From “organizing the people” and“invigorating society” to “modernizing China’s system and capacity for governance”

Governance has always been a big issue. When the People’s Republic of China was founded 70 years ago, many people across the globe, including some in China, did not buy the idea that the CPC could properly run China. However, the CPC managed to run the country extremely well, accomplishing miracles one after another. It has been summing up lessons to enhance its capacity for governance, with the aim of doing an increasingly good job.

A dip into history reveals that old China was an economic backwater – a poor country without a unified vision and collective spirit. However, under the leadership of Mao Zedong, the country’s economy was recovered in less than three years, with the sludge of society being cleaned up, showing a new sign of prosperity and abundance. It all boils down to Chairman Mao’s slogan: “organizing the people”. After the founding of the People’s Republic of China, on the basis of rural land reform, the CPC gradually organized hundreds of millions of rural residents, starting with building mutual aid teams and elementary cooperatives. Through democratic and production reform, along with the establishment of trade unions, the CPC gradually organized the workers. By establishing the Communist Youth League of China, the Young Pioneers of China, and the All-China Youth Federation, the CPC organized the country’ youth step by step. By founding the All-China Women’s Federation, it gradually assembled women across the nation. Moreover, the CPC established various associations that brought writers, artists, teachers, and technical people together. For the business community, it founded industry and commerce associations to unite entrepreneurs. The CPC established neighborhood committees and conducted literacy campaigns, gradually organizing many urbanites into groups. At the same time, the CPC strengthened its efforts to establish at all levels committees of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), a distinctively Chinese political institution, encouraging other political parties and social sectors to realize their full potential to actively build a new China. As a result, most people across China were united in all kinds of associations – political, military, economic, and cultural – thus forming a strong organizational force, which not only united the formerly fragmented people, but also galvanized them into action, unwittingly creating miracles one after another during economic and social progress.

Things are not as easy as they seemed, however. Once the people who had been organized became “people of institutions”, their boundless creativity was difficult to unleash. In view of that, at the beginning of reform and opening up, Deng Xiaoping proposed a new policy of governance, which could be summed up as “invigorating society”, equivalent to “stimulating the vitality of society” in the CPC’s phrasing. In other words, the policy was to conduct reform and opening up to further free the mind, unleash productivity, enhance vitality in the organized, lively Chinese society featuring socialism with Chinese characteristics, where the people were able to freely choose their jobs, start their own businesses, fully realize their potential, and pursue happiness for themselves. It is widely recognized that China is the country that has gone through the most dramatic and fastest changes over the past four decades of reform and opening up. With the rapid changes at home and abroad, China’s economy has been under downward pressure, with a slower growth than before. In the third quarter of 2015, the GDP growth rate even went below 7%, standing at 6.9%;nevertheless, China still fared well compared with other countries. In 2018, China’s economy still maintained a growth rate of 6.6%, compared with the previous year. It’s worth noting that when the economy was going downward, a trend for better employment emerged. The number of newly employed people in urban areas stayed at more than 13 million per year for six consecutive years from 2012, but reached 13.61 million in 2018. The sectors that hired so many people were mainly the service sector and emerging online businesses, with the former’s share of GDP increasing to 52.2% in 2018 – a condition showing that China’s economic structure is adapting in a right direction. According to rough estimates, from now to 2020, the country’s GDP may grow by more than 6.5% per year; therefore, the expected goal can be achieved, that is, the total GDP in 2020 will double compared with 2010, and the GDP per capita will even exceed USD10, 000. China’s reform and opening up has brought about tremendous changes of “epic proportions” – a result of the huge vitality and potential unleashed by reform from within the Chinese society.

