Xi & Grassroots Party-Building - 仲音 Commentary: Persist with Dynamic Clearing despite Challenges - Song Yuehong on New Era's Great Changes

Hi folks,

Hope everyone’s been well. I’ve been on a bit of a break from work, traveling around the US. It’s been a welcome break from reading the People’s Daily. My time away is not done but I am restarting the coverage from today, given the upcoming Party Congress. I’ll try and keep on schedule, but I don’t promise that I won’t just skip some days.

Cheers,

Manoj

Here are the stories and pieces that I found noteworthy in the Monday, October 10, 2022, edition of the People’s Daily.

Page 1: At the top of the page is a brief report on the publication of the English edition of Understanding Xi Jinping's Educational Philosophy. The Chinese version was published in July 2020. 

The other top story on the page is about Xi’s role and guidance in the development of Fuzhou. Essentially, this talks about Xi having “great foresight” and putting into motion a 20-year strategic development plan for Fuzhou when was the local party secretary there in 1993. The plan is nicknamed the 3820 plan, for having developmental milestones at 3, 8 and 20 years. I am not doing a full breakdown of this rather long article, but let me highlight the beginning, which offers a sense of the storytelling.

The article begins with Xi boarding a passenger vessel along the Minjiang River on an extremely hot day in June 1990. While on the vessel, Xi spread out the map of Fuzhou on the table, “watching, listening and thinking all the way. Later, the accompanying staff realised that this was not an ordinary investigation, but the starting point of a strategic engineering plan. Back then, despite being the provincial capital, Fuzhou “faced many difficulties in its development.” The industrial foundation was weak, the financial resources were limited, there were no highways, large ports or large airports, and “the ideology and development concepts of cadres were also different from those in advanced coastal areas.” But as soon as comrade Xi Jinping assumed office in Fuzhou, he opened the way with investigation and research, thinking deeply about development issues. From April, 1990 to May 1992, he spent more than two-thirds of his time investigating, studying, thinking and deliberating at the grass-roots level. Under his initiative, Fuzhou designated March every year as the month of investigation and research, promoting the trend of investigation and research and promoting scientific decision-making. The piece then credits Deng Xiaoping’s Southern Tour for having issued the “clarion call for a new round of reform and opening up in China,” and talks about how Xi sensed the changed wind to engage in a massive research project to carry out consultations, surveys and visits to Guangdong, Hainan, Shanghai, Beijing among other places in order to devise and then set into motion the 3280 plan. 1990年6月的一天，天气异常炎热。刚担任福州市委书记不久的习近平同志登上一艘小客轮，沿闽江往出海口顺流前行。那时的闽江两岸还是一片荒芜的景象，滩涂粗陋、树木杂乱。习近平同志在客轮的桌子上摊开福州市地图，一路看、一路听、一路思考。随行人员后来意识到，这不是普通调研，而是一项战略工程谋划的起点。福州，地处东海之滨、闽江之畔，是积淀深厚的历史文化名城，也是全国首批14个沿海开放城市之一。上世纪90年代初，福州发展困难重重。虽然是省会，但工业底子薄，以轻工业为主，一条工业路基本就可摸清家底；财政压力大，可动用的财力大概只有两亿元，仅是“吃饭财政”；交通闭塞，无高速公路、无大型港口、无大型机场；干部的思想观念、发展理念与沿海先进地区也有差距……习近平同志一到福州任职，就以调查研究开路，深入思考发展问题。从1990年4月到1992年5月，他有三分之二以上的时间都在基层调查研究、思考酝酿。在他的推动下，福州市把每年3月定为调查研究月，大兴调研之风，推动科学决策。东方风来满眼春。1992年初，邓小平同志南方谈话吹响了中国新一轮改革开放的号角。习近平同志敏锐地意识到，福州的机遇来了。他形象地说，“福州是充满机遇的地区，能快的就不要慢。这好比空中飞来一群大雁，我们良弓在手，贵在速发。”谋一域先谋全局，谋一时必谋万世。1992年5月22日，习近平同志在福州市党代会上强调：“必须加快经济建设步伐，做到每3至5年上一个新台阶，尽快改变港澳粤闽台南中国海区域内我们处于‘后排就座’的状况。现在我们组织了一个班子，准备做些深层次的探讨，研究20年后福州市将达到怎样一个发展水平。”在习近平同志领导下，福州开展了“3820”战略工程万人问卷、千人调研、百人论证。1627名干部围绕581个课题调查研究，完成了367篇调研报告。课题组分赴广东、海南、上海、北京等地考察，借鉴先进经验。市委召集各领域的专家学者、企业负责人，先后召开数十场不同类型的征求意见会……习近平同志还要求在《福州晚报》刊发调查问卷，征求市民建议。半个月时间，就回收28785张答卷、24536条建议。群众参与热情高涨，一对离退休老夫妇连续数天乘车在市里调查，就城市交通、商业网点等问题提出10多条建议。历时半年、十易其稿，1992年11月，倾注了习近平同志大量心血、凝聚集体智慧的《福州市20年经济社会发展战略设想》，在福州市委六届六次全会上审议通过。习近平同志多次要求跳出福州看福州，放眼全国乃至全世界来谋划发展。着眼于21世纪、着眼于海峡两岸交流、着眼于全面发展，“3820”战略工程谋定了福州发展蓝图。

