SPEECH AT THE MUNICIPAL PARTY’S DISCIPLINE COMMISSION1
JANUARY 24, 1991
In the spirit of the Seventh Plenary Session of the 13th Party Central Committee and the 11th session of the 5th Municipal Party Committee, Shanghai’s Discipline Inspection Commission has held a very good expanded plenary session for three days. I’ve come to offer support for your work, to convey the Municipal Party Committee’s position [on discipline inspection] and to speak from the heart.
After I was appointed municipal Party secretary, the first place I visited was the Discipline Inspection Commission. In recent years, the commission has done a great deal to correct Party conduct, to punish corruption, and to improve the caliber of Party members. I think I should again thank the commission and the cadres at all levels who work on this front! My position is the same as it was the first time I came here—I myself will always be the commission’s backstop and will absolutely never trade away my principles. If there are any problems in discipline inspection, I will assume responsibility for them because they result from errors in guidance on our part and are not your problems. You’ve been very hardworking, your tasks are very tough, and you’ve been very responsible. I’ve always supported you, and would like make a few comments.
1. The Coming Decade
The next 10 years are crucial in terms of carrying out your mission, which is both exceedingly difficult and urgent. If we are still unable to solve the problems of stepping up socialist economic construction during this period, we won’t be able to accomplish our Party’s strategic mission of the second phase.2 Moreover, it won’t be possible to demonstrate the superiority of socialism, and we will have lost the initiative. That’s why in this, the first year of the 1990s, we must instill in everyone the confidence that this mission can be accomplished. As for Shanghai, we must fulfill our strategic goal of “revitalizing Shanghai, developing Pudong, serving the country, and facing the world.” If we fail to achieve this, it will be hard to keep Shanghai stable.
I recently went to Zhabei District, and this morning I went to Nanshi District, in both cases to visit shantytown residents. At Zhabei, I looked around from the top of the bus station; at Nanshi, I looked around from the top of a guesthouse—the work of rebuilding Shanghai’s shantytowns is simply too enormous, especially when you include the number of shantytowns in Putuo, Hongkou, and Yangpu districts. I could see from my two visits that life is really hard for the residents of shantytowns—they are ordinary employees, and some model workers.
Today we went to the home of a 93-year-old man who was one of the “nation’s 10 most outstanding senior citizens.” The conditions in his home are awful—he lives in an attic in a dilapidated building; his head touches the ceiling, and he has to climb up and down from this attic. There are hordes of people in these shantytowns. As soon as I went into one, everyone would come out, yet nobody pointed at my nose and demanded that I solve their problems. The ordinary people of Shanghai care about the big picture—they felt instead that the mayor’s visit showed that he cares about them. They said, we don’t lack for anything now, we don’t want anything except housing. [They all urgently want housing,] and that’s why solving this problem for Shanghai’s people is tremendously difficult. In the face of such a task, I feel our Party must have the confidence and the ability to be sure to finish it. To accomplish such a difficult task, we must have a Party that can fight. If we don’t go deep among the people, if we don’t represent them and serve them with all our heart and soul, we won’t be able to finish this task. Our Party must stand at the front lines and have close ties to the people; we must breathe the same air as the people and share their future; we must feel their pulse at all times and understand their wishes; we must stand in the forefront as we lead them forward. This we must do, and this we can do.
However, to build a Party that can fight, we must have a good and utterly impartial Discipline Inspection Commission. I don’t have any new ideas to offer today. I only want to discuss this one idea: to accomplish the difficult mission of this last crucial decade of the century, we must have a good Party that can fight; to build such a Party, we must have a good and utterly impartial Discipline Inspection Commission.
Why do I say this? Even as we recognize our achievements in focusing on Party conduct and promoting clean government, we must also see that various problems in our Party are quite serious. When fishermen from Zhoushan come to Shanghai to sell their catch, they have to “offer tribute” every step of the way. They have to get past several barriers—port supervisors, maritime police, fisheries management, and fueling stations—and must give imported cigarettes to all of them. If they don’t have any cigarettes, their fish and shrimp will be confiscated. When the Municipal People’s Congress recently investigated vegetable markets, they found fairly serious and widespread problems there as well—how can we go on like this? These units all have Party branches, and Party members make up a considerable proportion [of their staff], yet accepting bribes and treating customers badly has become the norm.
