The unique geographical locations and specific economic development conditions of impoverished areas mean that development and change in those places can only be a gradual process. To fundamentally alter poverty and backwardness, the people there must engage in a long-term, unremitting effort with an entrepreneurial spirit of tenacity and dedication, like “water droplets drilling through rock.” To this end, officials in impoverished areas have a more arduous task than others. What kind of basic proficiency, then, is required of these officials? To answer this question, we must look at the larger question of the basic conditions for development and change in poor areas. What does the development of impoverished areas rely on? Most fundamentally, there are only two things: first, the Party's leadership and, second, the power of the people. The Party's leadership is embodied in the Party's guidelines, principles, and policies, which are executed by our officials. Only when they go out among the people and maintain close ties with them can officials better implement the Party's principles and policies. This is one aspect of the answer. The other aspect is that the people need leadership. Without leadership, we can neither increase or sustain the enthusiasm of the people. In order to lead, we must have credibility; there can be no real leadership without credibility. Where does a leader's credibility come from? It does not come from relying on higher authorities, exerting power, or using gimmicks. It is only built gradually by working for the people wholeheartedly,with dedication and perseverance. A leader must be proficient. Where does such proficiency come from? It comes from understanding and mastering objective laws, which is embedded in practice among the people.
To improve our proficiency as leaders, we must look to the grassroots and absorb our nutrients from working among the people, obtaining genuine knowledge. So, whether we are developing the Party's leadership role or stimulating the enthusiasm of the people, we require our officials at all levels to maintain close ties with the people. This is a very important basic proficiency for officials, who should practice it diligently. On our way forward, there will be many problems and difficulties. Exactly where should we start to solve the problems, and on what should we rely to overcome the difficulties? We can discuss different ideas and methods from various angles. The fundamental thing, however, is to mobilize and rely on the people. This requires our leading officials at all levels to become deeply involved with the people in real situations, always coming from the people and going to the people. An official who does not understand this or does not persist in doing so accordingly will not possess such basic proficiency and is not a competent leader.
Harvard University professor John King Fairbank posed a question in his book, The Great Chinese Revolution: “As of 1928 China's future seemed to be with the KMT; …How come the situation was reversed twenty years later?”[1] His answer was: “the KMT leadership was older and had become worn out”[2] and “alienated…the Chinese people.”[3] Meanwhile the leaders of the Communist Party of China, in Fairbank's view, “were…fervently devoted to their cause, and they pioneered…, on the cutting edge of a great national upheaval.”[4] He recognized the problem of the common aspiration of the people, which is rare for a bourgeois scholar. His words certainly point to the root cause of victory in the Chinese revolution – the Party's close relationship with the people. The patriot and democracy advocate Huang Yanpei[5] said to Mao Zedong[6]: Few people, families, groups, localities, or even nations, have the capacity to break free of this cycle.At first they carefully focus on every issue, and everyone exerts their best effort. Conditions may be quite difficult at the time, and they must struggle for their very survival. As things gradually change for the better, they gradually lose their focus. Complacency then arises, spreads from a few to the many, and becomes the norm. Even with a great effort, the situation cannot be reversed. Huang hoped that the“members of the Communist Party” would be able to find a new way forward to escape the historical cycle in which rulers in the past had moved from hard work and innovation to becoming isolated from the people. Mao Zedong immediately answered: We have found a new path and we can break this cycle. This new path is democracy, and the mass line. When the people are allowed to monitor the government, it dare not become lax. When everyone bears responsibility, the death of the ruler will not cause the government to collapse. Mao Zedong summarized the theory and practice of the Party and made the great and solemn call to “serve the people wholeheartedly,”[7] which was written into the Party Constitution as the sole purpose of our Party. We can see that maintaining close ties with the people is determined by the very nature and mission of our Party, and it is also an excellent tradition and style forged and upheld throughout its long revolutionary struggle. We must understand from this high vantage point why officials must work hard to practice the basic proficiency of maintaining close ties with the people.
Advocating close ties with the people is of even more practical significance today. Generally speaking, our Party and officials have a good relationship with the people. But in recent years we have also seen some officials engaging in bureaucratism, subjectivism, formalism, individualism, abuse of power, and other corrupt practices. In some cases these have become rather serious problems. The people have reacted strongly to it, raising strenuous objections. As early as 50 years ago, Zhou Enlai[8] warned the entire Party: Defeats in battle are less to be feared than the low morale of the people! If we lose popular support, the situation will be irretrievable.[9] If we do not focus on close ties with the people, we will lose the blood-and-flesh relation-ship between our Party and the people established during the difficult years of China's revolutionary war. Success in governance lies in following the hearts of the people; failure lies in opposing the hearts of the people.[10] Our Party has been in power for 40 years of peacetime. The danger of becoming isolated from the people has greatly increased compared to during wartime, and the potential harm of such isolation to the Party and the people is also much greater.