The piece ends by informing us that in September 2021 the 12th Party Congress of Fuzhou passed a resolution calling on the whole city to adhere to the essence of ‘3820’ strategic engineering philosophy and speed up the construction of a modern international city. There’s also a comment from Lin Baojin, who is the current Fuzhou Party Secretary and member of the Fujian Party Standing Committee. He says that “we should profoundly understand the decisive significance of the Two Establishments and move forward in the direction guided by General Secretary Xi Jinping, so as to continue to build the city into a better place in order to better benefit the people, and strengthen the ‘four consciousnesses’, strengthen the ‘four self-confidences’ and achieve the ‘two safeguards with practical actions. 2021年9月，福州市第十二次党代会通过决议，号召全市上下坚持“3820”战略工程思想精髓，加快建设现代化国际城市。“我们要深刻领会‘两个确立’的决定性意义，怀着特殊感情、带着特殊责任，一张蓝图绘到底，沿着习近平总书记指引的方向前进，继续把这座海滨城市、山水城市建设得更加美好，让有福之州更好地造福于民，以实际行动增强‘四个意识’、坚定‘四个自信’、做到‘两个维护’。”福建省委常委、福州市委书记林宝金说.

The next report on the page is a summary of the development of the Party’s grassroots organisations since the 19th Party Congress. This says that over the past five years, the Central Committee with Xi at the core has paid great attention to the development of the party’s organisational system, focussing on improving organisational strength, highlighting political functions, strengthening party building in enterprises, rural areas, government organs, public institutions, communities, and social organisations…” 党的十九大以来，以习近平同志为核心的党中央立足新的历史方位，高瞻远瞩、统筹谋划，更加注重党的组织体系建设，以提升组织力为重点，突出政治功能，加强企业、农村、机关、事业单位、社区、社会组织等各领域党建工作，推动基层党组织全面进步、全面过硬.

This talks about how Xi views grassroots organisations as the Party’s vanguard, and refers to a bunch of revised and new regulations. It then says that Xi has “personally planned, deployed and promoted the construction of the party's grassroots organisations, setting a benchmark and an example for the whole Party.”

It adds that “over the past five years, all localities, departments and units have made great efforts to build grassroots party organisations across various sectors into a strong fighting bastion for propagating the Party’s ideas, implementing the Party’s decisions, leading grassroots governance, uniting and mobilising the masses, and promoting reform and development. The Party’s organisational system has become more rigorous, the superiority of the Marxist political party system has become more prominent, and the Party’s leadership has become more in synch (there’s a vivid phrase used to convey this: “如身使臂，如臂使指” - I am sure there will be better translations, but roughly this implies: as a person/one enables/operates the arm and the arm enables/operates the fingers), effectively ensuring that the decision-making arrangements of the CPC Central Committee will be implemented to the letter.” 5年来，各地区各部门各单位努力把各领域基层党组织建设成为宣传党的主张、贯彻党的决定、领导基层治理、团结动员群众、推动改革发展的坚强战斗堡垒，党的组织体系更加严密，马克思主义政党的优势力量更加彰显，党的领导更加“如身使臂，如臂使指”，有力保证党中央的决策部署不折不扣地落地落实.

Again, this is a long piece, and I am not translating the whole thing. But one interesting point I’ll share below. This is useful to read because it is about Xi’s views on the private sector in China. Read this along with the above bit about the body, arm and fingers, and it’s clear the kind of control and command that Xi envisions for the Party.