Visiting and greeting residents of a shantytown in Nanshi District, Shanghai, January 24, 1991. From the left, Vice Mayor Ni Tianzeng, and Gu Qiliang, head of Nanshi District; behind Gu, Vice Mayor Zhuang Xiaotian.
Now corruption cases are getting bigger and more numerous. They used to involve several thousand or several tens of thousands of renminbi, but now it’s hundreds of thousands. The sums involved in some recent major economic cases are skyrocketing—last year they more than doubled. Three districts really stood out. A materials department in Zhabei was defrauded of over RMB 15 million, which can’t be recovered. The housing construction office of Hongkou District placed an order with a town and village enterprise (TVE). Though the enterprise had clearly already gone bankrupt, the office still wired several million renminbi to it. And last year, after demolishing several thousand shanties, Nanshi District raised over RMB 12 million and loaned it to a TVE outside Shanghai. But the housing isn’t being built and the money is gone. These residents are now staying with friends and relatives and won’t be able to return for five or six years—all because of dereliction of duty and serious bureaucratism. It looks like irresponsibility, but is in fact a matter of breaking the law. These are crimes against the people—the money represents the sweat and blood of the people.
There are countless incidences of using power for personal gain and misuse of public funds. Our investigations have also turned up serious housing construction problems in villages—over which several people were expelled from the Party. Meanwhile the city has seen abrupt allocations of housing; one example was reported in the newspapers. At present, some of our cadres are not up to the test, but the eyes of the people are wide open, and they see each and every thing the cadres do very clearly. Every year I receive over 40,000 letters from the public. This shows that they still have confidence in the Party; otherwise they wouldn’t bother to write. They write because we have a Discipline Inspection Commission and also a Bureau of Supervision—and because the revolutionary spirit of some cadres who are Party members has faded greatly. One bureau-level leader is leading a very promiscuous life—how much attention can he be paying to his work? All this shows that with our Party in this new situation, serious problems have arisen in the caliber of Party members.
However, internal problems are nothing to be afraid of, because the Party continually renews itself and keeps its ranks pure. That’s the only way it can develop and progress. What we should fear is letting crass bourgeois behavior corrupt our Party—saving face, using relationships for personal advantage, “preferring to plant flowers rather than growing thorns.”3 Those in their 40s are concerned about how to get promoted, and hoping more people will have good things to say about them. Those in their 50s are focused on stepping down soon, so why offend people instead of planning a future for oneself? When this sort of behavior spreads among us, when it spreads to cadres in leadership positions, the Party cannot be a good Party. We should pay attention to many issues at their inception, but we’ve been held back by this crass behavior.
I don’t know how the internal study meetings at the major industries and the districts are conducted, whether they really engage in criticism and self-criticism. I am aware that I haven’t done well myself, so I don’t mean that I’ve done well and am sitting here criticizing all of you. Our Party branches don’t have that many internal study meetings each year. In the past, I participated in several such meetings at the city government’s research office. The Central Discipline Inspection Commission has a rule that the Standing Committee of the Municipal Party Committee should hold an internal study meeting once a year. We have done so, and we took it seriously. Before the meeting we asked the Municipal Discipline Inspection Commission to solicit comments extensively. I then met with members of the Standing Ccommittee individually for heart-to-heart talks. Lastly we held the Standing Committee’s internal study meeting and mutually spoke up. Our most recent meeting was a very good one. Many colleagues made pointed remarks and sharp criticisms about me. We only have one of these meetings a year—that’s too few.
The Municipal Discipline Inspection Commission once wrote a report saying that we can generally be sure of holding one such meeting [a year]. I now feel that everyday criticism and self-criticism are very important. I’m preparing to look up the Party secretaries of the districts, the major industries, and the counties for heart-to-heart talks at least once this year. Such criticisms and self-criticisms should take place frequently; otherwise people will be unwilling to speak up and to cause others to lose face, and many fallen cadres will be unable to pull themselves up. Whenever people write letters, they must be handed over to the Discipline Inspection Commission for investigation regardless of which leader might be involved. It’s possible that what the letters say never happened—often much is based on hearsay—but in quite a few cases something did happen, though the degree might differ. So far we haven’t found any instances of false accusations or slander.