At present we are placing great emphasis on social stability. What is our most important safeguard? It is the people, the tens of millions who wholeheartedly support the Four Cardinal Principles[11] and reform and opening up. “Governance lies in reassuring the people;reassuring the people lies in observing their suffering.”[12] This ancient saying about governance is still worth drawing from today. As long as we understand and address the suffering of the people, “dispelling the suffering of the people like treating your own severe illness.”[13] As long as we truly represent the fundamental interests of the people and“take as our own the mind of the people,”[14] the people will gather around us, and we need not worry about social instability. As the poet Gu Yanwu[15] of the Ming Dynasty wrote, “In the mountains Goujian lived / His countrymen their lives would give.”[16] He meant that Goujian, the king of Yue, lived in the Kuaiji Mountains and patiently suffered hardships to build up strength against the invading neighbor state of Wu, winning the trust of the people, who then became willing to sacrifice themselves for him. The fundamental interests of the feudal monarch were contrary to those of the people, but when he arrived among the people, showed willingness to stand up for them and desired to share their joys and sorrows to some extent, the people were ready to die for him. The fundamental interests of our Party's officials conform with those of the people. So long as we stay close to the people and truly share their pains and concerns, we will certainly reaffirm our close ties with the people and win their hearts and minds.
Party members and officials must have close ties with the people;this is not just a slogan, but should be translated into real action. In view of our actual situation, the most important things we can do now for close ties with the people are to follow the mass line, run the Party with strict discipline, and do solid work for the people.
To follow the mass line, we must first have a mass viewpoint.“What truly is within will be manifested without.”[17] With a mass viewpoint, close ties with the people will become a conscious act. Second, we must frequently go in-depth to the grassroots, deep down among the people, and have more and wider channels of contacting with them. This year, we will adopt three measures in the Ningde Prefecture. The first is to have prefectural and county leaders go to the grassroots to set up an on-site office; the second is for leadership at all levels to establish a Public Reception Day system; and the third is for leading officials to establish special links with grassroots units. I believe that, through these measures, we will not only further the implementation of our plans, but also forge closer relationships between officials and the people, improve our working practices, and enhance the sense of responsibility and mission among leading officials at all levels.
Most fundamental to governing the Party with strict discipline is to gain the people's trust and support through upright practices to restore and develop the Party's fine way of conduct. It is very important for Party members and officials to be incorruptible as well as diligent. Throughout Chinese history, there have been many examples of honest and hard-working officials. The ancient statesman and strategist Zhuge Liang,[18] who strove humbly to “do his best until death,”[19] required himself “not to allow himself or his family to have extra possessions in or out of the household.”[20] The Song Dynasty scholar-official Sima Guang[21] “desired to sacrifice himself for his country and attend personally to public matters, working day and night.”[22] He was“indifferent to material things, with no special interest in them,”[23] and“wore coarse clothing and ate poor food until the end of his life.”[24] If feudal officials were capable of this, who says that our proletarian officials are not? The older generation of proletarian revolutionaries, as represented by Chairman Mao Zedong, were models of honesty and diligence. Our officials at all levels must learn from the older generation of proletarian revolutionaries, and strive to “be incorruptible and diligent without complaint of poverty or hardship.”[25] In this way, we can always be rooted in the people.
To do good deeds for the people, we must be in a constant, down-to-earth way, for a better result. The people are the most realistic. They not only want to hear what you say, they also want to see how you do it. They not only want to hear your “nice singing,” they also want to see your “nice performance.” The impoverished region is backward with a weak economic foundation. The people there have many difficulties that need to be solved. We have no choice but to assess our strengths and do what we can, striving to do good deeds for the people. On many issues, it is impossible to do as people would expect. But as long as we do a few real things for the people each year, they will wholeheartedly support us and voluntarily work with us to tackle the difficulties together. Some colleagues say that it needs money to do things. This is not off the mark, but it does not address the whole situation. Doing real good deeds for the people is multifaceted. At the grassroots, it is resolving practical difficulties for people in work and life. It is going to the countryside to promote the Party's rural policies, improving education, and resolving peoples' concerns. It is helping to strengthen grassroots Party building and promote rural economic development. It is also conducting surveys and case studies, and summing up the experience to guide our work.
