones, lacking acute perception of new things, and understanding new concepts and new strategies shallowly, grasping them inaccurately, and implementing them weakly; still others equate upholding fundamental principles with being conservative, with rigid thinking and being conservative and refusing to change (故步自封, gu bu zi feng - "old, step; self, seal"). All such cases, in their root cause, are attempts to use an old map to find a new continent, to use an old key to open a new lock, and the inevitable result is hitting walls everywhere, finding it extremely difficult to make any progress (寸步难行, cun bu nan xing - "inch, step; difficult, walk"), and even missing a golden opportunity (贻误战机, yi wu zhan ji - "lose, delay; war, opportunity"), falling into passivity. Promoting a new leap in ideological understanding is not an optional "soft task," but a "hard requirement" that concerns the overall development situation and determines the success or failure of the undertaking; it is not a general update of methods, but an ideological transformation for observing the era, grasping the era, and leading the era. A new leap in ideological understanding is the first move in opening up a new work situation; only by achieving a new breakthrough in understanding can one break mindset stereotypes and shake off path dependence, can one face problems directly and act proactively, and can one cultivate new opportunities amid crises and open up new prospects amid changes.

The situation is changing, the tasks are changing, and the work requirements are also changing. To do all work well, one must accurately identify changes, scientifically respond to changes, and actively seek changes. Party members and cadres must change with the times, act in light of local conditions, and guide according to circumstances, consciously liberating ideological understanding from the shackles of those outdated concepts, practices, and systems, jumping out of the restrictions of rules and regulations, so that thought and reality conform, and subjectivity and objectivity conform. First, deepen theoretical study. Scientific ways of thinking are the "master key" for studying and solving problems; only by being adept at mastering and applying scientific ways of thinking can one stand high in understanding problems, see deeply in analyzing problems, and grasp accurately in carrying out work. Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era has achieved a new leap in the Sinicization and modernization of Marxism, providing us with a powerful ideological weapon for understanding and transforming the world. One must unremittingly use the Party's innovative theory to arm the mind, guide practice, and promote work, consciously comprehending from it the laws, clarifying the direction, learning the methods, and increasing wisdom, deeply grasping the worldview, methodology, and the standpoints, viewpoints, and methods running through this thought, and continuously advancing theoretical innovation on the basis of practice. Whether it is promoting high-quality development, further deepening reform and opening up, or preventing and defusing risks, safeguarding and improving people's livelihoods, one must seek direction, ideas, and methods from the Party's innovative theory, and ensure ideological firmness with theoretical clarity. Second, strengthen problem awareness. Problems are the starting point of innovation and also the source of power for innovation; only by accurately grasping problems can understanding deepen, methods be implemented, and the situation open up. A new leap in ideological understanding has never emerged out of thin air, but is realized in the continuous process of discovering, analyzing, and solving problems. One must focus on new problems encountered in practice, deep-seated problems in reform, development, and stability, problems of urgent concern to the people, major problems in international changes, and prominent problems faced in Party building, and continuously put forward new concepts, new ideas, and new methods that truly solve problems. Third, optimize ways of thinking. Promoting a new leap in ideological understanding must ultimately be reflected in the transformation of ways of thinking. Party members and cadres at all levels must take the lead in emancipating the mind, seeking truth from facts, and upholding fundamental principles and breaking new ground, continuously improving innovative thinking ability, breaking the inertial thinking that is superstitious about experience, superstitious about books, and superstitious about authority, displaying the courage to innovate boldly, the sharpness to dare to be first, and the vitality to flourish upward, treating all new things with full enthusiasm, daring to say new things that predecessors have not said, daring to do things that predecessors have not done, and continuously pushing the undertaking forward in the benign interaction between the renewal of theoretical cognition and the advancement of practical innovation.

"The wise change with the times; the knowledgeable adapt to circumstances." The new journey is a new Long March; the development of practice never stops, and the emancipation of thought also has no end. Only by breaking free from the shackles of rules and regulations and mindset stereotypes, leading action consciousness with ideological consciousness, and guiding practical innovation with theoretical innovation, can Party members and cadres transform the truth power of the Party's innovative theory into the practical mighty force of transforming the world, and can they lead greater breakthroughs in the work situation through the continuous leap of ideological understanding.

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Important Remarks

Facing an intricate and complicated (错综复杂, cuo zong fu za - "intertwined, complex") international and domestic situation, we must adhere to the general principle of pursuing progress while ensuring stability, fully, accurately, and comprehensively implement the new development philosophy, accelerate the building of the new development pattern, further deepen reform and opening up, better coordinate development and security, promote sustained, innovative, high-quality, and sound economic development, effectively safeguard and improve people's livelihoods, strive to accomplish the year's goals and tasks, and achieve a good start for the 15th Five-Year Plan.

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This issue's guide

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Integrating the Holistic Security Concept into National Security

By: 汤俊峰

After the Party's 18th National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping creatively put forward the holistic approach to national security, emphasizing that "we must accurately grasp the new features and new trends in changes to the national security situation, adhere to the holistic approach to national security, and blaze a path of national security with Chinese characteristics," and that "the holistic approach to national security is an important guide for building a higher level of Peaceful China, and must be unswervingly implemented." The holistic approach to national security is an important component of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era. This iconic concept and original achievement marks the first time our Party has formed a systematic and complete national security theory, bringing our Party's understanding of the basic laws of national security to a new height, and holds extremely significant and far-reaching meaning in the overall context of comprehensively advancing the building of a strong country and the great cause of national rejuvenation through Chinese modernization.

Deeply Grasping the Important Significance of the Holistic Approach to National Security

On April 15, 2014, General Secretary Xi Jinping first put forward the holistic approach to national security at the first meeting of the Central National Security Commission, providing strategic guidance and basic principles for national security work in the new era, with multiple layers of innovative significance.

The holistic approach to national security is an important theoretical achievement of our Party in adhering to the Two Integrations. Over more than a century of struggle in revolution, construction, and reform, our Party has adhered to integrating the basic principles of Marxism with China's specific realities and with China's fine traditional culture, continuously exploring and forming a path of national security and development suited to China's characteristics, and accumulating rich practical experience in safeguarding national security. The holistic approach to national security inherits the theoretical achievements and practical experience crystallized by the Communist Party of China and the Chinese people over more than a century in defending national sovereignty, security, and development interests, draws on the essence of thought on national security in China's fine traditional culture, systematically summarizes the major achievements and valuable experience gained in advancing national security work in the new era, scientifically answers a series of major theoretical and practical questions facing national security work in the new era, is the latest achievement in the Sinicization and modernization of Marxist national security theory, and pushes China's national security theory and practice to open up a completely new realm.

The holistic approach to national security is the strategic command for safeguarding the new development pattern with a new security pattern and for promoting the steady and long-term advancement of Chinese modernization. Security is the prerequisite for development, and development is the guarantee of security. As a completely new theoretical achievement through which our Party profoundly elaborates the reality of national security and guides national security practice, the holistic approach to national security creatively answers major theoretical and practical questions such as the strategic position of national security, its fundamental guarantee, the choice of path, and its fundamental stance, and plays an important role of strategic command and top-level guidance in coordinating and advancing security in all domains, safeguarding the new development pattern with a new security pattern, promoting higher-level security through high-quality development, and providing a strong security guarantee for Chinese modernization.

The holistic approach to national security is a program of action for building a higher level of Peaceful China and meeting the people's needs for a better life. The people's stance is the fundamental political stance of the Communist Party of China. National security work, in the final analysis, is about safeguarding the interests of the people. As the principal contradiction in Chinese society has changed, the people's demands for safety have become increasingly higher. The holistic approach to national security takes adhering to the people's security as the purpose as its core essence, takes adhering to the organic unity of the supremacy of the people's security, political security, and national interests as an important feature of the path of national security with Chinese characteristics, and provides a program of action for remembering and practicing the Party's original aspiration and founding mission in national security work, positioning safety as the most basic development environment and an extremely important livelihood practice, solving the people's urgent, difficult, and anxious problems with higher-quality "supply" of safety, comprehensively raising the level and standard of safeguarding the people's safety and protecting the people's rights and interests, and building a higher level of Peaceful China.

The holistic approach to national security is an important support for improving global security governance and promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind. Solving security problems requires holistic understanding, systematic concepts, and integrated thinking, and requires a strategic pattern and overall vision of win-win, all-win, and multi-win outcomes. The holistic approach to national security emphasizes that the key lies in "holistic," focuses on using systematic thinking and systemic methods, highlights the concept of "grand security," and blazes a path of national security with Chinese characteristics that takes the people's security as its purpose, integrates all elements of national security itself, coordinates the important relationships in the field of national security, safeguards the new development pattern with a new security pattern, builds a higher level of Peaceful China, and actively participates in global security governance. The holistic approach to national security is the foundational support for the concept of common, comprehensive, cooperative, and sustainable security, is an important theoretical contribution of China to world security, provides solid security concept support for promoting the building of a community with a shared future for mankind, and contributes Chinese wisdom and Chinese solutions to improving global security governance.