There’s one thing I want to make clear: if the Municipal Discipline Inspection Commission or your unit’s own commission investigates you, you mustn’t feel any dissatisfaction with the Party—this is an organizational principle. No matter who is accused—the mayor, a bureau chief, or a section chief—if someone makes an accusation, it should be investigated. If nothing comes out of the investigation, then it’s over. Each of us must be magnanimous and not be bothered by such things. Sometimes I know it’s only a minor matter, not a major problem, but I still need to tell the person in question so that he can be more alert and make strict demands of himself. All levels of our Party organization, regardless of whether it’s the leadership of the Party Committee or the leadership of the Discipline Inspection Commission, should institute a system of regular internal study meetings. Not worrying about face-saving and making strict demands are forms of caring and support. I therefore hope that the Municipal Discipline Inspection Commission and the commissions at all levels will, in accordance with the strategic tasks of the Party and of Shanghai, build our Party well, build discipline inspection commissions well, and ensure that our economic construction and development plans become realities. We must rid our ranks of crass and corrupt behavior.
Last year almost 2,900 Party members were disciplined. That is 2.8% of total membership, which shows that the Party has quite a few problems. But according to the Discipline Inspection Commission’s research, a large proportion of these were punished too lightly. For example, in cases of bribe-taking of RMB 3,000–6,000,4 more than 40 people were not expelled from the Party. Cases involving over RMB 3,000 are subject to criminal penalties, yet some who took bribes of over RMB 6,000 were still allowed to remain in the Party—that’s important to think about. We still have to run the Party strictly. I’m not advocating excessive penalties: the problem now is not that penalties are too heavy, but that they are too light. Discipline is lax, and nobody is really afraid.
Consider the case of a boat that was dredging silt from the Huangpu River and was supposed to dispose of the silt beyond the mouth of the Yangtze River: when finished, it just poured more than 10,000 cubic meters of silt right next to the Yangtze’s main navigation channel. How was it penalized? The boat was fined RMB 2,000, but the captain was not penalized at all. How can any problems be solved this way? I feel that our Bureau of Prices, our Bureau of Industrial and Commercial Administration, and our Public Security Bureau are using fines in lieu of the law; the fines are very light and no one is afraid of them. Our Municipal Discipline Inspection Commission must stick to its principles. In such an environment, if we don’t grit our teeth and run the Party strictly, we will gradually lose our prestige among the people—this is frightful. As Party members, we have given our lives to the Party. At a time like this, we really have to be resolute and abide by our principles. We cannot waver on principles and must not be afraid of offending people. This is the only way to restore the people’s illustrious image of the Party.
2. Continue to Call for Clean Government and Proper Behavior in Businesses
Many of you have pointed out that we shouldn’t feel self-satisfied about our effort to ensure clean government and shouldn’t overestimate our achievements; the problems are still very serious and we mustn’t underestimate them. Improper behavior in businesses, in particular, is quite severe, and this year we want to make a breakthrough in the vegetable markets. Today I reminded all district leaders that the principal responsibility for rectifying vegetable markets lies with the districts. I asked them to assign some of the more capable people from their agencies to rectify the main vegetable markets; we’ll rate them at the end of the year, and the leaders should act on this measure personally. We’ll also send people from the city to help—the Standing Committee of the Municipal People’s Congress will assign people to lend a hand.
At present, we just can’t seem to make any breakthroughs with the service attitude in the commercial sector. It’s like a chronic disease—they never show a pleasant face when customers come. We were even able to fix something as hard to supervise as taxis, so why can’t we fix the vegetable markets? The critical issue is that you lack the determination. This is something that touches thousands and thousands of households: if service providers have pleasant attitudes, the impact will be great and will lay the foundation for future reforms. Even the best system and the best reforms will have a hard time succeeding if our ranks are not up to the task. Several sectors in Shanghai have been rectified quite well: elevator service in large buildings has improved these past two years and the people think it’s good; buses haven’t done as well as taxis but there has been some improvement; the city’s gas and water companies are a bit better than they used to be and have improved. That’s why if only the leaders will focus on this personally, things can be made better.