To do real good deeds, we must focus on broadening our vision and free our minds. First, we must have a dialectical understanding of doing real good deeds; it does not simply mean handing out money and materials. We need to do real deeds for material development, but also for intellectual and cultural progress.
Second, we must know where to focus. We must focus on the people's most urgent problems in work and life. The “hot” and “difficult” issues attracting the greatest public concern are where we should strive the most to resolve. We cannot evade the hard issues and focus on the easy ones, concentrate on trivial matters while neglecting important ones, or avoid tough problems.
Third, we must improve our proficiency in doing real good deeds, focus on doing practical things rationally, and promote scientific thinking and reasoning in the process. In assessing whether we are doing something meaningful and valuable, we must consider not only the immediate needs of the people, but also whether there will be unintended consequences, whether it will “solve one problem, but leave ten regrets.” For example, if we build a dike, the problem of pedestrian and car traffic will be solved, but, if there is no water flow, we have destroyed the ecological balance. If we extensively use geothermal water, the people will be able to take therapeutic baths more easily and be happy, but structures on the ground surface may sink, bringing about more intractable problems. We should never do such stupid things! “Not expending useless effort or engaging in meaningless activity”[26] should be our motto for doing real deeds for the people.
Fourth, we must have a holistic view, uphold Party principles, and do things in accordance with policies. We must not take on projects that are only partially but not fully feasible. We cannot act for the short term, especially in pursuit of our own personal achievements with reckless disregard for policies and regulations. In doing real deeds, we must make it a process of educating the people about patriotism, socialism, collectivism, and the Party's principles and policies. In this way, people will personally experience the attention of the Party and the government, as well as the superiority of the socialist system, so that they support the Party and socialism wholeheartedly even more.
[1] John K. Fairbank, The Great Chinese Revolution, 1800-1985 (New York: Harper &Row, 1986), 218.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Ibid., 263.
[4] Ibid., 210.
[5] A native of Chuansha (now part of Shanghai's Pudong New Area), Jiangsu Province, Huang Yanpei (1878-1965) was an educator and democratic revolutionary.
[6] A native of Xiangtan, Hunan Province, Mao Zedong (1893-1976) was a Marxist, Chinese proletarian revolutionary, strategist, and theorist. He was one of the principal founders of the Communist Party of China, the Chinese People's Liberation Army, and the People's Republic of China. He was the leader of all ethnic groups in China and the principal founder of Mao Zedong Thought.
[7] Source of English translation: Mao Zedong, Quotations from Chairman Mao Tse-Tung (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1966), 170. – Tr.
[8] Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) was born in Huai'an, Jiangsu Province. His ancestral home was Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province. He was a Marxist, Chinese proletarian revolutionary, statesman, military strategist, and diplomat. He was one of the principal leaders of the Communist Party of China, the People's Republic of China, and the Chinese People's Liberation Army, which he co-founded.
[9] Source of English translation: Zhou Enlai, “The Present Crisis in the War of Resistance and the Tasks To Be Undertaken in Pursuing the War in North China,”in Selected Works of Zhou Enlai (Beijing: Foreign Language Press, 1981), 101. – Tr.
[10] Source of English translation: Guan Zi, “Mu Min” (“On Shepherding the People”), in Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, A Study and Translation, trans. W. A. Rickett (Boston: Cheng & Tsui, 2001), 54. – Tr.
[11] The Four Cardinal Principles are to adhere to the socialist path, adhere to the people's democratic dictatorship, adhere to the leadership of the Communist Party of China, and adhere to Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought. These principles are the foundation of the state, and the political cornerstone for the survival and development of the Party and the nation.
[12] This is based on a line in Zhang Juzheng's “Memorial to the Emperor Proposing Taxes Be Waived to Reassure the People.” It reads, “The primary task of government is to reassure the people; the Way to reassure the people is to understand their suffering.” A native of Jiangling in Huguang Province (modern Jingzhou, Hubei Province), Zhang Juzheng (1525-1582) was a Ming Dynasty statesman.
[13] See Su Zhe, “Letter to the Emperor.” A native of Meishan, Meizhou (now in Sichuan Province), Su Zhe (1039-1112) was a prose writer from the Northern Song Dynasty. He is remembered as one of the “Eight Prose Masters of the Tang and Song.”