Demonstrating Strong Innovative Vitality in the Innovative Development of National Security Work

From the perspective of ideological connotation, the holistic approach to national security has a scientific theoretical system of "one holistic" plus "ten adherences." "One holistic" emphasizes the concept of "grand security," covering security in multiple domains, emphasizing systematic thinking and coordinated methods, focusing on the penetrative, all-domain, and whole-process nature of national security work, and fighting an overall battle with the whole society, the whole government, the whole system, and all means. The "ten adherences," namely, adhering to the Party's absolute leadership over national security work, adhering to the path of national security with Chinese characteristics, adhering to the people's security as the purpose, adhering to coordinating development and security, adhering to placing political security in the primary position, adhering to coordinating and advancing security in all domains, adhering to placing the prevention and resolution of national security risks in a prominent position, adhering to advancing international common security, adhering to advancing the modernization of the national security system and capacity, and adhering to strengthening the building of the national security cadre contingent, clarify the guiding principles, scientific thinking, and strategic methods of national security work, and have theoretical features such as being systematic, comprehensive, and continuous.

From the perspective of national governance, the strategic position of the holistic approach to national security in governance is increasingly prominent. The 19th Party Congress incorporated adhering to the holistic approach to national security into the basic strategy of governance and wrote it into the Party Constitution, reflecting the common will of the whole Party and the entire people. The Fifth Plenary Session of the 19th Central Committee for the first time incorporated coordinating development and security into the guiding ideology for economic and social development during the 14th Five-Year Plan period. The report of the 20th Party Congress made special chapter arrangements for advancing the modernization of the national security system and capacity. The first meeting of the 20th Central National Security Commission made scientific arrangements for comprehensively implementing the holistic approach to national security. The Third Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee and the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee made special arrangements for the holistic approach to national security. In particular, the Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee listed "the security shield becoming more consolidated" as one of the seven major goals for economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, listed coordinating development and security as one of the six principles that must be followed for economic and social development during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, and elevated coordinating development and security to a guiding principle for our Party in advancing Chinese modernization, making the strategic position and strategic function of the holistic approach to national security in governance even more prominent.

From the perspective of practical power, the holistic approach to national security leads the continuous upgrading and improvement of the country's new security pattern. Entering the new era, the complexity and difficulty of the national security problems facing our country have increased markedly. The Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, having a far-sighted and strategic vision (高瞻远瞩, gao zhan yuan zhu - "high, look, far, see"), devising strategies, and coordinating the overall situation, adheres to safeguarding the new development pattern with a new security pattern, promotes the deep integration of development and security, the national security leadership system is strong and effective, a series of major struggles have achieved important results, the national security legal system has become more complete and sound, the comprehensive capacity to maintain and shape the national security situation has been continuously strengthened, and our country has successfully blazed a path of national security with Chinese characteristics, greatly enhancing our country's viability, competitiveness, development capacity, and sustainability. Our country has become one of the most recognized safest countries in the world, and national security work has continuously achieved historic accomplishments.

Accelerating the Modernization of the National Security System and Capacity

Adhere to fundamental principles. The Party's leadership is the most essential feature of the path of national security with Chinese characteristics, and is also our country's greatest advantage in achieving long-term stability and effectively responding to various risks and challenges. Firmly grasp the fundamental principle of adhering to the Party's absolute leadership over national security work, implement the Party Central Committee's major decisions and arrangements on national security work more resolutely and forcefully, and form a strong joint force of "one national chessboard" in strictly implementing responsibilities and giving play to organizational functions.

Correct the orientation of political achievements. To implement all national security work during the 15th Five-Year Plan period, it is necessary to establish and practice a correct view of political achievements, guarding against both the impulse of a view of political achievements that emphasizes development over security and the deviation of a view of political achievements that emphasizes the short term over the long term. Strengthen the concept of "grand security," adhere to the scientific attitude of seeking truth from facts and the working method of system integration, focus on taking the effectiveness of national security work as an important standard for testing political achievements, do more work that lays foundations and benefits the long term, and consolidate the foundation of national security work with strong Party spirit and a pragmatic work style.

Highlight capacity building. As the security environment at home and abroad evolves, the connotation and essence, the spatial and temporal domains, and the internal and external factors of national security are all undergoing profound changes, and the national security front is continuously expanding from the physical domain, information domain, and social domain to new domains such as the psychological domain and cognitive domain. It is necessary to closely focus on the capacity orientation of practical and practical use, advance the transformation of the means and methods of maintaining and shaping national security, pay more attention to coordination and efficiency, rule-of-law thinking, technology empowerment, cognitive protection, and grassroots foundations, enhance emergency response capacity, pressure resistance capacity, and security resilience, and provide strong capacity support for building a higher level of Peaceful China.

Strengthen the people's defense line. The people are the foundation of national security. On the one hand, meet the people's higher expectations for national security, innovate the ways and means of national security supply, improve the public security system, and resolutely safeguard the safety of the people's lives and property; on the other hand, always regard the people as the fundamental force of national security, carry out in-depth national security education for all the people, enhance the whole people's national security awareness and literacy, expand effective channels for the people to participate in national security governance, develop and strengthen the forces of mass prevention and mass governance in the new era, fully mobilize the initiative of all sectors of society, and provide the most solid people's force guarantee for building a higher level of Peaceful China.

(The author is a researcher at the Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era of the National Defense University)

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Building an employment-friendly development model to promote high-quality and full employment

By: 莫荣

Employment is the most fundamental aspect of people's livelihoods, bearing on the immediate interests of the people, on the sound development of the economy and society, and on the long-term stability and peace (长治久安, chang zhi jiu an - "long, lasting; stability, long-term") of the country. To study in depth and truly grasp General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses on people's livelihoods, especially on employment work, to comprehensively grasp the new achievements in high-quality and full employment and the new situation and new challenges it faces, and to explore the building of an employment-friendly development model, are theoretical and practical questions that currently require in-depth research and serious answers.

Deeply study and carefully comprehend the rich connotations of General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses on high-quality and full employment

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, General Secretary Xi Jinping, standing at the strategic height of governance, has emphasized the need to "strengthen the employment-first orientation in promoting high-quality development," to "elevate the stabilization of employment to a strategic height for overall consideration," to "implement the employment-first strategy," and that "employment is the most fundamental aspect of people's livelihoods. Strengthen employment-first policies, improve employment promotion mechanisms, and promote high-quality and full employment." These important discourses profoundly answer the major theoretical and practical questions of how to view and how to carry out employment work in the new era, and contain a distinct people's standpoint, scientific methods of thinking, and profound reasoning, theory, and philosophy. When presiding over the 14th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the 20th CPC Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized that "promoting high-quality and full employment is the new positioning and new mission of employment work on the new journey of the new era." General Secretary Xi Jinping profoundly explained the connotations of high-quality and full employment from both the macro and micro levels, namely, at the macro level "mainly including sufficient employment opportunities, fair employment environment, optimized employment structure, efficient person-post matching, and harmonious labor relations," and at the micro level "mainly manifested in workers not only having work to do, but also having stable jobs, reasonable income, reliable safeguards, and occupational safety." When participating in the deliberations of the Jiangsu delegation at the fourth session of the 14th National People's Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping again emphasized the need to "actively and proactively answer topics such as how to achieve high-quality and full employment." By marking employment work with "new positioning and new mission," General Secretary Xi Jinping has reflected our Party's deepened understanding of the laws of employment and has established a brand-new theoretical coordinate for us to understand and comprehend employment.

The dialectical elevation of mutual shaping and common sublimation between the labor subject and the labor object. Marx held that labor is the objectifying activity of the essential power of the human being, and that in transforming the objective world, the human being also transforms the self. Employment, manifested as the combination of the worker and the post, is in essence the dialectical movement of two-way objectification between the labor subject and the labor object in labor practice. As the social form of realization of labor, employment is not only a means of making a living, but also a field of practice in which the subject and the object mutually shape and commonly sublimate each other. The starting point of employment is to satisfy survival needs, but it does not stop at the level of making a living; rather, it is gradually embodied in the conscious leap of the hierarchy of needs. When workers obtain stable income through employment, the internal driving force of career development impels them to pursue higher goals, including skill refinement, career advancement, and social recognition, and to realize self-worth in creative labor. The sublimation of the object in employment is the continuous functional expansion, value enhancement, and form evolution of posts, occupations, industries, and even employment forms — the carriers of labor objects and employment — driven by workers' practice. Traditional posts are essentially fixed units of job responsibilities; in the stage of high-quality development, posts are no longer static but become an ecological foundation supporting the continuous growth of workers. Workers not only complete work tasks but also obtain training opportunities, growth channels, and space for innovation. With industrial upgrading and the development of the digital economy and artificial intelligence, more and more posts contain creative, knowledge-based, and technical content, and the creativity of labor content has significantly increased, realizing a sublimation from repetition to creation, which both promotes the development of productive forces and creates conditions for the self-realization of the subject. The sublimation of the subject and the sublimation of the object are not isolated from each other; high-quality and full employment is a dialectical unity (辩证统一, bian zheng tong yi - "dialectical, unity") in which the subject and the object are interdependent and mutually reinforcing within the same employment practice. "High quality" points to the dimension of the subject, enabling workers to obtain decent income, a good environment, and space for development in employment. "Full" points to the dimension of the object, creating sufficient posts so that every person with the ability and willingness to work can obtain employment opportunities. The employment-first strategy provides institutional safeguards for the sublimation of the subject and the object, and placing employment first at the core of macro policy means consciously following the law of two-way sublimation of the subject and the object in top-level design.