There’s a story about Xi attending a meeting of the party branches of three enterprises in Shanghai, who were jointly carrying out the party day activity on November 6, 2018. He told them that “with the composition of the economy and employment modes becoming more diverse, an increasing number of party members are employed in new economic and social organisations. We should do a good job in educating and managing them in order to guide them to play an active role.” And then the piece says:

“Non-public enterprises and social organisations are the difficulties and weak points of grassroots party building work, and they are also an important focus of the strict party organisational system. Strengthening the party building in non-public enterprises and social organisations is crucial to expanding the Party’s organisational coverage and work coverage and consolidating the Party’s ruling foundation.” 2018年11月6日，3家企业党支部正在上海中心大厦22层的党建服务中心联合开展“我与金融城共成长”主题党日活动，习近平总书记来到他们中间，同他们亲切交谈。“党建工作的难点在基层，亮点也在基层。随着经济成分和就业方式越来越多样化，在新经济组织、新社会组织就业的党员越来越多，要做好其中的党员教育管理工作，引导他们积极发挥作用。”习近平总书记强调。非公企业和社会组织，是基层党建工作的难点和薄弱点，也是严密党的组织体系的重要着力点。加强非公企业和社会组织党建，对于扩大党的组织覆盖和工作覆盖、巩固党的执政根基至关重要。

Page 2: There’s a report (English report) informing us that 2,629,447 new deputies have been elected to people’s congresses in townships and county-level regions in China, following the conclusion of elections that began in the first half of 2021. This number is an increase of 151,459 or 6.11% over the previous session. 

A total of 670,563 deputies were elected to the county-level people’s congress and 1,958,884 deputies to the township-level people’s congress. Among the elected deputies to the people's congresses at the county and township levels, the proportion of front-line workers, farmers, professional and technical personnel and other grassroots deputies was 52.53% and 76.75%, respectively, up by 1.47 and 0.21 percentage points from the previous session; the proportion of female representatives was 31.64% and 32.36% respectively, which was 3.23 and 4.34 percentage points higher than the previous session. The proportion of minority representatives was 15.42% and 17.18% respectively. 这次换届选举共选出县级人大代表670563名、乡级人大代表1958884名，代表结构进一步优化，充分体现了先进性、广泛性和代表性。选出的县乡两级人大代表中，一线工人、农民、专业技术人员等基层代表比例分别为52.53%和76.75%，比上届分别上升1.47和0.21个百分点；妇女代表比例分别为31.64%和32.36%，比上届分别上升3.23和4.34个百分点；少数民族代表比例分别为15.42%和17.18%；归侨代表依照法律规定得以保证.

Also on the page is a 仲音 commentary on the COVID situation. This is a really good read if someone wants to understand the bind that Chinese officials have put themselves in with this zero-COVID business. What’s also interesting is that the piece seems to acknowledge public and perhaps even officials’ frustration with the policy. All of this comes as COVID cases around the country appear to be rising. FT’s report says that “the growth in cases is being fuelled by BF. 7, a spin-off of the Omicron sub-variant BA.5.” In any case, I would caution against thinking that the policy will shift after the Party Congress. It’s not going away anytime soon. Also, despite the concessions made in the piece, I expect Xi Jinping’s speech at the Party Congress to provide a glowing appraisal of China’s COVID containment effort.

The commentary says that during the National Day holiday this year, all parts of the country have earnestly implemented the prevention and control measures, providing “a strong guarantee for the masses to spend a healthy and safe National Day holiday. This shows once again that China’s current epidemic prevention and control policies are in line with national conditions, scientific and effective.” 今年国庆假期，全国各地认真落实常态化疫情防控举措，引导人员有序流动，为广大群众度过一个健康平安的国庆假期提供了有力保障。这再次说明，我国当前疫情防控政策符合国情、符合科学，是行之有效的.

The piece adds that in terms of the domestic situation, “China continues to face the risk of imported cases from abroad and spread of local cases, and the risk of clusters of cases in many places still exists.” In addition, the virus is continuing to mutate. The results of genome sequencing of COVID-19-infected people in some parts of China show presence of several different sub-variants of the Omicron strain, with their transmissibility and pathogenicity compared to the earlier variants of the Omicron strain still not having weakened. This still poses a great threat to the elderly and people with underlying health conditions. Therefore, we must continue to be on alert with regard to the spread of epidemic situation, strengthen our confidence and patience when it comes to epidemic prevention and control policies, overcome paralysis, war-weariness, wishful thinking and the mentality of slackening, and do a good job in all aspects of epidemic prevention and control.” 从国内来看，当前，全国疫情仍然呈现出“点多、面广”的特点，我国持续面临着境外疫情输入和本土疫情传播的风险，发生多地聚集性疫情风险依然存在。从病毒本身看，病毒持续变异，国内部分地区新冠肺炎感染者的基因测序结果显示，病毒分别属于奥密克戎变异株的多个不同亚分支，与此前流行的奥密克戎毒株相比，传播力和致病力并未减弱，对老年人和基础病人群仍具较大威胁。正因此，我们必须继续保持对疫情传播的警惕，增强对我国疫情防控政策的信心和耐心，克服麻痹思想、厌战情绪、侥幸心理、松劲心态，抓实抓细疫情防控各项工作.