Things will be easy if we can restore the Party conduct and social mores of the 1950s, when everybody took these matters seriously. We still have to think of concrete ways to focus on the vegetable markets properly. All districts should discuss and study this issue. Ever since state-owned enterprises (SOEs) became monopolies, their corruption has been worse than that at individually operated businesses. Take vegetable markets, for instance—if the Party branch loses its ability to fight, the entire market will be corrupted. Perhaps we should adjust district-owned industries to add some commercial facilities and develop some individually operated businesses. The city’s Office of Industrial and Commercial Administration must strengthen management, send people to the vegetable markets and commercial networks to supervise them on a daily basis, and accept complaints from the people. They may levy heavy fines if needed. Individual proprietors will also find a competitive mechanism at work if they cheat and shortweight people for any length of time: no one will patronize them. I hope the discipline inspection agencies will start to work in these areas.
3. Build an Effective and Utterly Impartial Discipline Inspection Team
You must improve your internal development and build a discipline inspection team with strong Party discipline, a team that is tough and can fight. Shanghai’s discipline inspection team is a fine one, having passed the test of the political turmoil of 1989. Politically, ideologically, and through their actions, discipline inspection cadres are aligned with the Party Central Committee—they take a firm stand and show their colors clearly. After the Fourth Plenary Session of the 13th Party Central Committee, the discipline inspection team has made good contributions to correcting Party conduct and promoting clean government.
In the future, you must continue to pay attention to developing this team. First, it must have strong Party discipline. It would be very dangerous if Party discipline were to be weak among discipline inspection cadres. For them, there must be not the slightest ambiguity about the principles of Party discipline, and these principles should be considered in every matter. If the Discipline Inspection Commission holds firm on Party discipline, things will be easy to deal with.
Second, you yourselves must be tough. To forge iron, a blacksmith must first be tough himself—in this matter, the city’s Discipline Inspection Commission has done quite well. Its cadres indeed have nothing up their sleeves5 and appear upright—you’ve basically achieved this. I’ve received letters from the public about problems regarding discipline inspection cadres, but upon investigation, we found nothing untoward. The cadres in our discipline inspection agencies should feel a sense of honor in having nothing up their sleeves. They may receive smaller bonuses and enjoy fewer material rewards, but if they feel honor in this, there will be hope for the Party. If they think this way, they themselves will also feel some comfort. The greatest blessing is to have the people place their hopes in you—that is living up to being a Communist Party member.
Third, you must be able to fight. The key is to have a good command of policy and to utilize the power of policies. You must raise your own policy and ideological levels. It’s very important to stick to your principles, but overdoing it can be counterproductive. It’s often easy to overdo things; what’s not easy is to get things just right. The current trend, however, is not to overdo things—but mainly to be lax, to tolerate loose discipline, and fail to take action when handling problems.
While we should be emphasizing strictness now, this shouldn’t be overdone either. Each case should be examined repeatedly, and we must treat people extremely responsibly. Equally important, having a command of policy means you must go deep among the people and take letters and petitions from them very seriously. For the past three years, I’ve done just that: every day I sign off on letters from the public. Of course I can’t sign off on every letter—people are especially designated to follow through with them, and an action is taken on every letter.
Now some people are saying I must sign off on certain problems if they are to be resolved—how can this be? There are two explanations here. It’s true that some problems can’t be resolved without instructions from me. This is a question of responsibilities—without a decision from the main leader, it’s hard for subordinates to get things done. On the other hand, some things don’t need my approval. Leaders at all levels should assume their own responsibilities—we should all share this work. Some issues are conflicts between the verticals and the horizontals6—these must be mediated patiently, and if this fails, then send it to a higher level.
1. This is the main part of a speech by Zhu Rongji at an expanded plenary session of the Shanghai Discipline Commission.
2. Translator’s note: the strategic mission of the second stage was to double GDP between 1991 and the end of the 20th century, so that the people could reach a standard of living where they had all necessities with a little extra to spare.
3. Translator’s note: “better to plant flowers than to grow thorns” means to refrain from offending others and acting as the “nice guy.”
4. In 1989 the annual disposable income of urban and township residents in China was RMB 1,373.9 (RMB 114.5 a month).
5. Translator’s note: an expression meaning to have no improper income.