The mutual integration of macro policy goals with the people's sense of gain, happiness, and security. General Secretary Xi Jinping has expounded the profound connotations of high-quality and full employment from the macro, overall, holistic, and strategic heights. The five aspects — sufficient employment opportunities, fair employment environment, optimized employment structure, efficient person-post matching, and harmonious labor relations — are interconnected, organically unified, and constitute a complete system. Sufficient employment opportunities are determined by the basic national conditions of our country as a large population and a large labor force, and by its socialist nature, and are also an inevitable requirement of the people-centered development thought. Development is for the people; first of all, workers must have work to do and jobs to hold. A fair employment environment means that all workers can compete on ability and shine through hard work in a fair and just environment, jointly enjoying the opportunity to shine in life, jointly enjoying the opportunity to realize their dreams, and jointly enjoying the opportunity to grow and progress together with the motherland and the era. Optimized employment structure means the orderly transfer of workers from low-productivity sectors to high-productivity sectors, which is a universal law of economic development and also something that naturally follows (应有之义, ying you zhi yi - "should, have, of, meaning") from high-quality and full employment. Efficient person-post matching requires continuously improving the efficiency of human resource allocation, making it easier for enterprises to meet recruitment needs, and shortening the time workers spend on job seeking. Harmonious labor relations mean that workers' rights and interests such as labor contracts, wage income, rest and leave, and social insurance can all be effectively safeguarded. General Secretary Xi Jinping always keeps the well-being of the people at heart, and has particularly emphasized that high-quality and full employment is mainly manifested in workers not only having work to do, but also having stable jobs, reasonable income, reliable safeguards, and occupational safety. This embodies a profound feeling for the people and profoundly reveals the people's nature of employment. The ultimate evaluation standard for employment is the immediate personal experience of every worker.

The organic unity of employment quality, employment quantity, and employment efficiency. General Secretary Xi Jinping's important discourses on high-quality and full employment constitute a holistic goal integrating "full employment," "high-quality employment," and "efficient employment," reflecting the integrated unity of "quantity," "quality," and "efficiency." "Full employment" does not mean zero unemployment, but rather that the unemployment rate is at the natural rate of unemployment. Under our country's current macro policy goals, the macro-control target of keeping the surveyed urban unemployment rate at around 5.5 percent can be regarded as the natural rate of unemployment. "High-quality employment" transcends the traditional single indicator of the "employment rate," emphasizing that employment encompasses multiple conditions such as labor remuneration, social security, labor relations, and career development. "Efficient employment" emphasizes synergy between employment and industry, efficient person-post matching, and efficient employment services, with the goal of achieving optimal allocation of labor resources. The goal of high-quality and full employment is a new goal adapted to the people's aspiration for a better life in the new era, and is also a new height in our Party's understanding of the laws of employment work in the new era.

Grasp the new achievements in high-quality and full employment and the new situation and new challenges it faces

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, under the strong leadership of the Party Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core, our country's employment work has achieved historic accomplishments and undergone historic changes. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, a cumulative total of 62.42 million urban jobs were created, the average surveyed urban unemployment rate was 5.2 percent, and the overall employment situation remained stable throughout. Total employment continued to grow, with urban employment expanding from 370 million people in 2012 to 475 million people in 2025. Three hundred million migrant workers increased their income through employment, the scale of out-of-town employment among workers lifted out of poverty remained stable at over 30 million people, and employment played the role of a "ballast stone" in safeguarding and improving people's livelihoods and in consolidating and expanding the achievements of the battle against poverty. Employment quality steadily improved, a wage income distribution system adapted to the market economy was basically established, workers' wage income continued to grow, the protection of labor rights and interests entered the track of rule of law, and the system for protecting the rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment became increasingly sound. The employment structure continued to optimize, with the service industry becoming the largest source of employment absorption, the average years of education of the working-age population reaching 11.3 years, and skilled workers exceeding 220 million. We must also clearly recognize that achieving high-quality and full employment is a systematic project. At present and for some time to come, our country's employment field faces a complex situation in which multiple challenges are intertwined and superimposed, with demographic structural changes, flexible employment forms, and industrial and technological transformation constituting three major challenges.

Demographic structural changes reshape a new pattern of labor supply. Population is the foundation of employment. Our country's population development has entered a new normal, and the trends of fewer children, an aging population, and regional differentiation in population increase and decrease have had a fundamental impact on the labor market. Although the total working-age population remains large, the total labor force has begun to enter a stage of declining development. During the 15th Five-Year Plan period, the scale of the working-age population will further shrink. Although the total working-age population is decreasing, because young people, especially college graduates and other employment groups, are entering a peak period, the number of newly grown laborers employed in urban areas each year remains at a high level. Together with nearly ten million registered urban unemployed persons, the pressure of total employment always exists. At the same time, the structural contradiction in labor supply continues to deepen. This is manifested in the coexistence of an "aging" structure and a "youth peak plateau," with the pressure of total youth employment existing over the long term. As the aging process accelerates, the number of older workers increases, and they face problems such as single skills, weak adaptability, and difficulty in re-employment, creating an urgent need for the "elderly-appropriate transformation" of employment policies. The structural mismatch between labor supply and demand will become more prominent. Market demand for young, high-skilled labor remains strong, but the rate at which young labor replenishes the workforce is slowing down. In particular, the upgrading of skill requirements will further intensify the structural contradiction of the coexistence of "people with no work to do" and "work with no one to do it." The change in China's population structure is consistent with global development trends, manifested in accelerated aging and a reduction in the working-age population. But our country's particularity also lies in the fact that it is simultaneously superimposed with the challenge of "getting old before getting rich," the pressure of human capital transformation toward "reduced total quantity, optimized structure," and the structural labor contradiction of the coexistence of "aging" and "high pressure on youth," which together constitute the fundamental, long-term background of labor supply affecting future economic and social development.

Digital development continuously increases flexible employment and new forms of employment. Data has been formally incorporated into the sequence of factors of production. Through their advanced information systems and intelligent algorithms, digital platforms greatly compress the four types of transaction costs — search, negotiation, supervision, and enforcement — that are high in traditional employment relationships, restructuring the division of labor and new forms of employment. Enterprises deconstruct complete "job positions" into "micro-tasks" that can be traded independently, promoting the evolution of the employment market from a traditional "labor market" to a highly efficient "work task market," allowing workers to access the global division of labor network with nearly "zero threshold." This is the fundamental economic driver of the large-scale rise of flexible employment. The market-based allocation of data factors marks the upgrading of the core of the division of labor from "matching labor with posts" to "matching skills with data-based tasks," promoting the transformation of the employment market from a relatively stable "post structure" to a dynamically flowing "skill ecosystem." With the rapid development of the digital economy, especially the platform economy, our country's overall employment has also taken on a flexible, diversified, and non-standardized character. Employment organization methods, labor-use relationships, and income settlement have all undergone significant changes. Digital flexible employment centered on new forms of employment has evolved from a "supplementary role" in the labor market to an "important pillar," with over 200 million flexible employment workers, constituting a huge basic employment base.

The development of artificial intelligence technology profoundly affects the labor market. A new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation centered on artificial intelligence is reshaping the pattern of the labor market with unprecedented depth and breadth, and its impact on employment is manifested in the superimposition of three effects: the substitution effect, the creation effect, and the transformation effect. The substitution effect and the creation effect make the structural contradiction in the employment market more prominent. The employment substitution effect is mainly manifested in artificial intelligence directly taking over human work, especially repetitive, procedural, and standardized work, such as data entry, basic customer service, and some mental labor, leading to situations such as task substitution, skill depreciation, and process restructuring that impact existing jobs. This process is inevitably accompanied by unemployment, and the phased impact is concentrated in the more prominent skill mismatch among groups such as youth, white-collar workers, and older low-skilled workers. At the same time, there is skill mismatch and lagging matching between the jobs created by AI and the workers displaced, and because the speed of technological iteration far exceeds the update speed of traditional education and training systems, there is a severe shortage of high-level R&D personnel and compound innovative talents, while low-skilled workers face the risk of being squeezed out of the market, further highlighting the structural employment contradiction. The employment risks caused by the two effects are manifested in the prices or levels rising along with something else (水涨船高, shui zhang chuan gao - "water, rises; boat, high") of high-skilled talent remuneration and the substitution of entry-level skill posts. The transformation effect makes employment forms more diversified. In the future, the work model will shift to "human-machine collaboration" (人机协同, ren ji xi tong - "man, machine, synergy, coordination"), and the work value chain will migrate from the basic execution layer to the human-machine collaboration layer, the higher-order cognitive layer, and the emotional interaction layer. This places very high demands on workers' digital literacy, human-machine collaboration ability, and lifelong learning ability. With the support of the new generation of artificial intelligence technology, workers can no longer be constrained by a particular department or fixed post, and can, with AI support, accept "cloud tasks" anytime and anywhere, completing work for different employers. At the same time, some workers of the new generation, under the influence of the uncertainty brought by technological change, increasingly pursue stable, decent jobs with clear development prospects, have a low willingness to take traditional high-intensity, low-skill posts, and develop a "seeking stability" and "slow employment" mentality in job seeking, forming a serious mismatch with the supply of market posts. Therefore, how to effectively incorporate workers in new forms of employment into the scope of "high-quality and full employment" is a governance challenge that urgently needs to be addressed.