The article adds: “Confidence is more important than gold in the fight against the pandemic.” In saying this, it concedes that this zero-COVID business is a bit of an uphill task. 

“The Omicron mutations have the characteristics of strong infectiousness, rapid transmission and high concealment. There are many asymptomatic and mild infections, which makes it difficult to detect some early infections. This does add a lot of difficulties and challenges in terms of the current epidemic prevention and control effort, but it does not mean that early detection, early reporting, early isolation and early treatment cannot be achieved.” 奥密克戎变异株具有传染性强、传播速度快、隐匿性高等特点，无症状和轻症感染者较多，导致一些早期的感染者不易被发现，确实给当前疫情防控增加了不少难度和挑战，但这并不意味着做不到早发现、早报告、早隔离、早治疗. Nevertheless, the author calls for focussing on ensuring dynamic clearing. 

The next paragraph says that “only by constantly improving the level of scientific and precise prevention and control, constantly optimising epidemic prevention and control measures, and further improving the scientificity, precision and effectiveness of prevention and control measures can we minimise the impact on economic development and people's normal life, and enhance our confidence and patience in current epidemic prevention and control policies.” 不断提高科学精准防控水平，不断优化疫情防控举措，进一步提高防控措施的科学性、精准性、有效性，才能尽可能减轻对经济发展和群众正常生活的影响，增强对当前疫情防控政策的信心和耐心.---— This also sounds like a bit of a concession to public frustration, but there’s little sign of a shift in the policy.

The article ends by saying that “the big test (of the pandemic) is still going on. Practice profoundly enlightens us that ‘lying flat’ does not offer a way out, and persistence is victory. By maintaining strategic strength, strengthening confidence in victory, insisting on scientific precision and dynamic clearing, and doing a good job in epidemic prevention and control as always, we will certainly be able to safeguard and consolidate the hard-won achievements in epidemic prevention and control, and effectively safeguard people's lives and health and economic and social development.” 　疫情尚未远去，大考仍在继续。实践深刻启示我们，“躺平”没有出路，坚持就是胜利。保持战略定力，坚定必胜信心，坚持科学精准、动态清零，慎终如始抓好疫情防控工作，我们一定能维护和巩固来之不易的疫情防控成果，有力有效保障人民群众生命健康和经济社会发展.

Page 13: There’s a piece by Song Yuehong, deputy director and research fellow at the Institute of Contemporary China Studies of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. This is basically in the series of articles drawing from Xi’s speech to provincial and ministerial-level cadres in July. He argues that the great changes in the past decade of the new era are of milestone significance for China. He basically talks about three big changes. 

• First, the formation of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, which is “a new leap in the sinicization of Marxism.” 

• Second, the Party upholding the banner of socialism with Chinese characteristics, adhering to the guidance of Xi Jinping Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era, and strengthening self-confidence in the path, theory, system, and culture and unswervingly advancing the historical process of the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation. Of course, he praises the Party for doing all this despite the past five years being “extremely unusual and extraordinary” and the international situation being “severe and complex.”

• Third, the pursuit of Chinese-style modernisation.

Also on the page is a report about Tian Huiyu, former president of China Merchants Bank, being expelled from the Party and dismissed from public office over serious violations of Party discipline and laws. Xinhua reports:

“Tian, also former Party chief of the bank, has lost his aspirations and convictions and failed to faithfully and fully implement major decisions and arrangements regarding financial matters by the CPC Central Committee, according to an official statement. Flouting the eight-point code on Party and government conduct, he accepted banquet, tour and golf game invitations, as well as gifts. Tian also failed to report his personal information in accordance with relevant regulations. The investigation found that Tian took undue advantage of his position to seek personal benefits. Tian's acts constituted serious violations of Party discipline and serious duty-related malfeasance, and he is suspected of criminal offenses, read the statement. His illicit gains will be confiscated and the case about his suspected criminal offenses will be transferred to the procuratorate for examination and prosecution.”

Page 18: The top story on the international page talks about a new research article by Sidita Kushi and Monica Duffy Toft, which looks at the US’s foreign interventions. The article is: The Military Intervention Project: A New Dataset on US Military Interventions, 1776–2019. PD says that “the report shows that since its founding, between 1776 and 2019, the US has conducted nearly 400 military interventions around the world, and after World War II alone, the US has conducted more than 200 military interventions.”