The dialectics of history shows us, once again, that things always have two sides to them. China’s rejuvenation has witnessed the emergence of many illicit activities – all kinds of social sludge that have been cleared since the founding of the People’s Republic of China, such as prostitution, drug trafficking, and the rampant Chinese underworld, particularly corruption and misconduct within the CPC, have been a real worry for the people over the future of both the CPC and China. This is a formidable challenge posed by reform and opening up to the CPC, which is responsible to the people and, therefore, takes such a challenge seriously. As early as these problems just emerged, Deng Xiaoping put forward a set of two-pronged approaches, including pursuing material advancement while promoting cultural and ethical progress, initiating reform and opening up while cracking down on crimes, supporting democracy while promoting the rule of law, and so on. Unfortunately, the CPC failed to show its resolution to solve these problems, unwittingly causing disorder at the end of the last century. Around the time of the political turmoil at home and abroad, the CPC adopted a major principle of making it a “two-pronged, determined effort” to build socialism with Chinese characteristics, stressed the need to strike a balance between reform, development and stability, and envisioned building a socialist society of harmony, vitality and order, resulting in a dramatic change in social atmosphere and China’s image. Experience tells us that to solve this problem, we must not only see through it, but also tackle it right on the spot. In other words, the CPC must recognize the urgency of the situation, demonstrate tremendous courage to take responsibility, tackle things with an unshakable resolution and dogged persistence, and launch major initiatives and vigorous campaigns against social chaos; that is, to set up a whole set of rules and regulations and to improve the Party’s conduct and enforce its discipline, in order to improve and develop the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and tackle problems fundamentally. That is the background against which the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core have been carrying out their mission. Based on the experience of reform and opening up as well as the accompanying major issues, the 18th CPC National Congress put forward the subject of “governance” by stressing that “we should always apply the spirit of reform and innovation to all aspects of governance” and“the rule of law is the basic way for running the country”, thus raising the issue of what kind of governance system should be built as well as how to run the country.

The times present issues that are essentially challenges. We must make progress without creating chaos and restore order without ruining everything. No matter what, we must ensure the attainment of the two centenary goals. Since the 18th CPC National Congress, the Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core have spared no effort to relentlessly align the thoughts of all Party members and the people with the new requirements of socialism with Chinese characteristics, and keep them in alignment with the two centenary goals and the Chinese Dream. Then, in the principle of “managing well the Party before running the country, and strictly handling the Party’s affairs”, the CPC has made an “eight-point decision”, with the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee as the leadership to act on the Party’s mass line to initiate education campaigns while creating a deterrent against corruption, and take firm action to “take out tigers” and “swat flies”, thus greatly improving the Party’s image among the people. Then, they set up the two interdependent, guiding principles of“comprehensively deepening reform” and “advancing law-based governance”, keeping governance – including law-based governance – in alignment with the overall plan of reform. Building on this achievement, the CPC has formed a new strategy of running the country – the four-pronged comprehensive strategy, namely building a moderately prosperous society in all respects, comprehensively deepening reform, advancing law-based governance, and enforcing full and strict discipline over the Party. In particular, it is made clear that the overall goal of governance through comprehensively deepening reform is to improve and develop the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernize China’s system and capacity for governance. The new concepts, thinking, and strategies proposed by the CPC Central Committee with Comrade Xi Jinping at its core are to implement new approaches to tackling new, major issues and strategic missions.

It is clear that Mao Zedong managed to “organized the people” in all sectors of society, and then Deng Xiaoping proposed a new policy of “invigorating society” to stimulate the vitality of society and galvanize it into action. Since the conclusion of the 18th CPC National Congress, General Secretary Xi Jinping has proposed new ideas, new thinking, and new strategies in terms of governance, effectively combining the two advantages of “organizing the people” and “invigorating society”. On the basis of delving into the experiences of governance in China and other countries across the globe, he has set the goal of improving and developing the system of socialism with Chinese characteristics and modernizing China’s system and capacity for governance. As such, the CPC’s endeavor to govern the Party, the country, and the military has been taken to a new level as never before. 1XTITHQFgCq4qGAqJzXWXG4s96cPPcjTFFuYwpmyqqsriusW/M4dfQJF7NJNwMNp