Accelerate the building of an employment-friendly development model, making the process of high-quality development a process of improving employment quality and expanding employment capacity

The outline of the 15th Five-Year Plan points out the need to build an employment-friendly development model. Employment occupies a pivotal position in the macroeconomic cycle and is a key link connecting production, exchange, distribution, and consumption. Building an employment-friendly development model means deeply integrating the goal of promoting high-quality and full employment into the entire process of macro policy formulation, industrial planning, and human capital development, making the process of high-quality development a process of improving employment quality and expanding employment capacity.

Adhere to employment first and make high-quality and full employment a priority goal of economic and social development. Incorporate high-quality and full employment into the national economic and social development plan, achieving priority of development goals, priority of macro-control, and priority of policy coordination, and promoting the coordinated linkage and concerted action of fiscal, monetary, investment, consumption, industrial, and regional policies with employment policies. When formulating industrial policies, give priority consideration to the employment-driving effect, give priority support to fields with strong employment absorption capacity such as advanced manufacturing, consumption hotspots, major projects, and livelihood security, and cultivate new employment drivers such as the digital economy, green economy, and silver economy. In particular, it is necessary to establish a broad concept of employment that "those who manage industry must manage employment, those who promote consumption must promote employment, and those who launch projects must expand employment," strengthen employment impact assessment, and simultaneously carry out job creation and unemployment risk assessment when formulating major policies, determining major projects, and laying out major productive forces. In the face of technological changes such as artificial intelligence, enterprises should be encouraged to develop and use human-machine collaboration technologies that enhance human capabilities and complement workers, making technology a tool that empowers workers rather than a simple substitute. At the same time, improve the unemployment early warning mechanism and the emergency response mechanism for large-scale unemployment risks, and firmly hold the bottom line of preventing large-scale unemployment.

Adhere to investing in people and focus on resolving the structural employment contradiction. The structural employment contradiction is the principal contradiction in the current employment field. To resolve this contradiction, the fundamental solution lies in improving the quality of workers and accelerating the shaping of modern human resources. Firmly grasp the "ox nose" of skilled talent cultivation, and start from resolving the problem of "work with no one to do it" to solve the problem of "people with no work to do." Coordinate education, training, and employment, accelerate the establishment of a human resource demand forecasting mechanism, promptly compile and publish catalogs of urgently needed and scarce occupations, dynamically optimize and adjust the specialty structures of various types of colleges and institutions, and promote the coordination of specialty settings with industrial development and their adaptation to job demand. Improve the lifelong vocational skills training system, focus on key fields such as health care and childcare, advanced manufacturing, modern services, and new occupations to carry out large-scale vocational skills upgrading training, and implement a linked model of "job demand + skills training + skills assessment + employment services." At the same time, strengthen skills-oriented salary incentives, promote the principle that those who work more earn more, those with higher skills earn more, and those who innovate earn more, enhance the value and attractiveness of skills-based employment, and encourage more workers, especially young people, to take the path of growing through skills and serving the country through skills.

Adhere to putting the people first, strengthen the protection of workers' rights and interests, and improve employment quality. High-quality and full employment must ultimately be reflected in workers' sense of gain, happiness, and security. It is necessary to improve the mechanisms for determining wages, reasonable wage growth, and wage payment guarantees, increase the proportion of labor remuneration in primary distribution, and let the fruits of development benefit all workers more and more fairly. In response to the prominent shortcoming of protecting the rights and interests of workers in new forms of employment, accelerate the promotion of relevant legislation, improve systems for fair employment, labor remuneration, rest and leave, occupational safety, and social insurance, expand the coverage of occupational injury protection, increase the participation rate in social insurance of flexible employment workers, migrant workers, and workers in new forms of employment, and comprehensively abolish the household registration restrictions on participating in social insurance at the place of employment. Improve the public employment service system, promote full coverage of services for the resident population and broad benefit for employing entities, build "at the doorstep" employment service stations and a "15-minute" employment service circle, implement "AI + employment," and improve the efficiency of person-post matching. Enhance the capacity for labor relations governance, making labor relations more harmonious, rights and interests protection more adequate, and the employment environment fairer.

(The author is a member of the CPPCC National Committee, president of the China Association of Employment Promotion, and chief expert of the think tank of the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security Sciences)

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Uphold the Principle of Running Newspapers as Politicians in All News and Public Opinion Work

By: 王晓丽

In June 1957, Mao Zedong put forward the principle of "running a newspaper as a politician." Nearly 70 years have passed, and the media landscape has evolved from "lead and fire" and "light and electricity" to "data and networks." Some may inevitably wonder: has this requirement, born in the era of traditional media, already become outdated as circumstances having changed significantly (时过境迁, shi guo jing qian - "time, pass; boundary, change")? The answer is precisely the opposite. In the all-media era, the mechanisms of public opinion generation, the media landscape, and the logic of communication have all undergone profound changes. The more diverse the communication subjects, the more varied the channels, and the more rapid the pace of change, the more necessary it is to take a holistic view from the political perspective. In August this year, the Central Organization Department, together with the Central Propaganda Department, revised and issued the "Measures for the Management of Leading Personnel in Public Institutions of the Propaganda, Ideological and Cultural System," which incorporates "adhering to running a newspaper as a politician" as a condition for the appointment of leading personnel, and extends the requirement to running periodicals, running radio and television stations, and running new media. This is precisely the institutionalized expression of this requirement of the times. Grasping the principle of running a newspaper as a politician in the all-media era can be approached from three dimensions: the theoretical, the contemporary, and the practical.

Running a newspaper as a politician is an important proposition in the Sinicization of the Marxist view of journalism. In June 1957, when Mao Zedong talked with comrades who were about to take charge of the work at the People's Daily, he proposed that writing articles, especially editorials, must always take a holistic view from the political perspective, closely integrate with the political situation, and summarized this requirement as "running a newspaper as a politician." Two years later, he emphasized again that in news work, one must see whether it is run by a politician or by a bookish scholar, and one must be good at making well-considered and decisive decisions (多谋善断, duo mou shan duan - "many, plan; good, decide"). It can be seen that from the day it was put forward, this requirement was not a vague political call, but a core standard established with a view to the particularities of news work. Its connotation can be grasped at three levels. First, politics comes first. News and public opinion work is highly political and policy-oriented, and has never been a purely professional matter. It concerns the banner and the path, concerns the implementation of the Party's theories, lines, principles, and policies, and concerns the future and destiny of the Party and the country. It is necessary to place adherence to the correct political direction at the forefront. Second, adhere to the unity of Party spirit and people's spirit. Running a newspaper as a politician means running a Party newspaper, and also a people's newspaper. It must both embody the will of the Party and reflect the aspirations of the people, and adhere to a people-centered work orientation. Third, the unity of the politician's mind and the expert's skills. Running a newspaper as a politician has never meant only emphasizing politics and not professional competence, but requires both being good at observing and handling problems from a political perspective, and following the laws of news dissemination and acting in accordance with them.

As an open and developing theoretical system, the principle of running a newspaper as a politician has been continuously enriched through the practice of the Party's journalism cause. Since the 18th National Congress of the Party, General Secretary Xi Jinping has emphasized this requirement on many occasions. In 2013, the National Conference on Propaganda and Ideological Work extended the requirement of "running a newspaper as a politician" to running periodicals, running radio and television stations, and running news websites; in 2016, the Party's Symposium on News and Public Opinion Work further clarified that running newspapers, running periodicals, running radio and television stations, and running the internet must all adhere to this principle. In these two important speeches, General Secretary Xi Jinping also condensed the responsibilities and missions of news and public opinion work in the new situation into 48 characters, and used the "five matters of concern" to clarify its important position in the overall work of the Party. From "running news websites" to "running new media," and then to the conditions for appointment written into the industry-specific measures, what has changed is the extension of the positions, and what has not changed is the fundamental requirement of placing adherence to the correct political direction at the forefront and carrying out news and public opinion work around the overall work of the Party and the country.

On January 25, 2019, at the 12th collective study session of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, General Secretary Xi Jinping pointed out that with the continuous development of all media, there have emerged process media, holographic media, omnipresent media, and all-effective media, with information being everywhere, reaching everything, and used by everyone, leading to profound changes in the public opinion ecology, the media landscape, and the mode of communication. This important thesis reveals the profound changes in the temporal field in which the principle of running a newspaper as a politician operates.

First, the change in positions. The main battlefield of ideological struggle has already shifted to cyberspace, which is both the main battlefield and the front line. Traditional layouts and airwaves still have "gatekeepers," but algorithmic distribution, intelligent generation, and private-domain communities are often decentralized. A short video can spread across the entire internet within hours, and an algorithmic recommendation mechanism is enough to reshape the information diet of hundreds of millions of users. In particular, with the rapid iteration of generative artificial intelligence, intelligent generation and deepfakes have made it unprecedentedly difficult to distinguish the authenticity of information, and the complexity of public opinion guidance has further increased. The positions have shifted, and the tests can only become more complex.

Second, the change in the situation. Under all-media conditions, news dissemination presents the characteristics of everyone disseminating, multi-directional dissemination, and massive dissemination, and the essence of the struggle over public opinion is a struggle for people's hearts. Wrong ideological trends, relying on online dissemination, can more easily grow covertly and spread quietly. Public opinion is inseparable from the support or opposition of the people and the safety of political power. If the positions of news and public opinion are not well defended, the ideological defense line may be breached, and subversive mistakes may be made.