[14] See chapter 49 of Dao De Jing. A thinker from the Spring and Autumn Period(770-476 BC), Lao Zi was the founder of Daoism. He is believed to have come from Ku County in the state of Chu (east of modern Luyi, Henan Province, or Woyang, Anhui Province). He proposed “the Way [models itself] on that which is naturally so,” “Something and Nothing produce each other,” “govern by doing nothing,” and many other simple examples of dialectical thinking. [D.C. Lau, p. 82,58] He is the reputed author of Dao De Jing (also translated as Tao Te Ching), which is also known as Laozi and Five-Thousand-Character Text by Lao Zi. [Source of English translation: Lao Zi, Tao Te Ching, trans. D.C. Lau (Harmondsworth: Penguin Books Ltd., 1972), 110. – Tr.]
[15] A native of Kunshan, Jiangsu Province, Gu Yanwu (1613-1682) was a thinker, Confucian scholar, historian, geographer, and phonologist. Together with Huang Zongxi and Wang Fuzhi, he is considered one of the three greatest Confucian scholars from the late Ming (1368-1644) and early Qing (1644-1911) dynasties. He developed a new method of scholarly research and was venerated for carrying on the heritage and paving the way for future generations. Honored with the title“founding father of simple and plain learning,” he spent his later years studying the classics and developing the field of textual criticism.
[16] See Gu Yanwu's poem “Autumn Hills.”
[17] See The Great Learning. Part of the Confucian canon, The Great Learning expounds on the relationship between the self-cultivation of individuals and the stability of society. Originally included in The Book of Rites, it was extracted during the Song Dynasty (960-1279) as a standalone book. Along with The Doctrine of the Mean,The Analects, and Mencius, it is considered one of the “Four Books.” [Source of English translation: Zeng Zi, “The Great Learning,” in The Four Books, trans. James Legge (New York: Paragon Book Reprint Corp., 1966), 324. (Reprinted from The Four Books, Shanghai 1923 edition). – Tr.]
[18] A native of Yangdu, Langya (south of modern Yinan, Shandong Province), Zhuge Liang (181-234) was a statesman and military strategist in the state of Shu Han during the Three Kingdoms Period (220-280). Later generations honored him with the title “Martial Marquis Zhuge.” With the determination to perform his duties until his last breath, he personifies loyalty and wisdom in traditional Chinese culture.
[19] See Zhuge Liang, “Later Memorial to Launch a Campaign.”
[20] See Zhuge Liang, “Memorial to Emperor Liu Shan.”
[21] Sima Guang (1019-1086) was a minister and historian in the Northern Song Dynasty (960-1127). He was from Sushui Township, Xia County, Shaanxi Province (now in Shanxi Province). He compiled the Comprehensive Mirror for the Aid of Government, which was the first general history of ancient China to be organized as a chronicle. It documented 1,362 years of history, beginning with the 23rd year of King Weilie of Zhou's reign (403 BC) and ending with the reign of Emperor Shizong of Later Zhou (959).
[22] See “Biography of Sima Guang,” in History of the Song. The History of the Song was compiled by the Yuan Dynasty's Tuo Tuo et al. It recorded the history of the Song Dynasty in the form of biographies, and is considered an essential reference for any study of the Song Dynasty.
[23] See “Biography of Sima Guang,” in History of the Song.
[24] Ibid.
[25] This is an old adage that was written in the form of a couplet and displayed in an accounting room at the offices of the Neixiang County Government in Henan Province. The first line reads, “Be incorruptible and diligent without complaint of poverty or hardship.” The second line reads, “Value sound advice and implement sensible ideas.”
[26] See the chapter “On Maintaining Restraint,” in Guanzi. Compiled by the Western Han Dynasty's Liu Xiang, parts of Guanzi was written by scholars from the Jixia Academy under the name of Guan Zhong during the Warring States Period(475-221 BC). A native of Pei (modern Pei County, Jiangsu Province), Liu Xiang (c.77-6 BC) was a Confucian scholar, bibliographer, and writer from the Western Han Dynasty. Guan Zhong (?-645 BC) was from Yingshang. He was a statesman for the state of Qi during the early Spring and Autumn Period. [Source of English translation: Guan Zi, “Jin Cang (On Maintaining Restraint),” in Guanzi: Political, Economic, and Philosophical Essays from Early China, A Study and Translation, vol. 2, trans. W. A. Rickett (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 219. – Tr.]