Third, the change in capabilities. The problem of "capability panic" has become more prominent in the all-media era: not being familiar with the laws of the internet, failing to do online mass work well, failing to hold the online positions, and even being led by the nose by online public opinion. If one is only familiar with the language of layout but does not understand the logic of traffic, only accustomed to "document-to-document" exchanges but not good at "key-to-key" communication, one may lose positions in silence without even realizing it.

The principle of running a newspaper as a politician must ultimately be implemented on people, on the ranks, and in the practice of news and public opinion work in the new era.

Firmly grasp the political direction. Make politics the primary requirement, implement the responsibility system for ideological work, take a clear-cut stand on matters of principle and fundamental truth (大是大非, da shi da fei - "great, is; great, wrong"), and be daring to take up the challenge or confront difficulties directly (敢于亮剑, gan yu liang jian - "dare, at; show, sword") and dare to engage in confrontation on major issues of principle. No matter what form of media, whether online or offline, whether on the big screen or the small screen, there is no place beyond the law. It must be ensured that the leadership of news and public opinion work is always in the hands of people who are loyal and reliable to the Party.

Enhance all-media literacy. Follow the trend of information technology development, continuously strengthen foot strength, eye strength, brain strength, and pen strength, adhere to "orientation as the soul, mobile-first, content as king, and innovation as the key," understand why algorithms push content, why online language is moving, and why young netizens resonate, be good at transforming the Party's propositions into expressions that are widely welcomed and enjoyed by the public (喜闻乐见, xi wen le jian - "happy, hear; joyful, see"), promote the in-depth development of media convergence, promote the main force to advance fully into the main battlefield, and make the Party's voice the strongest voice in cyberspace.

Strengthen institutional safeguards. The newly revised "Measures for the Management of Leading Personnel in Public Institutions of the Propaganda, Ideological and Cultural System" unifies political standards and all-media literacy in the conditions for appointment, runs through the entire chain of political quality inspection, assessment and evaluation, and supervision and restraint, incorporates issues such as "valuing traffic over quality, valuing revenue over orientation" into the focus of supervision, uses the mechanism of being able to go up and down to force the implementation of responsibility, and transforms the "primary requirement" into an institutional arrangement that can be inspected, supervised, and held accountable. The vitality of the system lies in implementation, and the key lies in selecting and using cadres who are politically trustworthy and professionally competent.

(The author is a researcher at the Beijing Research Center for Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era and Dean of the School of Marxism at the Communication University of China)

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Studying history to trace the origins of gains and losses

By: 张国刚

Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government (《读通鉴论》) is the representative historical treatise of the late Ming and early Qing thinker Wang Fuzhi (1619–1692), a historical meditation written in his later years as he studied Sima Guang's Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Government (《资治通鉴》). The entire work, over 600,000 characters, is divided by dynasty into sections on the Qin, the two Han, the Three Kingdoms, the Jin, the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the Sui, the Tang, the Five Dynasties, and so on, commenting on historical events from the First Emperor of Qin through the Five Dynasties, a span of roughly 1,180 years, with four Discourses (《叙论》) appended at the end (functioning as preface and postscript). Under each volume no chapter titles are set; discussions arise as events arise, one event discussed singly or several events discussed together, and in form it belongs to the traditional genre of historical commentary. Wang Fuzhi lived through the dynastic transition from Ming to Qing, a time of total upheaval and catastrophe (天崩地坼, tian beng di che - "sky, collapse; earth, split"). His reading of history was not mere nostalgia for antiquity, nor was it only using the past to vent the grief of national ruin; his aim was to "trace back to the origins of gain and loss."

In the forty-seventh year of the Wanli reign of the Ming (1619), Wang Fuzhi was born into a family with a long tradition of scholarship (书香门第, shu xiang men di - "book, fragrance; gate, family"). In the fifteenth year of the Chongzhen reign (1642), Wang Fuzhi passed the provincial examination in Huguang and became a juren (qualified graduate); he was originally to travel to Beijing to sit for the following year's metropolitan examination (the jinshi examination). In the sixteenth year of the Chongzhen reign (1643), the uprisings of Li Zicheng and Zhang Xianzhong swept through central China, the road north was cut off, and the metropolitan examination could not be held. The average age of Ming jinshi (metropolitan graduates) was about 32; Wang Fuzhi passed the provincial examination in his early twenties. Had his examination career gone smoothly, he would have had the opportunity to earn the jinshi degree at the appropriate age, and an official career would have been within reach. This naturally led Wang Fuzhi to hold expectations for the future of the Ming dynasty. But his path to official advancement through the examination system was soon cut off by the flood of great peasant uprisings and the Qing army's entry through the passes. At the time of the Ming-Qing transition, Wang Fuzhi raised troops in Hengshan to resist the Qing; after defeat he went to Zhaoqing in Guangdong and threw in his lot with the Southern Ming Yongli regime, serving as a xingren (messenger) in the Office of Messengers. Within the Yongli court, factional strife was rife and corruption extreme; Wang Fuzhi, for impeaching powerful villains, nearly met with disaster, and ultimately returned home in disappointment to live in seclusion. For more than thirty years thereafter, he "hid his traces in secluded dwelling" in the Thatched Hall of Western Hunan, writing books and establishing his doctrines under extremely harsh conditions, until his death in the thirty-first year of the Kangxi reign (1692), never shaving his hair or changing his dress, living out his life as a Ming loyalist.

The governing aim of historical study: "tracing back to the origins of gain and loss"

Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government is the most mature fruit of Wang Fuzhi's later years. The work was begun in the twenty-sixth year of the Kangxi reign (1687); a first draft of twenty volumes was completed in the fourth month of the twenty-seventh year of Kangxi (1688), and the final version of thirty volumes was completed around the thirtieth year of Kangxi (1691). The final thirty-volume version of Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government bears no such colophon; its completion date is inferred from the Account of the Conduct of the Great Deceased Father (《大行府君行述》) by his second son Wang Yu and Liu Yusong's Chronological Biography of Master Wang Chuanshan (《王船山先生年谱》). At this time he was already seventy-two years old, afflicted with cough and asthma and various ailments, his hearing gradually failing; the following year he passed away. It may be said that this book condensed the final crystallization of thought after a lifetime of experiencing upheaval and sinking into deep reflection. Why did Wang Fuzhi, in the last years of his life, pour such enormous energy into commenting on the historical events recorded in Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Government? This must be understood from two levels: his personal circumstances and his intellectual pursuits.

As to personal circumstances, the great historical transformation of the fall of the Ming and the rise of the Qing is the starting point for understanding everything. Wang Fuzhi was not merely a subject of the Ming dynasty, but a young scholar with excellent prospects; he not only actively threw himself into the anti-Qing struggle out of national grievance and family hatred, but was also a loyalist who experienced the collapse of the Southern Ming regime. For him, the fall of the Ming was not a distant historical event, but a deeply affecting and unforgettable (刻骨铭心, ke gu ming xin - "carve, bone; engrave, heart") pain felt in his very flesh. During the Kangxi period, Wang Fuzhi, already in his twilight years, read Comprehensive Mirror in Aid of Government many times and sank into deep thought: how could a great Ming dynasty that had once been "wealthy enough to be self-sufficient, militarily strong enough to be self-reliant, and wise enough to be self-renowned" have collapsed with a crash?

But what Wang Fuzhi pondered was not the principle of the Ming's fall, but the principle of the rise and fall of the state and family. Therefore, if Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government is understood as a work of using historical events to satirize current affairs (借古讽今, jie gu feng jin - "borrow, ancient; satirize, present") and venting the indignation of national ruin, its intellectual value is greatly underestimated. In the Discourses, Wang Fuzhi gives a clear self-analysis of his purpose in writing: "What the discussions in this compilation do is trace back to the origins of gain and loss." He also says: "How can a mirror work merit for me! Therefore, one who discusses the mirror, where it gained, must trace why it gained; where it lost, must trace why it lost. Where it gained, one must think: if one changed its course, how could one also gain? Where it lost, one must think: taking hold of its deviation, how could one remedy the loss? Only then can it serve as material for governance, and not merely like a mirror hung idly in a room, with no one to reflect in it." This passage is extremely crucial. In Wang Fuzhi's view, history is not a passively hung mirror, serving only for people to see their own appearance; the reader of history must actively penetrate into the interior of historical events, inquire into the fundamental causes of success and failure, gain and loss, and further think: if a different approach had been taken, could the same success have been achieved? If a deviation has already appeared, how should it be remedied? Only through such layer-by-layer advancing speculation can history truly become "material for vigorously pursuing good governance."

The value orientation of Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government can be summarized in two aspects: the first is the practical, statecraft level — namely, through systematic reflection on the order and chaos, rise and fall of successive dynasties, to explore the internal causes of the Ming dynasty's fall, to summarize the experience and lessons of governance, and to provide warnings for later generations; the second is the philosophical, transcendent level — namely, to attempt to extract from concrete historical events historical laws of universal significance, to establish a systematic philosophy of history, and to provide "material for vigorously pursuing good governance" for later generations.

These two levels are intermingled in the book. Each specific historical discussion is both an analysis and judgment of a particular historical event and carries his overall thinking on the "momentum" (势) and "principle" (理) of historical evolution.

As Wang Fuzhi himself said: "What is valued in history is that it recounts the past to serve as teacher for the future. If those who write history merely pile up records in abundance, while the great strategies of statecraft are not set forth, later people have no way to obtain the pivotal points of gain and loss to emulate them — then of what use is history?" This pursuit of using history for statecraft and illuminating the Way through history is precisely the starting point and destination of all the discussions in Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government.

Intellectual achievements that broke through the traditional paradigm of historiography

The most brilliant intellectual achievement of Wang Fuzhi's historical discussions is the historical view of the "unity of principle and momentum" (理势合一) that he distilled from long reflection on historical evolution. The so-called "momentum" refers to the objective trend of historical development, the circumstances of the times; the so-called "principle" refers to the laws and truths contained in historical evolution. At the very opening of Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government, Wang Fuzhi points out: "The system of commanderies and counties, having lasted nearly two thousand years without being changeable, with all ages past and present, above and below, at ease with it — is this not precisely because it is what momentum drives, and could it be so without principle?" That is to say, what conforms to the trend of historical development is what is reasonable; within the objective trend of history, the laws of its operation are themselves contained. When discussing the transition from the feudal system to the commandery-county system, he uses "momentum mutually agitates and principle follows in changing" to summarize the inevitability of this transformation. This idea that "principle follows momentum" and "principle and momentum are one" broke through the traditional framework of explaining history through the Mandate of Heaven and morality, attempting to discover history's internal logic from the evolution of history itself, and possesses a naive consciousness of historical progress.

It is precisely under the guidance of this historical view that Wang Fuzhi criticized the most crucial proposition of feudal historiography — the "theory of legitimate succession" (正统论). In his view, the so-called "succession" means "that which unites without separation and continues without interruption" — that is, a regime that unifies the state and can sustain it for a relatively long time, whether it came to power by force of arms or by so-called "usurpation and regicide"; as long as it conforms to the great momentum and makes the state "unite without separation and continue without interruption," it is legitimate succession, it is reasonable. This view broke the traditional standard of judging legitimate succession by dynastic bloodline and moral praise and blame, replacing it with the more objective historical measure of whether national unification was achieved and maintained.

Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government begins with reading the history of the Qin, so its opening discusses the relative merits of the feudal system and the commandery-county system. In Wang Fuzhi's view, the replacement of the feudal system by the commandery-county system, having been in practice for two thousand years without being changeable, is itself clear proof of "what momentum drives" and a manifestation of historical law.

Wang Fuzhi's profundity lies in that he did not simply judge this great historical transformation by moral standards. He points out that when the First Emperor of Qin abolished enfeoffment and implemented commanderies and counties, his subjective motive was "the heart of treating the world as private" — to concentrate all power under the empire in the person of the emperor, so that the Qin dynasty's rule would continue in a single line for ten thousand generations. Yet from the objective effect, the commandery-county system broke the situation in which the hereditary nobility monopolized political power, making it so that "those capable of governing the people could all take their place above the people and fully exercise their abilities," giving talented people the opportunity to participate in state governance — which precisely embodied "the publicness of the world." Hence he uttered that famous lament: "The Qin, with the heart of treating the world as private, abolished the lords and established governors, and Heaven borrowed its selfishness to carry out its great publicness; that what lies in the divine is unfathomable — is it not so!" This kind of discussion that grasps the dialectic of history from the tension between subjective motive and objective effect is extremely rare in ancient Chinese historiography, displaying Wang Fuzhi's profound historical insight.

At the same time, Wang Fuzhi did not, because he affirmed the historical progressiveness of the commandery-county system, ignore its defects. He clearly saw that under the commandery-county system "the life of the dynasty was thus not long" — that is, dynastic lifespans were often not as long as in the feudal age — and that the commandery-county system also had its own problems. But his standard of judgment was "reckoning for the world" rather than "reckoning for a single surname": "As for the dynasty's life not being long, that is said for a single surname, not for public justice." As long as it was beneficial to the people of the world, even if the life of a single surname's dynasty was not long, it was still worthy of affirmation. This stance of taking as the standard of judgment the welfare of the people of the world rather than the survival or extinction of one family or one surname is the spirit that runs consistently through Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government.

Also particularly worthy of attention is the thought of "the people and the world" (生民天下) contained in Reading Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government. Wang Fuzhi always took whether the "distress of the people" and "calamities of the people" were alleviated as the fundamental standard for judging the rightness and wrongness, superiority and inferiority of regimes. When discussing the Zhou dynasty's feudal system, Wang Fuzhi depicted the multi-headed power order of the remote past in which "with ten thousand states there were ten thousand hearts": in high antiquity, each person established his own state and became its lord. Beyond a hundred li, it was like a foreign country. Government orders, education, and penal law all differed; the weight of taxes was decided by the lord himself, and the life and death of the common people were at the lord's disposal. Those on good terms were close to one another; those on bad terms attacked one another. "With ten thousand states there were ten thousand hearts, and the distress of the people was at its extreme." Under this pattern, the people bore extreme suffering. And when the early Zhou enfeoffed many of the same surname, although there was the private intent of "the world as one family," objectively it "gradually brought about a tendency toward unity," promoting the formation of a political and cultural community, so that "customs and education daily moved toward uniformity, and the distress of the people was thereby somewhat reduced." By the age of the commandery-county system, the world was unified under a single king, and the calamities of the people were further lightened. In this way, Wang Fuzhi placed the distinction between feudalism and commandery-county in a great historical process of evolution from a multi-headed power order toward a political unity, and his ultimate criterion was always the welfare of the people of the world.

In concrete political commentary, Wang Fuzhi also displayed an institutional-analytical vision that transcended traditional moral praise and blame. For example, in discussing Liu Yan's financial administration in the Tang dynasty, he did not agree with the common prejudice of Confucian scholar-officials in dismissing Liu Yan as a "petty man," holding that he "provided for the needs of the state and the military without ever engaging in extortionate exactions upon the people," and praised him as "in matters of finance and taxation, showing the mind of a gentleman." He clearly affirmed the important position of financial administration in state governance. In discussing Emperor Wu of the Han's expansion of the frontiers, he likewise did not simply negate it as engaging in constant warfare and military expansion (穷兵黩武, qiong bing du wu - "exhaust, soldiers; excessive, military"), but placed it in the great process of national integration from Yu the Great to the Song dynasty, analyzing its historical significance from the multiple angles of regional ethnic groups, historical tradition, and the security of the community. These discussions all embody his characteristic of analyzing problems from the operation of institutions and actual effects, rather than merely appealing to abstract moral principles.

(The author is a senior professor of humanities at Tsinghua University)

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Haste makes waste

By: 孔祥安

"Haste makes waste" (欲速则不达, yu su ze bu da - "desire, fast, then, not, reach") comes from the Analects, "Zilu" chapter. Its original text reads: "Zixia was appointed steward of Jufu and asked about governance. The Master said: 'Do not desire speed, do not look at small gains. Haste makes waste; looking at small gains means great affairs are not accomplished.'" This was Confucius's reply when Zixia, before taking up the post of steward of Jufu, sought his counsel on the way to govern a town. Here, "haste makes waste" means that being anxious for quick results often makes it difficult to reach the intended goal. In extremely concise language, Confucius admonished his disciples that both governance and action must grasp the laws and rhythms of the development of things; otherwise, it will be difficult to proceed steadily and reach far.

In Confucius's view, "speed" is not the precondition for "reaching," but may instead become an obstacle to "reaching." Achieving the intended goals of smooth governance and accomplished achievements does not lie in pursuing quick results, but in basing oneself on reality and advancing steadily. "Steadiness" is not passive slackness or lack of ambition, but respecting the laws of things, proceeding step by step, and developing steadily. Confucius did not deny reasonable efficiency in advancement; what he opposed was the short-sighted thinking of seeking quick benefits without regard for long-term consequences (急功近利, ji gong jin li - "urgent, merit, near, profit") and the behavior of blind, reckless advance. One should discard the impatience of seeking only speed, follow objective laws, and seek long-term development. Conversely, if one only pursues speed and violates the laws of development of things, even if one achieves temporary results, in the end it will backfire and the gains do not make up for the losses (得不偿失, de bu chang shi - "get, not, compensate, loss").

As the founder of the Confucian school, Confucius's idea of "haste makes waste" was inherited and developed by later generations. Mencius advocated that nothing should be done rashly or hastily; the Mencius, "Jinxin" part I, states that "those who advance sharply retreat sharply," meaning that those whose momentum is too fierce often also fail and retreat quickly; the Mencius, "Gongsun Chou" part I, again uses the metaphor of spoiling things through excessive enthusiasm (揠苗助长, ya miao zhu zhang - "pull, seedling, help, grow") to explain the principle that violating the laws of growth and forcing quick success is instead harmful to things. The development of things has its own rhythm and laws; seedlings need time to grow, people's growth requires accumulating learning and effort, and achievements in undertakings require planning before acting; if one recklessly tries to skip necessary processes and go straight to the goal, it may seem to save time, but in fact violates the laws and will ultimately cost a greater price. Xunzi also advocated that governance must conform to rhythms and take a long view, proposing that "when turtles, alligators, fish, and eels are in their gestation and breeding seasons, nets and poison must not enter the marshes, so as not to cut short their lives or sever their growth," emphasizing that governing the state should respect the laws of the growth of all things, not drain the pond to catch fish for immediate gain, and should achieve the foundation of long-term peace and stability through gradual, orderly progress.

From the Qin and Han dynasties onward, Confucian scholars repeatedly elaborated this meaning. The History of the Han, "Biography of Li Xun," records the ancient saying "governing a state indeed cannot be done with anxiety; haste makes waste," emphasizing that the way of governance must not be anxious or impetuous, but should proceed calmly, orderly, and step by step. Sima Guang of the Northern Song, in his "Letter to Wang Ledao," said: "Haste makes waste; how can an illness of half a year be cured in one morning?" Using the treatment of illness as a metaphor, he explained that all things in the world have their own processes and cannot be forced to yield quick results. Zhu Xi of the Southern Song, in his Collected Commentaries on the Four Books, annotated: "If one desires affairs to be accomplished quickly, then one is hasty and disordered, and on the contrary does not reach the goal." He pointed out that being anxious for quick success leads to confusion and disorder in action, and one is then unable to achieve the goal. Hence: "Governance values reaching the goal, but there must be gradualness before one can reach it. If one desires speed, then one seeks results too urgently and without order; desiring smooth attainment, one on the contrary cannot attain it — this is why one must not desire speed." All the above masters' sayings profoundly elucidate the drawbacks of being anxious for quick success and violating the laws of things, continuously deepening the idea of "haste makes waste" and incorporating it into the wisdom of governance and self-cultivation through the ages.

The Chinese nation's character of respecting objective laws and keeping a long-term vision is seen not only in the discourses of the ancient sages, but also in the achievements of practitioners through the ages. Ban Chao of the Eastern Han was originally a clerk in the Imperial Library; cherishing the great ambition of abandoning the brush for the sword, he started as a common soldier, did not seek quick success, but adapted measures to circumstances and combined kindness with authority. After more than thirty years of management, he finally brought more than fifty states into submission, pacified the Western Regions, reopened the Silk Road, and left behind the celebrated tale of no risk, no reward (不入虎穴，焉得虎子, bu ru hu xue, yan de hu zi - "not, enter, tiger, den, how, get, tiger, cub"). Zu Chongzhi of the Southern Dynasties calculated pi, working so hard that one forgets to eat or sleep (废寝忘食, fei qin wang shi - "waste, sleep, forget, eat"), devoting himself to research, and after decades of calculation and verification, without coveting temporary fame or seeking overnight merit, finally calculated pi to seven decimal places, nearly a thousand years earlier than the West, becoming a legend in the history of world mathematics. Zhu Xi of the Southern Song worked on the Four Books without favoring quick completion, repeatedly deliberating and revising; of his Collected Commentaries on the Analects and Collected Commentaries on the Mencius, he said of himself that "not one character can be added, not one character can be removed"; throughout his life he devoted the deepest effort to the Great Learning, and was still revising the "Sincerity of the Will" chapter of the Great Learning three days before his death, pondering it for decades before finally completing the Collected Commentaries on the Four Books, a milestone work of Neo-Confucianism.

This wisdom of proceeding step by step and moving steadily to reach far is reflected not only in personal growth and academic endeavors, but also profoundly in state governance. In the early Western Han, Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang, facing the situation of years of war and the people living in destitution, adopted the suggestions of Xiao He and Cao Shen, implemented the policy of "rest and recuperation," imposing light labor and low taxes (轻徭薄赋, qing yao bo fu - "light, labor, thin, tax") to lighten the burden on the people, and gradually restored production and social order. From Emperor Gaozu through the Emperors Wen and Jing, several generations governed steadily step by step, ultimately achieving the flourishing era of the "Rule of Wen and Jing." During his reign, Emperor Taizong of the Tang, Li Shimin, employed worthy talents, humbly accepted remonstrance, discarded the Sui dynasty's hasty and profit-seeking practices of massive construction and foreign conquest, focused on improving people's livelihoods and social governance, promoting civil governance and suppressing military expansion (偃武修文, yan wu xiu wen - "lay, martial, repair, literary"), imposed light labor and low taxes, advanced national development step by step, and inaugurated the "Reign of Zhenguan," becoming a model of wise governance in history.

History is a mirror, and even more the best textbook. History has repeatedly proven that those who violate the laws of things and are anxious for quick success not only find it difficult to accomplish great affairs, but will also head toward failure. Ma Su of the Three Kingdoms period, confident in his own talent and anxious to establish prestige and merit in the army, disregarded the basic laws of warfare and the actual battlefield situation, rashly abandoned the water source and camped on the mountain, ultimately losing Jieting. This not only cost him his own life, but also disrupted the overall deployment of Shu Han's northern expedition. Wang Anshi's reforms in the Northern Song, intended to enrich the state, strengthen the military, and eliminate accumulated ills, had an irreproachable original intention. Yet the implementation was too hasty and regulations were issued in rapid succession; many measures were rolled out nationwide without adequate piloting, grassroots implementation often deviated from the original intent, and in addition there were errors in personnel selection, leading to intensified social contradictions and growing popular resentment, and the reforms ultimately did not achieve full success. These examples all show that no matter what one does, once one falls into the error of "seeking speed" and violates the objective rhythm of the development of things, one will inevitably deviate from the right track, the gains do not make up for the losses, and may even cause irreparable damage.

What "haste makes waste" reveals is not a denial of the speed of development of things, but rather a demand to respect the laws of the development of things themselves, to earnestly overcome the impetuous mentality of seeking quick benefits, to discard the reckless behavior of seeking only speed, to establish a long-term strategic vision and strategic thinking, and to truly keep the overall situation in mind and plan for the long term. The key to accomplishing affairs lies not in swift action but in steady progress, not in the merit of a single day but in sustained, long-term effort. In a word: in doing things, one must follow the laws, be down-to-earth, and proceed step by step, and must not be anxious for quick success; in conducting oneself, one must have a long-term vision, be calm and steadfast in action, and must not covet speed or act rashly.

(The author is Vice President of the Confucius Research Institute)

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Promote effective synergy between investment in things and investment in people

By: 韩喜平

Faced with the prominent contradiction of insufficient effective demand and strong supply with weak demand, promoting the close integration of investment in things and investment in people is an important direction and strategic task for expanding domestic demand and building a strong domestic market during the 15th Five-Year Plan period. General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasized: "We must adhere to the close integration of investment in things and investment in people. We must not only expand effective investment in the real economy and scientific and technological innovation, but also strengthen human resources development, promote the coordinated accumulation of material capital and human capital, and achieve two-way empowerment and mutual promotion between investment in things and investment in people." The 15th Five-Year Plan outline proposes adhering to the strategic basis of expanding domestic demand, adhering to the close integration of benefiting people's livelihoods and promoting consumption, and investment in things and investment in people, leading new supply with new demand, creating new demand with new supply, promoting positive interaction between consumption and investment, and between supply and demand, achieving a higher level of dynamic balance between supply and demand, and enhancing the endogenous driving force and reliability of the domestic economic cycle. These major assertions and important arrangements, focusing on the overall strategic situation of Chinese modernization, scientifically grasp the laws of economic and social development, and promote the transformation of development concepts and investment directions from "material-first priority" to "material-human coordination," which has far-reaching significance for enhancing the endogenous driving force of economic development, achieving high-quality development, and meeting the people's needs for a better life.

The internal logic of effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people

The relationship between investment in things and investment in people is a dialectical unity of opposites. The opposition is reflected in the competitiveness of resource allocation and the difference in return cycles; the unity is reflected in their mutual dependence and mutual promotion, with two-way empowerment jointly promoting economic and social development. "Things" are the means, "people" are the end, and the value purpose of their coordination lies in making economic operations truly serve the comprehensive development of people.

Material capital and human capital are two inseparable aspects of the process of socialized production. They support and empower each other, producing a value multiplication effect. When Marx analyzed the capitalist mode of production, he revealed the alienation phenomenon that "the appreciation of the world of things is directly proportional to the depreciation of the world of people," the root of which lies in the fact that under the dominance of capital logic, the accumulation of things and the development of people are separated or even opposed. Under socialist conditions, the people-centered development philosophy requires us to overcome this opposition at the institutional level, so that the accumulation of material capital truly serves the comprehensive development of people. In addition, human capital has significant positive externalities. Its accumulation not only improves individual productivity, but also enhances the use efficiency and innovation conversion rate of material capital through knowledge spillovers, skill diffusion, and optimization of collaboration networks. Investment in things is the material foundation for investment in people, and investment in people is the efficiency guarantee for investment in things. The two are unified in the historical process of economic and social development and the comprehensive development of people.

The governance wisdom of "enriching the people and educating the people" and "utilizing resources to benefit life" in China's excellent traditional culture has long contained the simple understanding of the unity of the material foundation and the degree of human development. "When the granary is full, people know etiquette; when clothing and food are sufficient, people know honor and disgrace" reveals precisely the internal connection between material abundance and moral education and human development. The Confucian governance concept of "first enrich, then educate" also embodies the governing logic of first solving material livelihood and then improving people's quality. These traditional governance wisdoms, combined with the Marxist theory of comprehensive human development, provide unique cultural resources and ideological nourishment for promoting effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people in the new era.

Promoting two-way empowerment and mutual promotion between investment in things and investment in people is an inherent requirement and inevitable choice for high-quality economic development. Since the reform and opening up, China has achieved rapid economic growth through large-scale material capital investment, making remarkable achievements in areas such as infrastructure construction and industrial system building. However, with the transformation of the development stage, the marginal benefits of traditional growth methods have gradually diminished, the rate of return on capital has tended to decline, and overcapacity and cost pressures have emerged. At the same time, the new round of technological revolution and industrial transformation is accelerating, and innovation-driven development is increasingly becoming the main engine of productive forces. High-quality development requires achieving effective improvement in quality and reasonable growth in quantity through enhancing total factor productivity, which fundamentally depends on the accumulation and leap of human capital. As the most dynamic and creative factor, people are the source of scientific and technological innovation, industrial upgrading, and management optimization. Only by closely combining the "hard investment" of material capital with the "soft construction" of human capital can we promote the transformation of economic development from scale-speed type to quality-efficiency type.

The foundation for realizing effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people

During the 15th Five-Year Plan period and even longer, promoting effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people not only has solid basic conditions, but also has necessity and urgency. Emphasizing investment in people by no means weakens or abandons investment in things, but rather, on the basis of continuing to give play to the important role of investment in things, achieves a higher level of coordination between the two.

Investment in things has supported China's sustained and rapid economic development. After decades of sustained investment, China has built the world's most complete industrial system, with infrastructure such as transportation, energy, and communications ranking among the world's forefront, laying a solid material foundation for economic takeoff. At the same time, it should also be noted that China's investment in things still has great space and potential. In areas such as new infrastructure, scientific and technological innovation platforms, industrial transformation and upgrading, green and low-carbon development, urban renewal, and rural construction, it is still necessary to continue to increase effective investment to provide broad practical carriers for the cultivation and release of human capital efficiency. During the 14th Five-Year Plan period, fiscal investment in people's livelihood areas accounted for more than 70% of the national general public budget expenditure, and fiscal investment in education, social security and employment, health, and other areas continued to grow, and the development orientation of investment that "sees both things and people" has become increasingly distinct.

The importance and urgency of investment in people are increasingly prominent. Investment in people does not refer to general livelihood expenditure, but rather points to the process of formation and appreciation of human capital, covering areas with productive returns such as improvement of education quality, development of vocational skills, accumulation of health capital, and cultivation of innovation literacy. The knowledge, skills, and health status formed by investment are attached to people themselves. In use, they not only do not depreciate, but rather continue to appreciate through practical accumulation, with significant cumulative effects and cross-period positive externalities. At present, China is in a critical period of transformation of the economic growth driving mechanism. To achieve innovation-driven and demand-pulled growth, it is urgent to increase investment in people and form a human capital dividend. For a long time, China's gross capital formation has remained above 40% of GDP, the capital investment required per unit of output has increased significantly, the marginal return on material capital investment has shown a declining trend, and the comprehensive benefits of investment in things have declined to some extent. In contrast, the marginal return on human capital investment is still on the rise. At present, the complementary demand for high-skilled labor in frontier technologies such as artificial intelligence, high-end manufacturing, and integrated circuits is rising sharply, and material investment lacking human capital support is more difficult to transform into real productive forces. In particular, the proportion of fiscal expenditure on investment in people in China still lags behind that of high-income countries, the participation of social capital in education and health is relatively low, the precision of matching supply and demand in vocational skills training is insufficient, the social security coverage of flexible employment groups still has gaps, and the basic conditions for human capital accumulation in less developed regions remain weak. Investment in people has broad development space and sufficient development potential.

The deep accumulation of material capital provides solid support for investment in people. China's economic aggregate is firmly ranked second in the world, with a large volume and solid foundation, and it already possesses the material conditions to invest more resources in livelihood areas such as education, medical care, and elderly care while continuing to advance material capital investment. At the same time, the scale advantage of human capital provides abundant resources for the coordination of the two. China's total population exceeds 1.4 billion, the working-age population exceeds 850 million, and the population with higher education reaches 270 million. Although the population structure is changing and the number of working-age people has begun to decline slowly, the characteristic of "quantity decreasing while quality improving" provides important development conditions for the coordinated linkage of investment in things and investment in people. The continuous improvement of workers' quality makes the use efficiency of material capital continuously improve, and the complementary effect between the two is particularly evident in the era of the knowledge economy.

The practical path for promoting effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people

Promoting the transformation of effective coordination between investment in things and investment in people from concept to practice is a systematic project involving multiple fields and multiple levels. It is necessary to adhere to systematic thinking, strengthen forward-looking thinking, overall planning, and holistic advancement, and achieve two-way empowerment and mutual promotion between the two in overall planning and coordination.

Optimize the fiscal expenditure structure and coordinate "hard investment" and "soft construction." Fiscal policy must not only play a foundational and guiding role, but also play a leverage effect, promoting a better combination of an effective market and a proactive government. On the one hand, while maintaining a reasonable investment scale in infrastructure and industrial upgrading areas, continuously increase the proportion of investment in livelihood areas such as education, medical care, elderly care, and childcare, and redefine livelihood expenditure from traditional welfare consumption to productive investment with higher returns. Comprehensively implement zero-based budget reform, improve the budget performance management system, shift the assessment dimension from the amount of capital investment to output indicators such as improvement of education quality, improvement of health levels, and improvement of employment quality, and use performance orientation to tilt fiscal resources toward investment in people. In the direction of investment in things, pay more attention to areas such as new infrastructure, scientific and technological innovation platforms, and industrial transformation and upgrading, so that material capital investment and human capital investment match each other in direction and enhance each other in efficiency. On the other hand, use tools such as tax incentives, special subsidies, and industrial funds to leverage social capital into key areas of investment in people such as education, medical care, and elderly care, expand new investment areas such as intellectual property, platform economy, and computing-power-electricity coordination, actively use tools such as government and social capital cooperation, and form a diversified investment pattern of government guidance, social participation, and market operation. Improve the central government's fiscal incentive and transfer payment mechanism for local governments, and enhance the enthusiasm of local governments to continue long-term investment in education and other areas. In the process of investment in things, pay more attention to "soft construction," comprehensively consider intangible inputs such as talent cultivation, technology accumulation, and management improvement together with tangible inputs such as factories, equipment, and infrastructure, so that "hard investment" and "soft construction" support each other and complement each other to enhance each other's excellence (相得益彰, xiang de yi zhang - "mutually, benefit, shine").

Improve the overall coordination mechanism and strengthen planning linkage and assessment orientation. At present, the overall coordination mechanism for investment in things and investment in people is not yet sound, and the linkage among development and reform, education, science and technology, and other departments in planning, projects, funds, and policies is insufficient, resulting in weak coordination between physical investment and human investment in scale, policy, and region. It is necessary to establish and improve cross-departmental and cross-field overall coordination mechanisms, incorporate the project layout of investment in things and the resource allocation of investment in people into a unified planning framework, simultaneously plan talent introduction and cultivation and research team construction in the construction of major scientific and technological infrastructure, industrial innovation platforms, and other projects, and promote the organic connection of the education chain and talent chain with the industrial chain and innovation chain. When compiling national economic and social development plans, special plans, and regional plans, simultaneously demonstrate and deploy human capital accumulation goals and material capital investment goals, incorporate the human capital formation cycle into the pre-consideration of feasibility assessment in the approval of major projects, ensure that project layout and talent supply, skills training, research team construction, and other aspects advance simultaneously, and make the improvement of service efficiency of things and the development needs of people deeply fit together. At the same time, reform the assessment and evaluation system, establish a cross-term evaluation system that takes into account both economic and social benefits and connects current investment with long-term returns, and incorporate long-term indicators such as the supply of inclusive childcare and elderly care, the stock of high-skilled talent, and the per capita human capital accumulation of residents into the performance assessment and evaluation of local governments, ensuring that investment in people achieves practical results.

Deeply embed the awareness of "seeing people even more than things" throughout the entire process of policy formulation and implementation, and stimulate the vitality of participation of multiple actors. The effectiveness of investment in people must ultimately be reflected in the improvement of the people's income levels, development opportunities, and quality of life. It is necessary to establish and practice a correct view of political achievements, adhere to benefiting the people as the greatest political achievement, be willing to do the unglamorous work of laying foundations and benefiting the long term, change the preference for short-term returns, and incorporate long-term return items such as the comprehensive human development index and the effectiveness of livelihood improvement into the assessment and evaluation system for high-quality development. Improve the income distribution system, promote that those who work more get more, those with higher skills get more, and those who innovate get more, so that the value of human capital is fully manifested in the distribution system. Promote the equalization of basic public services, expand effective investment covering the entire population and the entire life cycle, strengthen investment in human resources development and comprehensive human development, and establish and improve long-term mechanisms for investment in people. Deepen reforms of the household registration, social security, professional title, and other systems, break down institutional barriers restricting the flow of human resources, improve mechanisms such as intellectual property incentives and equity dividends, and form a positive cycle of continuously improving the benefits of investment in people. By investing in people to improve residents' income levels and consumption capacity, release the potential of development-oriented consumption, use consumption upgrading to guide investment direction, and use human capital improvement to enhance innovation momentum, forming a virtuous cycle of demand leading supply and supply creating demand.

(The author is the Dean of the Northeast and Northeast Asia Research Institute of Jilin University)

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